I Don’t Even Own a White Flag

I feel that by now I have earned enough credibility, as a person who chooses her words intentionally, to say this:

Your words mean something.

And if you’ve been with me for any amount of time, dear reader, you’ve come to understand that when language and action don’t match, I will see it.

And I won’t make that my responsibility to mediate.

Yet, somehow, I’m here.

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In July of last year, my van and my bike were throwing mechanicals at the same time. I had to use the bike to get to work temporarily (40 miles away), so I was logistically and financially unable to just fix them. I lost that job shortly after, which solved the transportation issue.

But the money one was now worse, and I knew the bike problem was going to require replacement parts to an unknown tally, so a friend offered to take it to the shop and cover the cost on my behalf. Weeks passed with no communication about it.

Then, my friend asked me a few questions about my bike that weren’t relevant to service.

“What size is it?”

“How many miles do you think are on it?”

I missed a call from an unknown number and quickly thereafter my friend texted me to call them back as soon as possible. I did so, and the person on the line simply said, “We’re still trying to find a part.”

That’s it?

I relayed that to him and he called me to disclose that a new bike was being considered for me because mine was “worn out” and the shop couldn’t find a proprietary part that was needed to get it functional again. He then said the following, which I documented on my Instagram story because it felt pivotal:

I trusted that.

But I also think something unconscious was resistant because on the next slide, I said:

At this moment, on May 9th of the next year, that turns out to mean sidelined.

My friend continued to coordinate with the shop and looped me in intermittently. Soon, he asked me how I felt about a particular frame and then firmed up a budget of $1000.

I am entitled to nothing but… in what world? That doesn’t even match what I have now.

And I replied that realistically a frame replacement did nothing to alleviate the problems I was experiencing with an 8-year-old drivetrain that had already been overhauled once. The solution to the whole problem was then proposed; keep an eye out for a good used option.

That doesn’t make sense.

Why is his kindness creating more stress?

_____

I discussed this event with another friend who then donated a full groupset by tearing down one of his own rides. I gave the green light on the frame, my bike was torn down, and another couple of weeks passed where I was still mostly in the dark. The pressure of a planned ultra ride was building, so I went into the shop myself one day to ask about a timeline and check out the new arrival.

Afterward, my friend tells me that the shop said there were now “too many cooks in the kitchen,” handed me the reins on remaining communication, and informed me that I would be responsible for the amount that was over budget.

I was not working.

That was not discussed with me.

The expectation that I work off the frame cost was, though.

_____

Let’s jump ahead.

The new build did not work out. I could not find a comfortable fit on it, was plagued by constant back strain and had to struggle through normal rides and regularly end them early.

It’s worth nothing that my old frame was not compromised despite how long and how hard I had ridden it, and the damaged part was able to be tracked down within a couple hours once the right person knew about it.

So I cut my losses and had my old, trusted platform built up with new parts,

and long story short,

I have not been able to alleviate pain on it for eight months straight.

Solving back strain creates severe saddle pain. Solving saddle pain puts me in a position where I fatigue in record time. Every ride is interrupted by more than one stop to adjust something trying to escape. I have experienced shutdown more times than I can count trying to force positions that don’t work. I now associate the bike trail with extreme discomfort and stress. I have consulted professional fitters and have to go deliberately against advice that works for most but escalates problems further for me for some damn reason. I may have single-handedly destroyed a small ecosystem with the absurd number of hours I have spent with ChatGPT trying to solve this myself (which is the only reason those centuries were surviveable).

Every single ride is preempted by hope that my last tweak was finally the one, then concluded with growing fear that now I am the compromised thing.

I was locked into something that worked for huge distances for years without having to move a thing,

and for a maddening length of time since someone tried to put me on something that “matches the kind of rider I am,”

I have become a shell of what that was.

And a few times, when I told that friend how much I was struggling to get normalcy back, he replied

“I’m sorry, buddy.”

And then changed the subject.

_____

Twice this week, I went out to ride and deleted the data when I was done. I didn’t want to answer for loss on Strava, again.

There have been lights at the end of the tunnel just before the power went out, again.

Mishigami is two months away. I’ve done two 100-mile rides this year, neither of them resulting in ways I felt I could repeat the next day. Realistically, I have six weeks to get into condition for 1100 miles if I solved this tomorrow. That’s not wise after eight months of ineffectiveness. I’ve run out of time.

But what’s perhaps the most brutal bit of reality for me is neither persistence nor surrender provides any relief.

I don’t have a template for resignation.

I don’t even own a white flag.