Category Archives: death

A tale of three documentaries

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This post is a review (of sorts) touching on three films about cycling. All portray amateur efforts to overcome physiological and psychological limitations, and two of the three end up, by chance, being about topics rather grander (and darker) than the original intentions of the film-makers. The final film of the set is no less complex, but, for me at least, speaks of a less troubled and more positive version of cycling obsession, possibly only because of the reality that unfolded, but serendipity aside I think we could all do with something constructive and life-affirming right now.

The three films in question are Icarus, The Journey to the Other Side, and Brevet. All play with the truth about cycling and what it takes to challenge expectations of human capacity.

Because I have to start somewhere I will start with Icarus because it is the film which deviates most from its initial authorial intention, indeed wandering so far that one ends up wondering whether the shift in subject from frustrated amateur cyclist and film-maker, to Russian (anti)doping czar is also a shift in authorship. The slip from being a film about doping to being THE film about doping is both fascinating and troubling.

But the hidden narrative here is that the director started making a tired and formulaic replica of stories by others about amateur self-doping, and was saved by his access, granted by Don Catlin (oh yes the man with the freezer of doom), to the greatest orchestrator of doping fraud (no not LA), Grigory Rodchenkov (and just how charismatic is he?). What gets lost on the way is that this starts out as a redemption film for the director, who is trying to push himself to place higher in the Hautes Routes event, and who knows that the people above him are probably doping and getting away with it (although he is careful not to say this explicitly). Hilariously, his doping regime improves his physiology, but seems to have a negative psychological impact, and cannot offset the mechanical issues which cost him time (although see this interview, which I read after seeing the film). This is a film about failure: everyone in it is a failure, from WADA to individual athletes and indeed Rodchenkov himself. And like all car crashes it is a joy to watch, but does little to make me feel positive about the future of sport of cycling, or my place in it. I too am frustrated by my inability to succeed in cycling as I wish to, but there isn’t anything here for me except the fascination of the ethicist confronted by mendacious and talented scoundrels.

Given that I have publicly enjoyed following three editions of the Transcontinental Race (and written about it here and here), and ride relatively long distances, often solo, you might imagine that The Journey to the Other Side would float my boat in a more direct manner, and maybe even provide some helpful pointers to becoming a better long-distance cycling. This film is an unofficial documentary covering the first edition of the Indian Pacific Wheel Race, which has a similar format to races like the transcontinental, but is actually closer to some of the unsupported US races that follow a fixed route, such as the Trans Am. I was troubled by some of what I saw of this race, and the approach to risk being taken by riders, but generally I accept that although I would do differently, that is a personal choice. Watching the documentary made me feel less comfortable, and I wrote most of the next two paragraphs last year, well before this year’s edition of the race was cancelled in response to the inquest into Mike Hall’s death.

There is no doping here (as far as I can see), but there is death, and there is a rather unpleasant if not unsurprising fatalism which I found completely surprising, and somewhat shocking. The obvious and painful contrast between the ‘winner’ (who does not win) and the ‘loser’ who dies is present right from the start, before anyone (unless you live under a rock) knows the outcome. Mike Hall looks troubled and unhappy, whereas Kristof Allegaert looks carefree and talks endlessly of fun. I followed this race as it happened, and watched a duel which looked honourable. This film my made me deeply uncomfortable, and I question your empathy if you can watch it without discomfort. But that isn’t the fault of the documentary which has an honesty and directness that Icarus lacks. The catch sequence made me feel physically sick. I haven’t been able to watch it twice, although I have dipped in to check my memory on some issues.

In short and this is the bit I have struggled with, I have come to the conclusion that being “more Mike” isn’t necessarily an embrace of life. It is, as is so often with extreme sports (such as mountaineering), an embrace of risk and marginality which is far from where I think cycling should be going. Nearly every recent race of this kind includes a fatality (most recent editions of IPWR, TABR & TCR all had fatalities), and the only attempt to properly estimate the risk of entering a race of this kind suggested it could be as dangerous as BASE jumping. If I discovered that the fatal accident rates were as high on Audax rides I would never start. There, I’ve said it, and take no pleasure in it. I found it extraordinary that when the lanterne rouge of last year’s Transcontinental expressed a similar view he was asked to delete the offending tweets. He’s now gone from twitter, so you’ll have to take my word for it. I have much more to say about what I found in this film, but I’m not ready to share. Suffice it to say I am not aligned with the majority of the YouTube commenters on the film.

The final film, Brevet, follows three participants in an event I had entered, but failed to start: Paris-Brest-Paris 2015.

Brevet – Official Trailer – English from CURLYPICTURES on Vimeo.

PBP is an amateur race that isn’t a race, a de-fanged version of itself, run for randonneurs, but raced at the front, whilst everyone else rides for their own time, their own finish. I am very different to the three riders they followed: two were younger and very competent faster riders, the other an older, slower but much more experienced rider. Yet there were elements in things they said and did that resonated deeply with why I started (and have returned to) long distance riding. In a sport where I have experienced much bullshit, there was little here to upset me: no cutting corners, lots of cameraderie, and the risk-taking seemed within bounds. These were people pushing limits, but not so far that they seemed self-destructive or cruel. The film simply did what it set out to do. And the smiles seemed truly genuine: for one it was the satisfaction of continued flow; another the satisfaction of challenge met; and for the third a joy in life which I am sure helped her complete the most recent Transcontinental Race. I bought the full version, with English subtitles. If I ride PBP in 2019 it will be because I watched it.

Epilogue

Shortly after writing the first draft of this piece four cyclists on the Flatlands 600 (a ride I considered entering this season) were struck by a hit and run driver.

The cancellation of IPWR also happened. Long distance cycling is risky, and that the pressure of racing undoubtedly increases this risk. I also know that bad driving is much more likely to be the cause of an RTA than bad cycling, but also that the risk profile changes with distance and lack of sleep. As Chris White (who has finished TCR three times) puts it:

The strongest criticism that I’ve heard about ultra-distance bike races is that they encourage people to cycle on public roads in a state of reduced alertness. Race organizers have a minimal influence on this, so participants need to manage their rest sensibly. There are not only personal goals and safety to consider, but also the safety of other road users and the future viability of this format of racing.

Ride Far

Finally, this has become rather more real to me as I have entered the inaugural Race Around the Netherlands. I am minimizing my risk by entering a race on Dutch roads and cycle infrastructure, and by building a schedule that includes plenty of sleep. I know I can ride 600 km on 2 hours sleep, but I am certain that I will need much more than 5.5 hours to ride 1600 kmt! In other words I am playing safe. I cannot do otherwise. I don’t expect you to watch (although you can if you want), and I don’t really care what you think of me (although that’s probably a lie). It’s not about you (?).

And it’s not about Mike Hall, who I admired as the creator of the TCR and promoter of long-distance unsupported riding, and as a talented racer who I could never emulate even if I wanted to:
I don’t want to be more Mike, I want to be more… me. And If I cannot reconcile the risk, or overcome my fear (those are two different things) I won’t start.

Get Carter: 400 – 260 = audax hotel again

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You’re a big man, but you’re in bad shape. With me it’s a full time job.

There’s a missing post before this one which was too dark to share. So tangentially, I pass over a completed 300 and get to a failed 400 with a long name: a night in a beautiful bus shelter and a great ride cut short by my inability to sleep enough in the days before. You don’t want the details, so instead some impressions and images, and the connections made by my head.

The text of the missed post included the assertion ‘long distance cycling is not a death cult’. And it isn’t: as I write this I am listening to Matthew Bourne’s version of Chaplin’s Smile, and my last event was, despite wind and then awful rain in Holyhead and a spot of exhausted vomiting, a good match for my mood:

A standard pulled apart and touched gently.

And if there was violence, it was only in my head…

 

Image result for get carter beach

Dead Souls (long-distance cycling is not a death cult)

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I experienced the death of Diana Spencer in a rather bizarre manner: in a taxi to catch a plane to a new life before most had heard the news, the black-bordered rush newspapers in the airport shops, and then in the series of bizarre and intimate condolence emails I received due to my name (which I only wish I had kept). I never mixed with royalty, although my father once received a rather lovely letter from Diana’s then husband. And I experienced the huge and bewildering outpouring of Elton John-shaped collective grief that ensued from afar. I was asked by one of my housemates in Nijmegen what I thought about it at the time and I was… nonplussed.

I have never really understood death, and public death even less. When my father died it had a lengthy and distressing impact on my well-being and was a major factor in my nervous breakdown of 2006. The public celebration we had of his life was an important event (and reading Tennyson there more so). Although it has became clear to me that such events are distinctly odd, and construct and relive sometimes false memories, they are important sites for setting the dead in context (as I write this Spotify serves up Dead Souls, and I’ll return to music in good time).

I had never found the death of public figures affecting to me until the last few weeks: despite my sometimes fragile emotional state I can’t remember a single public death making me cry until this year. Two events changed that enviable record: the sudden deaths, both to traffic, of two people I have never met. Both were cyclists, and although that might seem an obvious factor in explaining my feelings, I never cried when Marco Pantani died, although this was a similarly sudden shock. One was Steve Tilford, the other Mike Hall – I do not intend here to pay tribute to either, I would rather leave that to such as Juliana Buhring, Seth Davidson or indeed Bill Strickland (sometimes the best tributes are written when the subject still lives).

My strong reaction to these two deaths has challenged my view of public grief, but has also after reflection impacted on my understanding of why I continue to ride long distances. On many of my rides, completed or otherwise, I have had major physical or emotional crises which although not life-threatening, have felt pretty awful: I have sat on the grass in pouring rain in Bowland, tears streaming down my face (finished); I have experienced the despair of simultaneous navigational and lighting failure in the middle of the night (finished); more recently I’ve found motivation hard to come by due to nutritional collapse (vomiting and exhaustion; emergency bus shelter bivvying; DNF). Perhaps most distressingly I remember the sense of desolation at oversleeping on my final PBP qualifier and losing out on a four-year goal. Being close to disaster is a common feature in my riding. Even on my last 300 which was surprisingly trouble-free I ended up dazed with cold in a bus shelter chewing an energy bar held with senseless hands.

Is there a false equivalence here that makes me feel simultaneously moved by Mike Hall’s death yet uncomfortable? I don’t race, and I never think of what I do as actually dangerous (statistically speaking it isn’t). Do I fear that the next step in the epification of long distance riding is for it to become a death cult? Overcoming (and managing) a certain level of risk is one thing, but cycling does not have the relationship with risk of motor racing (although not quite as risky as Lauda claimed) or mountaineering (read Joe Simpson) . In the field I work in, music, the sanctification of musical martyrs is an object of study, one which I first experienced as a music fan, writing as a teen about Joy Division and the reasons why the suicide of Ian Curtis were both relevant and irrelevant to their music.

Of course, like any thing worth doing, long distance riding can become pathological – like crack or heroin (or indeed the prescription painkillers I know so many have become addicted to) – first it giveth, then it taketh away, so to speak. I’m still learning about this, as are we all I hope. My last ride (revisiting the Plains 300) was close to the edge, but I finished, and despite a dip 48 hours after finishing, I’m still OK.