DNF.

I’d say last night was the dumbest idea I’ve had in a long time, except it wasn’t my idea.

Let me talk about the events leading up to this near-disaster first.

Drafting New Friends

Real-life riding buddy, Jen, cajoled me into joining a Zwift racing team. The team I’ve joined is called RIOT, short for Riding Indoors On Trainers. The biggest deterrent that held me back from doing this last year was the requirement to join Discord, as I’m an app minimalist. Discord is also the team’s communication system while racing, as it allows each out-of-breath teammate to try talking over one another.

Am I missing out on the intimacy of hearing my teammates pant?

Still, I get to experience the physical aspect of racing with real-life people virtually. The faster and harder I pump my legs, the easier it is for Collette, halfway around the world in New Zealand, to maintain our pace in the race.

That’s only when I’m leading the paceline, as shown in Collette’s screen capture:

The other times, it was Collette, Barb from Poland, two women from the US, and even a rider from Victoria who was taking the pressure off my legs.

My first race with the team took place on Tuesday morning. None of us won anything beyond each other’s compliments. The laser focus required in maintaining a virtual paceline made it easier to ignore the fatigue attacks: the throbbing legs, burning lungs, and theatrical grimacing. Nobody saw the real Squaremeat suffering: all anybody saw was the back of my bald avatar in Zwift.

Dazzling New Footwear

Technically, I am the type of person to share pictures of my feet online.

I have a penchant for bold footwear, but I also like walking. The pink shoes I bought in June fared much worse in the bike shop than expected, and had to be tossed.

The silver shoes are a throwback to my teenage affinity for the emergency blanket look. The cow print ones aren’t a nod to my Calgary nor Langley era, but an ode to Moo Moo Meadows.

Let it be known that I’ll henceforth base my sartorial decisions around my favourite Mario Kart course. However, I haven’t been as immersed in sedentary racing these days.

Demonstrating Nourishment Flourishment

After my second attempt at freestyling onigiri, I resigned to rolling them into sushi as it’s much easier to source a bamboo mat than an onigiri mould in Victoria.

Japanese food is so hot right now, especially when it’s cold.

Disturbing Necro Facts

I’ve put away another strange book on my virtual bookshelf: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. While the outstanding part of Miranda July’s book, All Fours, pertained to imaginary conversations the protagonist had with her lover’s dick, Mary Roach is responsible for ruining honey and men for me.

Mellified men are, in short, men who gorged themselves with honey until their feces were honey-based and therefore ready for consumption. These men would then enter a cycle of flushing themselves with their poop honey, then die. Their bodies are subsequently marinated in honey for a century or so and then sold as an ointment for bruises.

Here, Mary Roach isn’t claiming that mellified men were a factual item available at Arabic bazaars in the 12th century, but rather that a nutter of yore came up with the concept in 1597, as it’s one of the recipes found in the Chinese Materia Medica.

I can’t imagine anyone volunteering to turn themselves into candy so that other people’s bruises can fade quicker, a testament to my relative sanity.

Did Not Finish

Alright, it’s time to talk about the near-disaster that was last night. If I could be persuaded to join a virtual cycling team, I was game for anything, including this.

Let’s explore what about this screenshot made the event appealing. Was it the mediocre-quality photo used? The expertly overlaid graphics? The frankness of the event descriptor? The fact that Ben, who has ridden 26,000km year-to-date, liked the post?

After spending so many hours in my living room this week, I felt I needed a shock to the system. I’d equipped myself with cold-weather riding garbs this year, and I hadn’t equipped the Horse with a dynamo front light for daytime use. Rather than focusing on why I couldn’t do a ride like this, I focused on why I could. I’d also mounted the rear rack to the Horse on which I clipped a pannier filled with extra warm layers, several packets of disposable hand warmers, and a bag of freshly baked, homemade date bran muffins. Or so I thought.

Yann was the one who shared Broad Street Cycles’ Insta post with me. He was equally audacious and resolute in this venture, which the other participants have since dubbed Hell of the South Island.

Hey, what’s so unappealing about Hell if mellifying oneself is an act of divinity in the eyes of theists?

About 40 deranged individuals gathered at Broad Street Cycles at 6:15pm, including another Jamie of the MEC past:

This Jamie worked concurrently with the Jamie I hung out with three weeks ago. I told this Jamie this selfie was for the other Jamie, which was true. However, this Jamie doesn’t know I’ve also chosen to share this picture with the readers of my blog, several of whom may also be named Jamie. I thought I looked good here: warm and full of promise.

The first 20km of the ride was done in a pack, all of us precariously nipping one another until the Veterans Memorial Parkway intersection. There were so many of us that we couldn’t all clear the intersection at the first advanced left turn light. By the time Yann, Max (yet another former MECer), and I crossed the intersection, we’d lost enough time to the leading pack that we did not see them again until we reached the Red Gate, although we tried. Without the extra illumination from this horde, my visibility closed in. Gone were the usual landmarks that gave me a sense of my location. The next 35 kilometres were like being stuck in a loop of chasing the dark end of a tunnel of barren trees, our wheels slicing through the leaves shed from these trees.

It wasn’t until my light illuminated the distance markers along the trail that I knew how far along on the Goose we were. The time was still a mystery.

According to the timestamp on this picture, we arrived at the Red Gate a few minutes after 9 pm.

We stuck around for just long enough for me to realize that the muffins I meant to pack were sitting at home in a resealable bag on a shelf in the bike room. We further prolonged our idleness with a photoshoot to commemorate completing half the ride.

Then, we lingered a bit longer to take pictures of the other riders who also wanted to prematurely celebrate their successes.

At this point, the chill had crept in and taken hold of our cores. Yann and I began our return journey shivering so hard we could barely handle our bikes. Dismounting to instead jog our bikes helped a little, but we both knew we had achieved total popsiclery. We needed an alternative way to make the 50km journey home.

45 minutes later, Yann’s friend rounded the bend on Sooke River Road in her van, rescuing us and restoring our nearly regrettable decision into a memorable one. A DNF isn’t always better than a DNS, but in this case, it was.