WHY CYCLISTS ARE OBSESSED BY NUMBERS
WHETHER YOU’RE RIDING TO BREAK THE WORLD HOUR RECORD, OR JUST SPINNING AROUND THE BLOCK TO MOLLIFY STRAVA, CYCLING REALLY IS A NUMBERS GAME.
There was a time when the first option would have been the only one.
And it still is, for most of us: stopping so agonisingly short of a ‘round’ number is just unfathomable.
This particular ride was otherwise innocuous, a 30km (almost!) recovery spin that would have gone unnoticed, had it not been my seventh ride in a row that had ended on a nine-point-something: 69.22km, 59.41km, 69.61km, 39.89km, 29.04km, 89.37km. And now, 29.61km.
A streak, of sorts; and boy, do cyclists like streaks. Almost as much as they hate ‘imperfect’ numbers.
My Strava mates were divided. A few admired the engineering that had made it happen (my self-imposed rule was ‘no tomfoolery in the final 10km, straight home the normal way, and accept the result’). At the other end were those who – for the sake of their mental well-being – were forced to ignore my feed until I’d given them the all-clear, incapable of staving off the collywobbles my heresy brought on.
Our sport is numbers-driven. ▶TP, watts-per-kilo, wheel size, training logs, altitude gained, weekly mileage, body weight, bike weight, component weight, average speed, kilojoules in, kilojoules burned, segment goals… the list goes on. Is that why so many cyclists are so numbers-verskrik?
Cycling’s a strange mix of the ultra-technical, like motor racing and yachting, and pure endurance, like marathon running. You can’t get good at riding a bike without having a foot in each world. And to manage the two – to even want to manage the two – requires a certain level of perfectionism.
Clinton Gähwiler, a sports psychologist at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, says the obsessive/ compulsive behaviour we see so often in top-level athletes can be a major factor in whether they excel or not.
“Among cyclist and runners, there’s a probably a greater tendency towards the obsessive/compulsive. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, however – in fact, in many ways the drive and ability to push yourself relentlessly is necessary to succeed in many life areas.”
This rings true for me; as when I’m not winding up Steve and Neil [names have clearly not been changed to protect the innocent – Ed.] with my streak of un-round numbers, in recent years I seem to have developed a tendency to wind myself up, with streaks of my own undoing.
Two years ago, I set out to ride every single day of the year, with no option for carrying over – skip a day, and you start again on 1 →anuary. And along with a handful of fellow nutters, I did it; and learned a fair amount about how the mind of a pro athlete might tick.
There were days when I could have stopped – when, some might argue, I should have stopped – but the streak could not be broken. If that sounds uncomfortably like addiction, well, dig into that world – in particular, the computer-gaming world – and the four hallmarks of addiction in that sphere
29.61km, the odometer read. Decision time: once around the block to round it off? Or buzz open the gate and go home – and drive in that OCD nail a little bit deeper?
ring disturbingly true:
Feelings of restlessness and/or irritability when unable to play (or in our case, ride);
Preoccupation with thoughts of previous online activity (rides), or anticipation of the next online session (ride);
Lying to friends or family members regarding the amount of time spent playing (riding);
Isolation from others in order to spend more time gaming (riding).
Houston, we may have a problem. “There is a limit beyond which it becomes counter-productive,” says Gähwiler. “The challenge is to recognise this turning point, and have the self-control to stop pushing, when that will be more helpful. That, of course, is true selfcontrol – being able to push, and also not push; and to be okay with that.”
For me, there wasn’t any option; the streak was the goal. And for many athletes, streaks are what keep them in the game.
“Maintaining a streak can be very motivational to certain people,” Gähwiler points out. “No one knows that better than the gaming and tech industries, which increasingly use gamification to keep us going, and are probably now at the forefront of learning to influence human behaviour.”
The rise in popularity of the likes of Zwift bear this out, with hundreds of thousands of riders snared by the need to stay consistent and move up through the virtual hierarchy.
ONLINE OCD
Strava has brought a new level of numberfication [yes, we made that word up; we like it – Ed.] to cycling. Bringing your training diary online, so that everyone else can see what you’re doing? The concept seems a no-brainer, in hindsight.
Strava boasts 48 million users, and currently accepts 15 million activities a week (largely cycling, but running is growing its Strava presence, with 31 other sports listed too). Over a thousand pro riders use Strava, which gives all of us wannabes a great look into their lives: the power, the mileage, the speed, all laid bare for everyone to see and aspire to.
Annemiek van Vleuten is one of our favourite Strava stalks. The reigning world road champion racks up mileage that puts many of the male pros to shame: at the time of writing, in the middle of March, she had accumulated 6 912km and 117 000m of ascent in 262 hours of riding so far in 2020 – a disappointing (we’re guessing) 96km a day.
Some of the boy racers do ride that much: in 2019, Michael Valgren covered 35 057km (and climbed 470 000m!), with Oliver Naessen only a few hundred kilometres behind; but that pales when compared with some of Strava’s real mileage junkies.
A number of non-pros rode more than the circumference of the earth in 2019 (that’s 40 075km); with one Stephan van Heinen, from the Netherlands, clocking a frankly ridiculous 46 387km.
And even that is amateur hour when we look at the world’s biggest mileage junkie of them all: then just 25, Amanda Coker spent 2017 riding her bike around, and around, and around Florida, to rack up an insane 139 326km, the furthest documented annual mileage and a Guinness World Record.
That equates to 382km, every day. But wait, she had more! Coker kept going for another 58 days, to reach 100 000 miles (160 934km) faster than any other human.
BENKY’S MUNGA WIN
Locally, Kevin Benkenstein (the Mad Dog who won the Munga last year) was right up there with the kilometre gobblers, but measured in hours – which is the way we should all be measuring our training.
He rode 980 hours in 2019, the first year in six or so he hasn’t cracked the 1 000-hour barrier; clocking “just” 21 733km (“off-road is slow”, apparently), but smashing the local accumulated altitude gain rankings with 381 000m. That’s 1 044m a day, for a year. Insane. “There are plenty of Saffers who rode further – lots further! – but that doesn’t bug me at all. I truly am not motivated by doing more/better/ higher/whatever than someone else. I did 980 really fun hours of riding last year, and that’s really cool; barely a ride felt like I had to do it, but I was motivated and excited to ride all year long.”
Numbers played a big part in Benky’s 2019 Munga victory too (documented in our March/ April issue).
“Oh, big time. Kilometre goals per hour, knowing where to be when, watching my average speed, minimising stopped time. Numbers are huge; they play on my mind constantly to keep me responsible to myself, and not just dawdle along.”
Does the Mad Dog ride around the block to achieve a round number? “I used to. But I seem to have lost that need, thankfully.”