The Year That Wasn’t. But Was.
Tim Brink takes a look at how this annus horribilis we’ve had became a biking annus mirabilis.
HHow did that happen? Will our grandchildren believe us? Filter out the almost overwhelming doom and gloom from the most miserable year in recent memory, and there’s actually quite a lot to be cheerful about – if you ride a bike.
Queen Elizabeth II, reflecting on the most challenging year she’d ever faced, officially and personally: “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis.” 2020: “Hold my beer.”
Cycling matters were going swimmingly in early March of 2020. The Cape Town Cycle Tour was a wind-free success, Team NTT was winning a race or two, Wout van Aert was back after his horrific 2019 TDF crash, and Remco Evenepoel was continuing to plough a Merckx-esque win-everything furrow through professional cycling.
We crowned a new SA road champ in the slender shape of sprinter Ryan Gibbons, who would carry the national flag on his back to the Champs-élysées six months later. Daryl Impey and Ashleigh Moolman-pasio had carried their exemplary 2019 form into the new year. The stage was set for a great South African Absa Cape Epic, with a clutch of local teams in with a chance of winning stages and overall.
And then, cough by dry cough, Covid’s destructive tendrils started suffocating sport, and the world in general. The Cape Epic was the first major cycling casualty, forced to cancel less than 12 hours before the riders were due to line up for their UCT time trial…
If ‘holding my beer’ was a sport, Covid was to become the undisputed world champion – virtually overnight, and uncontested for months.
The debilitating effects of world-wide lockdowns have been well documented, in the sporting arena and on a far broader stage. But there are just enough flame lilies on the post-apocalypse cycling landscape to buoy us: it will all be okay, and cycling might even exit this period stronger than ever.
2020 could just be our annus mirabilis.
INDOORS ROCKS!
Indoor training had already become slightly more popular pre-lockdown, with apps such as Zwift and Rouvy empowering riders to stave off the boredom of hamsterwheeling by making the experience interactive, and more fun. Logging on to Zwift and finding a group of 20 or 30 riders to suffer with had made hour-plus rides manageable; and the controlled environment meant interval training was safer, and far more scientific – if you don’t have to watch where you’re going, you can hit your numbers far more reliably.
Lockdown opened up this world to many more riders. BL (Before Lockdown), if you hopped on early on a Saturday morning, there would be two or three thousand riders whirring away in Watopia. Almost overnight – by the end of March, anyway – there were 30 000-plus, every day of the week.
Clubs and communities grew to such an extent that one’s Zwift inbox overflowed with invitations to rides and races. Those lucky enough (or with enough foresight) to have invested in an IDT pre-lockdown came out of Level 5 fitter and stronger than before. But that was just the short-term benefit; we discovered that working out in the garage was actually good for us, and a legitimate way to ride a bike.
Though gradually granted more freedom to explore the outdoors, many riders kept up much of their indoor programme – partly to maintain some social distancing from overcrowded public spaces, partly because the chances of being hit by a car or being bike-jacked are understandably lower; but mostly, because we’ve learnt that indoor riding is actually damned good fun.
WE DON’T HAVE TO RACE TO ENJOY CYCLING
Once we were allowed to pedal in the real world, the joy of just riding a bike was palpable. Smiling eyes everywhere (on those polite enough to wear masks), as the five-kilometre radius ruled out overreaching and forced us to explore our own neighbourhoods.
With no events to aim for, and restricted wandering capacity, it was finally time to turn up that road you never had the time to ride before, and take the kids on a pathfinding mission. Even Strava-segment hunting was off the menu; every man, woman and dog was out and about, making the achievement of speed unlikely.
For many, this was a forced return to riding bikes for the reasons they first swung a leg over a saddle. Fresh air, exploration and simple joys replaced the stress and hustle of trying to ride a bike faster than A. N. Other.
THE RESURRECTION
Hands up if you used the lockdown period to overhaul a bike you hadn’t ridden for a while?
Once we were allowed back out, so many new cyclists hit the roads and trails on forgotten bikes brought back to life. And six months down the road, we’re still seeing quasi-museum pieces out and about beneath beaming addicts. Families are
riding together, 26” tyres and tubes are selling like hotcakes, and old-favourite machines are feeling loved again.
THE TOUR DE FRANCE WAS OFF THE HOOK
We weren’t the only ones having to adapt to a ‘new normal’ in our training. The professional peloton was in the same boat, having to work out how to make the most of indoor training, curfews, exercise radii, and the uncertainty of when they would pedal a bike in anger again.
The Tour de France was surreal to watch this year, with Covid restrictions making the mountains and finishes seem deserted – although by the third week, the fans were slightly less paraat with their social distancing.
But it was the competition that was the biggest surprise. With zero racing in their legs, for most of the field, the riders were visibly unsure of what to expect when it was time to perform; and the nett result was a far more open attitude to racing. The guys were prepared to take bigger performance risks, chancing attacks and raids that they might not have if they’d had the controlled, science-driven build-up that sometimes makes pro cycling a tad boring.
The proof in the pudding was that the final results in the jersey competitions were only decided on the penultimate day of the Tour, with Tadej Pogačar upsetting Primož Roglič with a time trial so daring, it wasn’t predicted by even the most optimistic pundits; and Sam Bennett dicing Peter Sagan for the green, all the way to Paris.
Pogačar’s TT win was achieved information-free, too – he had neither a heart-rate monitor nor a power meter for the final climb, racing on guts and feel alone.
“LOCKDOWN CHALLENGES ENCOURAGED US TO WORK OUT AT HOME, RATHER THAN LETTING OUR FITNESS SLIDE.”
WE MADE THE MOST OF WHAT WE HAD IN LOCKDOWN
Across the country, garages became Aladdin’s caves, as we used our enforced imprisonment to spring-clean. Dusty boxes spewed longforgotten event T-shirts, old VHS cassettes and collectible bike bits that triggered a wave of social-media nostalgia.
Plus, we were forced to get creative with spares and repairs, as the re-opening of bike shops took longer and longer. Repurposing old equipment, nursing worn tyres and drivetrains and learning |(or re-learning) bike-repair skills were necessities for a while, and many of us enjoyed the self-sufficiency glow to the full.
Before hitting the bike shops when they did re-open and spending a fortune, of course.
WE DON’T NEED STINKY OLD GYMS
Regarding general fitness needs, laps around the garden, online stretch classes, Zoom Pilates sessions and indoor training readjusted many a mindset.
Lockdown challenges encouraged us to work out at home, rather than letting slide the fitness we might previously have associated with gym workouts; and the realisation came that DIY possibilities for training are not nearly as challenging as they seem. Kettlebells in the courtyard is totally doable – and it’s arguably much more fun trying to avoid small children and cats rather than sweaty fellow humans.
THERE IS A LOT OF COOL RIDING IN OUR NEIGHBOURHOODS
The much-debated, disproportionatelyhated 5km radius of Lockdown Level 4 showed us what cycling joy is available right on our doorsteps. Side roads, secret climbs and formerly unridden paths suddenly all became fair game.
Those of us still living in the approximate area we grew up in got to enjoy nostalgia trips aplenty – a nod to our cycling roots, and another pointer to how we sometimes lose our focus on the why of riding bikes in the face of everyone else’s how fast. We also learned to plan routes, like pioneers, so we didn’t have to repeat roads. Also, to avoid the crowds.
The planning became part of the ride – again, harking back to when we first started riding – rather than just popping onto a Whatsapp group to follow directions. We have reclaimed the mastership of our own pedalling destinies.
OUR FAMILIES ARE FILLED WITH SURPRISINGLY NICE PEOPLE
Getting out and about with your mates was replaced by doing the same with your family. Clearly, the horror of spending even more time with them – in what used to be your ‘me-space’ – quickly became joy, for most; six months down the road, we’re seeing more families riding together than ever before.
WE HAVE BECOME BETTER SHOPPERS
Online shopping in general has boomed in this period, and the cycling market is no different. Historically, South Africa has been slow on the digital uptake; but Covid restrictions to movement have changed that, with exponential growth in digital shopping here.
Brick-and-mortar bike shops have (mostly) jumped on the bandwagon – either as consumers, to bolster supplies for their bursting-at-the-seams workshops, or by upscaling their digital offerings to us, the customers. Either way, traffic through both the doors and the portals has skyrocketed, and we have forced ourselves and our LBSES to get with the times.
WE CAN GREET PEOPLE
“Morning!”
The crowded roads, paths and pavements transformed even the most reluctant greeter. With the hordes of people suddenly out and about, you simply couldn’t get away with the subtle roadie nod. Greeting became a two-strategy affair: returning the cheerful ‘hello’ of the walkers and runners, and gooiing an exaggerated nod/wave/shrug to fellow cyclists, in an attempt to separate the physical endeavours of our tribe from the rest.
So the roads are far more cheerful, now, even though the hordes have receded a bit; we seem to have forgotten to be stuck-up numpties.
PRO CYCLING OVERLOAD
All the classics, three Grand Tours, and a whole lot more: nine months of professional bike racing, crammed into just over three. And the winners were…?
Us! Never has that Dstv subscription offered better value for money. Luddites have learned how to use things like VPNS and streaming, and we’ve had to work out how to explain why we can watch four hours of television a day, but our kids can’t.
As mentioned in the Tour de France section of this article, the racing has been next-level, too; riders are hyper-keen to race, after lockdown, and aren’t afraid to play the risk/reward game.
Then, also, racing in the north’s autumnturning-to-winter has brought in the weather factor. Will the Roubaix finally be muddy, this year? We’ll know by the time you read this – suffice to say, this sentence is being typed with crossed fingers.
BIKES MAY BE THE ANSWER
Around the world, the bicycle has seen a resurgence in popularity unmatched in a hundred years or more. People are riding for fitness and health more than ever before, as witnessed by the booming bike-shop industry in South Africa and world-wide.
Our trading explosion is sports-driven; but in Europe and the US, there is a bigger movement afoot, with cities investing heavily in cycling infrastructure, cycle-towork schemes and safety. Why? Because during the soft-lockdown, the bike proved its worth as a viable transport medium.
First-world planners have realised that they can reduce the toll that cars take on city transport systems by incorporating and encouraging bicycle use, and we can only hope that this will filter through to our corridors of power.
We probably shouldn’t rely on hope, here. We can drive the process – by riding where we could have driven; to work, the shops, or Saturday-morning brekkie with the family.
The biggest learning we take from lockdown might well be realising how reliant we’ve become on our worlddestroying gas-guzzlers. And that now, we can change that.
“AROUND THE WORLD, THE BICYCLE HAS SEEN A RESURGENCE IN POPULARITY UNMATCHED IN A HUNDRED YEARS OR MORE.’’