The Ride of Your Life Virtual Book Visits the AdventureCORPS Blog!A few weeks ago, author and road cyclist David Rowe released a new book called “The Ride of Your Life.” His goal in writing the book, he says, is to help others achieve great things on the bicycle and in life.
With his son Evan, David created Ready to Ride® in 2005 with the same objective. For more than three years now, he’s been helping cyclists who, like himself, do not have a background in road racing, excel at long distance riding events through his blog posts and eBooks, which are available through RoadBikeRider.com
Aside from his avocation for road cycling, David's professional life has centered on a career in magazine publishing and Internet marketing. He has held executive roles in product development and marketing for leading companies in the magazine and Internet industries. For the past nine years, he has been an active participant in the emerging online health and wellness industries as a vice president with WebMD.
David holds a Masters in Business Administration from Portland State University and is a frequent guest lecturer in the Graduate School on topics ranging from Internet marketing to consumer engagement.
We are pleased to welcome David to the AdventureCORPS blog!
Chris Kostman: What was your motivation for writing The Ride of Your Life?
David Rowe: I have been a writer for most of my professional life. I started my career as a newspaper reporter, then progressed to magazine writing and editing. I written scripts for radio, TV, but I’ve never taken on a book-length project, never really thought I had that much to say about any single topic. That changed for me, when I got into ultradistance cycling.
When I made the leap from centuries to brevets, I set my first year goal to ride the Cascade 1200 in Washington. Training for that doubled and tripled my weekly riding time. That surprised me, and just about everyone else involved in my life, who felt they, too, were impacted by the changes. But everyone was supportive; it was part of my 50th birthday plan to drive a serious stake the ground of life.
The problem was, once I completed that ride, brevet riding had gotten deep under my skin, especially the rides of 300K or more. I didn’t want to back-off, but I also knew that I couldn’t go on ignoring important aspects of life that I had put on hold in order to complete the training and the events that year.
I had used something called “The Insight System for Planning” for many years to set goals at work, and to keep work and personal life in balance. I experimented by applying those concepts to endurance cycling, to see if I could integrate it with my career and family goals. It worked in surprising ways, too. I found that the lessons I learned training for long rides, and handling the physical pain and suffering that is so often a part of long distance cycling, helped me to put other challenging aspects of my life into perspective. And, I found that the time I spent alone on the bike helped me to cherish my family and my profession even more.
At the same time, I noticed that others I rode with were pouring far more of their lives into cycling than I did. Some of them have families, young children. Most are married. Most have great jobs. Most were living the kinds of lives that most of the population of this country only sees on TV or in the movies … so much wealth. And yet, these guys were putting it all at risk, over investing, in my opinion.
I thought, maybe, what I’d learned could help others, just as it has helped me. So I sat down to write the book. I thought I’d be done in six months. It took me three years.
Chris: Do you think there are common traits among those who participate in ultra-endurance sports?
David: I think people who participate in endurance cycling have a lot in common. You have to love living in the aerobic zone; that’s an addiction that was vetted long ago. But more important, I believe that people who get involved in ultraendurance cycling love the challenge, and they love the fact that “it’s out there.” Completing an event like a 1200K brevet or an ultra like the Furnace Creek makes you different from the rest of the crowd, and I think everyone who rides these events will have to admit that’s an aspect of participation that they appreciate.
Chris: What motivates you to ride brevets, as opposed to ultracycling events?
David: It’s due in part to the way I came into ultracycling and what was available to me. The popularity of randonneuring in the Pacific Northwest is remarkable. It’s comparable to the popularity of double-centuries in California.
Washington and Oregon have led the nation with respect to total kilometers logged by Randonnerus USA. Between March and September, you could find at least two official brevets each month, often more. The terrain here – the Cascade Range, in particular – lends itself to this form of cycling. Brevets require minimal support, so the clubs can sponsor two or three brevet series, so long as enough riders take their turn volunteering to provide support. The result is that we ride through some of the most out-of-this-world landscapes on the planet, without all the hassle of preparing for an ultra.
I’ve always loved mountaineering, navigating, and wrenching my own bike. Randonneuring brings those all together in one sport. And it’s not officially competitive, or at least that’s what randos say out loud to others. But out there on the road, there are mini-competitions going on throughout the day, especially at the front, where you find the fast guys are often the same guys who show well at the ultra events, like Race Across Oregon, or Furnace Creek.
Chris: I know you’ve written on your Blog that one of the goals on your list is to complete Race Across Oregon (an event which is definitely not a brevet). When are you going to check that one off?
David: I’ve told George Thomas and Terri Gooch that I’ll be riding RAO this year. It wasn’t an easy decision for me. The Davis Bike club is hosting the Goldrush Randonnee in the same time frame, and it’s held just once every four years, so that was a factor to be considered. The cost of RAO would be higher than what I’m used to, due to the need for a follow-van and a support crew.
RAO is competitive. I haven’t raced bicycles; riding has always been a past time for me, though it’s been an increasingly challenging one. I have competed in sports throughout my life, but never on the bike. So that, too, was a hurdle.
I worked through the decision and I’ve been training for RAO since November 2008. Most of that has been a focus on re-habbing chronic knee pain, and strengthening a weak Achilles tendon.
Justin Peschka, who coaches for CTS, has designed my training program and we’ve been working on increasing my rolling speed. It’s been very, very fruitful. He worked with me during the 2008 season, and with his help, I completed the Rocky Mountain 1200 in less than 74 hours. His experience as a rider at Furnace Creek (and crewing RAAM) has given me the confidence to commit to RAO. He’ll be captain of my crew at RAO.
Chris: That's awesome. Justin has actually won Furnace Creek 508 twice in the solo division! So, looking back on the events you have ridden in the past five years are so, which would you say was the ride of your life?
David: Without question, the Cascade 1200K in 2006 was the ride of my life at that point. I was turning 50 years old, and I held up the completion of that ride as a sort of personal yardstick in many ways. Physical fitness, mental toughness, mechanical aptitude, that ride had it all going on for me.
I wrote a 13,000-word, six-part blog post about that ride. It was everything I hoped it would be, and so much more. Looking back on it, knowing that I almost quit, just 110 miles from the finish, is a reminder of the work I needed to do on myself, which could only be done on a ride like that, on an event like that. When I decided that I was going to finish, I had a massive time deficit, and I rode the fastest century of my life to finish just 60 seconds under the time cut-off. Even right now, I cannot possibly put into words how grateful I am to everyone who helped me that day.
Having said that, I have to say that each year, my goal rides become just as important to me as that one was then, because of the process I go through to pick them. In 2007, it was the Portland-to-Glacier 1000K. In 2008, it was the SIR 3 Passes 600K, and the Rocky Mountain 1200K in BC. Each one of those rides was epic, and I’ll never forget them.
I hope that in reading my book, others will find the rides of their lives, too, and when they do, they will finish them, and find meaning in them that transcends the ride.
Chris: Thanks, David, for your comments, and thanks for stopping by AdventureCORPS. I am sure our athletes will benefit from your thoughts, and your book.
If you’d like to learn more about David’s book, The Ride of Your Life, be sure to check it out at RoadBikeRider.com.
You can drop by David’s blog, too, and keep this conversation going. Visit him at http://www.readytoride.biz.
