There were two of me on this ride.
One was racing imaginary opponents in the Giro d’Italia, calculating gradients, attacking invisible rivals and wondering whether this particular climb deserved a heroic effort.
The other was somewhere else entirely, floating over a lake, contemplating clouds and wondering why his thighs hurt so much.
Body climbing, soul elsewhere.
Which brought to mind Mumonkan Case 35, Seijo’s Soul Is Separated.
Goso asks: “Seijo’s soul separated from her being. Which was the real Seijo?”
It’s a wonderfully uncomfortable question. Two Seijos. Or perhaps not two at all.
And there I was, pedalling uphill, apparently conducting my own small experiment.
One part of me cared about PRs. Another couldn’t have cared less.
KOMs or cowbells?
Victory or a croissant?
At some point I developed my own completely unofficial Zen teaching:
When the rider splits in two,
one drinks electrolytes,
the other wonders where the soul went.
Very profound. Probably not ready for the Mumonkan.
The road kept climbing anyway.
I could continue trying to work out which version of me was the real one: the cyclist pushing the pedals, the mind wandering somewhere else, the idiot pretending to be in the Giro.
Or I could keep pedalling.
Silence. Wind. A distant bell — maybe a cow, maybe a church, maybe just my saddlebag zipper slapping the frame.
For a while, there wasn’t much else to add.
The climb eventually ended, as climbs generally do.
The two Riccardos seemed to make it to the top together.
Or perhaps they had never been as separate as they appeared.
I wasn’t going to spoil a perfectly good ride by solving that one.
Eighty kilometres and over 900 metres of climbing.
One breath, one pedal stroke, one smile.
