Make pain your friend

-- A jolly good thrashing can be strangely satisfying

Heading west in the empty dawn we rode apace through Kingsland and New Lynn. Missingham muttered something about the time and very soon we were speeding through Henderson Valley’s stifling humidity and into the rising hiss of cicadas. Heavy sweat of forest all around. Goddamn, we hadn’t even arrived and I was heaving like a pack-a-day sumo wrester.

The deal was Mountain Road repeats, but just how many? What could the body take? It was an experimental ride. A ride to failure and its full consequences.

The climb’s early stages allow a rhythm and silent conversation: Stay on top of the pedals, that’s right, feel the flow, relax, you repeat to yourself. Then the fucker rises up and snakes into the upper reaches of the misted valley. Ahead, the narrow road, its coarse surface bulbous with tree roots, disappears into forested steepness. It beckons the rider to a nasty intercept by invisible officials responsible for unhitching comfort and watching it slide down the valley.

In the saddle, out of the saddle, gravity bleeds life from the legs and the shoulders sag under terrible weight. Lungs fight to expand. Questions creep in: Are my brakes rubbing? What’s wrong with me, horses don’t sweat this much? Then doubt: Hell, there’s a place to stop.

But on you go, in a world smaller and concentrated and hitched to torment and fatigue. It’s now a survival trip, where time struggles behind a normal clock tick; each pedal stroke a victory over turning back and an arse kicking dished up by gravity and evil cycling forces found at 15 percent gradient. How long can this go on?

The top, obscured by a sharp corner, arrives suddenly. This NEW PLACE, a breakthrough to effortlessness, like a climbing airliner slicing heavy cloud into sparkling blue. The relief of effortlessness floods the body like morphine.

Twice more. Missingham had spoken.