Stability
I got on the bike on January 11.
Once.
It was the first real ride on my new setup: One Up Wave pedals in orange to match the Zwift Ride, Five Ten Freerider Pro shoes. Flat pedals, not clipless. The first time in years I've ridden without being locked in.
I did the Turf N Surf route on the newly released Mkuri Islands map in Zwift. 15.29 miles. 650 feet of climbing. One hour and eighteen minutes. Dreadfully slow by any standard.
And here is the thing I have not been able to stop thinking about since: my feet didn't hurt. Not even a little.
For years, riding has carried at least a low hum of discomfort. The surgical fusion. The congenital deformity. The baseline pain that does not go away. It is the reason I switched to flat pedals in the first place.
On January 11, for fifteen miles, the pain did not increase beyond baseline. That is not the same thing as being fine. But it is not nothing.
You would think that would have sent me back to the bike the next day. Or the day after that. Or at least by the end of the week.
I have not been back.
Three weeks now. The bike sits in my office, the same office I cleaned and redesigned in December, the one that was supposed to support the work of becoming someone capable of riding 2,800 miles. The pedals are right there. The shoes are right there. And I find reasons to do other things.
I tell myself I have too much to do. And it's true; I do. Work is consuming. Georgetown is demanding. The parental health concerns haven't resolved. Emerson's challenges continue.
But then I sit down and play World of Warcraft for two hours.
I wrote a few weeks ago that WoW is the one space that asks nothing of me. No output, no performance, no growth narrative. That's still true. But I need to be honest about what that also means: it is a place where I can avoid the thing I am most afraid of without feeling like I am avoiding anything.
I am afraid of not finishing the Tour Divide. Of getting to mile 800 or 1,200 or 2,000 and having my feet or ankles make it impossible to continue. I am afraid of public failure. I've been telling everyone I can about this ride, deliberately, to create accountability. But accountability cuts both directions. If I fail publicly, I fail in front of people who believed me.
I am fifty pounds heavier than I want to be. Not biking gives me a convenient excuse not to address that. The weight makes riding harder. Not riding keeps the weight.
I am trying to do this before I turn fifty. The clock is not abstract.
And underneath all of it is something I can name but cannot yet solve: not starting is easier than not finishing. If I never get to the start line, I never have to find out whether I can actually do this. The pain of uncertainty is somehow more manageable than the pain of proof.
I am afraid to prove myself right. That I can't do it. So I am prolonging the moment before I have to find out.
It is not a logistics problem. It is not a time problem. It is not cleanly a body problem; fifteen miles is not 2,800, but the pain didn't stop me that day. Something else did.
It is a choice I keep postponing.
I tell my daughters that constraints are real but not final. I have written that idea. I have believed it. I have not yet lived it on the bike.
The title of this post is "Stability." It sounds disciplined. It sounds like a man who is being strategic about his return to training.
The truth is less clean than that. Some of the stability is real. Some of it is fear wearing patience as a mask.
I don't have a resolution for this post. I have a bike in the other room, a body that held up for fifteen miles three weeks ago, and a decision I keep not making.
That is where I am.
Ken Wake is the author of Thinking Design (forthcoming) and a Professor and Entrepreneur in Residence at Georgetown University. His work explores systems, technology, design, and meaning. Tour de Ken is his weekly log.
