Don't grip the stick
The year is 2014 and I was doing what I’ve always done best, passionately (read: obsessively) consume all the content and information I can on a subject that interests me as fast as a I can. I’d been a cyclist for years and I still hadn’t found the limit of my appetite for learning about all the facets of the sport. Sitting at the intersection of endurance sports and technology, cycling was and still is a wellspring of ideas and innovation for me.
I was trying to learn as much as I could to be as fast and efficient as I could, whatever the cost.
Back then aerodynamics meant meant put your handlebars as low as you could and pray your low back held up on a six hour ride. Cutting edge nutrition was all about training your body to work on less by giving it less. Studies and formulas about gear ratios and cadence lead to once revolutionary breakthroughs: the longer the lever, the more leverage, so get a long crank arm and you’ll put out more power. Everything here seemed like sound logic at the time, and every single one turned out to be wrong.
I stumbled upon a video of a pro racer I’d admired for years, Alex Howes, who was talking about a teammate of his that got seven flats during in a race. For the record, this is a lot by anyone’s standards. At some point during the video he had the opportunity to chat with his friend and teammate and teased him with the line:
“Don’t grip the stick”
He was implying that the reason his teammate was getting flats was not because of bad luck, but because of the mindset embodied when racing. When you’re pushing that hard to try to succeed or eek out the last little marginal gain you’re bound to experience some friction and setbacks.
The phrase comes from hockey. To hit a slap-shot, the fastest shot you can make when playing, you need to shift the mindset from flinging the puck with sheer force, to guiding it with a relaxed energetic intention.
These days aerodynamics have more to do with how hairy your legs are than your handlebar height. Pro tip, they shouldn’t be hairy. Nutrition has pivoted to encouraging pro cyclists to eat the equivalent volume of sugar of eight bananas per hour during the Tour de France. I’ll let you guess this last one: yes, shorter cranks are better now too because a shorter lever means you can turn it over faster and fatigue slower, regardless of force output.
Unsurprisingly, I took the long way to learn the lesson: don’t grip the stick. These days I listen to my body and follow my intuition even if it’s not guiding me towards what other people are doing. Turns out when you stop trying to force the thing you want, the thing you want ends up finding you.