When’s the Wrong Time to Skin the Cycling Cat?

By Kevin Kolodziejski

The discussion supposedly occurred during an airplane flight and a chance meeting of two distinguished philosophers. It’s worth sharing because its end result should stay the same when two cyclists meet and talk about how to train. Especially when one of the cyclists considers himself a “cycologist” and has, as the legendary Phil Liggett so often says about Tour de France GC contenders, “really found his form.”

But sad to say — and speaking from experience — the end result in the cycling scenario sometimes differs.

One More Time: What’s a Cycologist?

It’s the term used in this column for a while now for bike riders who do more than ride. Who fully embrace the cycling lifestyle — and that embrace invariably creates a certain mindset. One that leads you to recognize the interrelatedness between so many elements of cycling and day-to-day living. What occurs at best is a cascade of clarity. You now see, for instance, supreme strategy in the seemingly hackneyed saying, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

Yet — and this is an extremely important “yet” — you never employ a single one of those ways when the cat’s alive and well. Except, that is, when you mess up and temporarily lose your way.

Hence, the retelling of a story once part of a lecture given by Alan Watts, a guy who became well known, not for saving cats but for interpreting Eastern philosophy in a way that interests Westerners.

How the Story Goes

After the typical exchange of pleasantries that takes place between strangers sitting next to each other on a plane flight, the two in this story discover they’re both philosophers of some note and bound for the same city. Philosopher “A” is scheduled to give a lecture the next day. Philosopher “B” asks for summary of it, which includes a theory he’s never heard before and strikes him as rather thought provoking.  So “B” tells “A” exactly that. As a result, “A” offers “B” a ticket to the lecture.

Surprisingly, “B” declines the offer. Not so surprisingly, “A” wants to know why.

What the Story Means

At the risk of sounding like a garden-variety psychologist instead of a fully bloomed cycologist, I’ll explain the rejection of the well-intentioned gesture. It’s because after a period of mental malaise and disarray, “B” has found a way to make sense of the world that works for him, one that allows him to navigate his days efficiently and successfully. So he’s not willing to risk hearing about a theory, however brilliant and worthy of consideration it might be, that could disrupt that.

In other words, after a spell of illness, the cat is well. So now’s not the time to skin it.

Which leads us back to the question posed in the title, a question whose answer seemed to be too obvious to merit an RBR article after I wrote a few hundred words about it. So I scrapped that rough draft and moved on.

But Is It Really Too Obvious an Answer?

A few days later, and only to create conversation during a lull in a long ride I was doing with a buddy, I asked him a variation of today’s title. In essence, when do you know to leave what I called “well enough” — and what the iconic cycling commentator Phil Liggett calls being “on form” — alone in the never-ending quest to improve as a cyclist?

The answer he gave was not the one I had dismissed as being too obvious. But his makes sense — and gave me the sense I should pull that rough draft from my laptop’s trash can and try again.

My Buddy’s Unexpected Answer

In short, he said there’s no sure way to answer the question because no two riders are the same or ride for the same reasons. And I can see the logic in that. After all, if you’re someone who rides a flat trail three times a week and for no more than an hour while your dog sniffs about, being on form is a far different feeling from the one a six-rides-a-week, results-crazed racer whose only on that same trail three times a year for a ridiculously easy recovery ride — yet still leaves you and your sniffing dog in the dust — experiences.

So his point’s well taken, but there’s one thing my buddy’s answer doesn’t address. The one thing all cyclists share in common. The desire to get better. And whether that desire creates no more than wishful thinking or no less than all-encompassing obsession, it’s best measured the same way.

By the sublime sense of progress.

Read Carefully: It’s Not Progress, Per Se

Don’t get me wrong. Progress is great; progress is the goal. And today, you have all sorts of high-tech ways in which to determine it. But let’s go low-tech here, take off that cool-looking aero helmet with a visor and put on a clunky hairnet that’s nothing more than soldered metal strips wrapped in leather.

Can you think of anything more satisfying — or more motivating — than the feeling you get from the sense of progress whether you feel it before, during, or after a ride? Or at any juncture of any activity important to you, for the matter?

I can’t.

The Final Takeaway

That’s really all I have to say, so here’s the final takeaway. That guys like me who see themselves cycologists tend to overthink things. Which means we sometimes mess up a good thing — no, the best thing that comes from cycling — that feeling you get from the sense you’re progressing.

In other words, we skin the cat — except the critter’s alive and well.

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Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.

A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.