Orny's Cycling Journal

Back in September, I closed out one of my posts by saying that

These days, the descriptor “epic” gets thrown around pretty casually, but “epic” is a very fitting word for the ride that demands everything a cyclist has got.

Six weeks later, cycling newscasters GCN got in on the act by releasing a video entitled “How To Make Every Ride EPIC”. Their clip begins by also observing that “‘Epic’ is one of the most overused words in cycling.”

That got me curious about my own use of the term. After all, I’ve been sharing my cycling exploits for fifteen years and written 375 blogposts. And we all know I’m a devilishly wordy sonofabitch.

So here’s a quick summary of my use of the term EPIC:

For my first seven years of writing (2003-2009), I never used the term at all. Yay!

Its first appearance was in a 2010 description of my first 130-mile Outriders ride from Boston around Cape Cod to Provincetown. Using “epic” for such a noteworthy ride seems reasonable to me.

In 2011 my friend Jay and I drove up to Vermont and rode big ol’ Jay Peak in the rain. At that time, it was the most climbing I’d ever done in a single ride. I called it “an epic excursion” and “an epic trip”, which are reasonably accurate.

In 2012 I rode my first Mt. Washington century with my boyz. It was a challenging ride and an amazing trip, and I’d say it was worthy of being called “epic”; tho it might not have justified the four times that I used it!

In 2013, the Tour d’Essex County was “an epic struggle”, and Outriders was “an epictacular ride”. That was probably my most egregious use of the word. Epictacular???

That was four years ago now, and “epic” hasn’t appeared since. Yay!

But just because I haven’t overused the word “epic” doesn’t mean I’m not guilty of a little self-indulgent hyperbole. Probably my biggest sin (as a cycling writer) is describing things as “brutal”, usually with respect to hills or the heat.

On that account:

I used “brutal” twice in 2003-2004, then went six years without. Yay!

But something changed in 2011. In the six years since then, “brutal” appears no less than 27 times in my blog, peaking in 2013 when I used it nine times. The weather was particularly hot that year, specifically during my Tour d’Essex County, Mt. Washington Century, and Fourth of July weekend rides.

On the other hand, without words like “epic” and “brutal”, it would be impossible to relate the emotions, intensity, and suffering that we cyclists experience. Riding a bike is not a purely intellectual experience, so my descriptions must use language that is both vivid and visceral.

Plus, dramatic adjectives make for much better reading than the flat monotone of unadorned facts.

Not really. But over the past couple years, a strange thing has happened: people have come up to me and introduced themselves while saying that they read my cycling blog.

In both the 2011 and 2012 Pan-Mass Challenge rides, a fellow rider looked over at my name tag and announced that he’d read my stuff.

Then last week I was boarding a flight from San Francisco to Boston, and one of the passengers looked at my PMC backpack (which also has an old name tag) and said the same thing: that he read my stuff. Given that I was in San Francisco, that really took me by surprise.

I suppose it’s not surprising that other PMC riders would come across my blog. I’ve posted a dozen long ride reports, lots of photos, and several videos, and I maintain a page full of hints and tips for new riders. I’ve probably got more PMC-related content on the web than anyone.

But if I read someone’s blog, I usually don’t remember their name or keep an eye out in case I run across them on the street. It’s kind of humbling that anyone would wade through my voluminous ramblings and still think enough of it to remember my name… and say hello!

Mind you, it’s flattering; but it’s really unexpected. I usually write mostly for myself, but if anyone has a better cycling experience as a result of my observations, then I’m very happy to have helped.

So if you’re one of those strangers whose curiosity brought you here, I’d like to take a second to say thank-you; I’m delighted to share this road with you. And if there’s anything you’ve particularly enjoyed or want to hear more of, don’t hesitate to comment.

Thank you for reading!