Upside Down

One of my cyclocross racers (Nate) is on a rough streak. Two races, two crashes. The first came in the chaos of the start: riders and bikes tangled, and Nate ended up with another racer’s foot jammed between the spokes of his rear wheel. The second was an unplanned dismount on a technical course in Vermont, traction disappearing in a flash and Nate arcing towards the ground.

With Friday the 13th rolling in this week, I’ve been thinking about luck. (Nate’s x-rays checked out fine, but I did recommend he stop walking under ladders for a while.)

Cyclists are a superstitious bunch. Draw race number 13 and you’ll almost certainly pin it upside down. American ‘cross legend Jonathan Page once flatted twice in a race while wearing 13. He drew it again the next day and flipped it, all while insisting he wasn’t superstitious. Meanwhile Remco Evenepoel took his first pro win wearing 13 and calls it his lucky number.

The science is shakier. In one well-known study, golfers who were told their ball was “lucky” sank more putts, but later attempts to repeat the result came up empty. The most you can say is that a lucky charm might change how confident you feel. Whether that shows up in your legs is another story.

So keep your rituals, but give them a job:

  • Turn superstition into routine. Same warm-up, same gear check, same three breaths on the line. A ritual that points your attention at what you control is a tool. One that points at fate is a crutch.

  • Sort the luck from the lesson. A foot through your wheel is bad luck, so let it go. If the same kind of mistake keeps showing up on the same kind of terrain, that’s a skill to train.

  • Two crashes is a streak, not a trend. Don’t let one bad stretch write the season.

Flip the 13. Put a rabbit’s foot in your jersey pocket, hold your breath going past cemeteries, and definitely don’t spill the electrolyte mix.

See you next week,

Steve

Stephen WellerComment