Those were the words Scott repeated over and over when he was first trying to con seduce me into riding the tandem with him.
“It’s all about you, Kathy,” he said in this nice soft voice. I mean, thank god we’re married to other people, right? It sounded SO good on paper. And I almost trusted him when he said it. A classic first date mistake: trust.
But… hey. I bought it. And, to be fair, he still means it… but there’s a little bit of subtext that I’m now finding he left unsaid:
“It’s all about you, Kathy…. as long as you’re doing what I want you to.”
Ohhhhhhhh.
So as I was driving home from the Bay Area (where I was seeing shows and visiting with some really wonderful performers and strategizing with my co-producer and doing theatre stuff — which IS very important), Scott and I were talking and it came out that he thinks I only have one job (doing everything he says).
Huh, I said. I distinctly remember saying in the beginning that I actually have a lot of theatre stuff going on too, so I do need to keep up with the writing and producing and such. And I distinctly remember him saying OK to that.
So, I said. I get it. It’s all about me. Unless he doesn’t like it.
And what’s annoying, is that he’s (mostly) right. This thing we’re doing is super important and, as tandem riders, we have accountability to each other in a way that isn’t necessary when riding solo.
Training on any kind of bike is all encompassing, especially as we get closer to April and May. There are a lot of things we need to get practice on and get our bodies used to.
We can ride our solo bikes to work on strength and conditioning. We can train separately for distance and for hills. But… riding the tandem is slightly different in so many ways that we have to get really super used to its unique aspects.
The fit is different, for starters. The skills for starting/stopping/shifting are different because of the need to communicate everything. For this to work in June, we have to be bound together with a Vulcan mind meld so tight that we’ll be able to react to squirrely riders, stupid drivers, our own fatigue, and any other emergency instantaneously. So we have to ride together. A lot. In all conditions. North and South and wherever we can find reasonably dry pavement.
The Vulcan mind meld of course has its dark side (to mix some iconic imagery). It means we are thinking many of the same thoughts at the same time, both good and bad, both funny and ever so caustic.
Working this closely with someone else is like super intense therapy. I am learning and seeing things about myself that I have long accepted but which are unnerving to see someone else react to. (My husband noted the other day: “Doesn’t Scott know how to work you? If he asks you to hurry you’ll just go slower.”) So, aside from the fact that I’m being discussed like I’m some kind of tractor, it’s not a terrible point. If I feel pushed I get nervous and if I get nervous I tidy things up. More push: more tidying. Less pushing, more speed. Makes total sense to me.
The gloves are coming off a little bit and we’re needing to circle back and resolve the snarks as they come up. Ususally, when riding solo, this all happens internally and all the bickering is infuriatingly inside my own head. It requires different skills when it’s externalized — as everything is on a tandem.
It’s all about me. But it’s increasingly all about IT. The Ride. The thing we have set out to do. The thing that’s looming like a huge hill on the horizon.
