Tour de Port-a-Potty

A Cyclist’s tale. Empowerment and freedom amidst a pandemic.

Two. Two itchy eyes. Two running nostrils. Two wheels on my noble steed, the cherry red Cervélo bicycle I’ve owned for seven years, my lifeline this Spring. It is early April. Two middle-aged women traverse the newly abandoned roads of central New Jersey. Debbie and me, me and Debbie, my riding buddy, the woman with whom I’m spending the majority of my discretionary time these days. We express daily gratitude for the ability to be free, for the stellar weather, for the privilege of being a cyclist during a Pandemic.

It started 30 years ago at the prodding of my husband.

“Let’s go on a bike trip,” he suggested, before kids, when we had oodles of time to ourselves.

“OK,” I said.

To date, my husband and I have taken 24 organized cycling trips, and our sons have joined us on 12. France, Italy, New Zealand, Cuba and Hawaii, among others. I’ve cycled 300 miles in five days, from Jerusalem to Eilat. The foreign destinations have sparked much delight, but none of those destinations can equal the euphoria I’ve felt this Spring, far closer to home in New Jersey, during what I now affectionately call, rather than Love in the Time of Cholera, Cycling in the Time of COVID.

It took at least five years after that first cycling trip, after completing a number of triathlons and cycling several charity events, before I officially labeled myself a “cyclist.” I met Debbie a few years after that, a kindred spirit. Countless people have shot me looks, from the quizzical to the incredulous to the skeptical when I tell them that I ride outside.

“Do you feel safe doing that?” I’m asked skeptically. Or I’ll hear, “It’s so cold out there!” “Who’s got the time?” is a common excuse. These days, especially, I’ve got plenty of time.

Peter, my massage therapist, has provided me with possible answers.

“It’s possible that the doubters and haters are intimidated,” he speculated, “that they can’t do what you do, or won’t, or are afraid.”

Perhaps. Whatever the reason, few women I know do what I do.

A different massage therapist helped me years ago with my body image. I’ve always had a combative relationship with my muscular legs, but she set me straight. “I’d kill to have those thighs, those calves. Your quads and hamstrings are what enable you to be the cyclist you are, to power up those hills. Be grateful.” These days, in the spring of an unprecedented Pandemic, I am awash in gratitude.

I appreciate my health, my body, in numerous ways. I recently visited a good friend, a cancer survivor who has a number of other health issues. A fellow mother of three sons, an avid reader and a fantastic cook, she’s been hunkering down with her family, who have forbidden her to leave the house. We sat outside, 10 feet apart.

“How are you faring?” I asked.

“I’m doing great, working a ton and baking a ton for everyone. I’m the only one in my family who hasn’t gained at least 20 pounds,” she announced, proud of her restraint.

I smiled, truly happy for her. Unlike her, though, I’m in the best shape of my life.

I recently joked that due to all the cycling I’ve been doing, I’ve achieved my bikini body weeks before the start of summer. As a post-menopausal woman, I recognize that’s no mean feat. Unlike many, I never embraced a life of Lycra leggings and stretch pants during quarantine. My tightest jeans are now loose. They haven’t been this loose in 30 years.

When I was a teenager, I used to read the “Do’s and Don’ts” at the end of the now-defunct Glamour magazine. Baggy jeans would have been a Don’t. Ditto the load around my crotch and ass that padded bike shorts create, definitely not a good look. Which would matter to me, I guess, if I cared — but I don’t, not anymore. I no longer look “fat” in those shorts; rather, I look fit, authentic, like I belong in them.

Now, in late May, I’m even starting to acquire my Cyclist Tan. Despite gobs of sunscreen, my skin will only deepen over the summer, my upper arms darkened to the edge of my jerseys’ sleeves, my legs tanned to mid-thigh, the place where my biking shorts end. My feet and hands will be white, having spent countless hours encased in cycling shoes and gloves, a strange, yet familiar demarcation to one who is a dedicated cyclist. So be it. I will, however, get some stares when I unveil my body at the beach this summer.

In March, I was covered up, wearing all my gear to battle the cold and wind. Hats, gloves, booties. A cursory glance in my mirrored Oakleys revealed a Spandexed Black Ninja, ready for Battle. For Debbie and me, cycling season always starts when the thermometer hits 35 degrees, a bit cooler now that we burn the internal fires of menopause. In the beginning of cycling season, though, the winds can make a huge difference. Over the years, we’ve come perilously close to getting blown off our bikes.

Wind does not exist inside.

These days, in late April, indoor cycling classes are a fondly distant memory for a myriad of devotees and obsessives out there. Many heretofore SoulCyclers and Flywheelers have embraced their new Pelotons and preserved or acquired impressive fitness in their stationary saddles over the past few months. All good. But indoor and outdoor cycling are different. No comparison.

The real reason to distinguish cycling outside versus its indoor cousin is Nature. I realize that being outside in Nature is considered a privilege these days, as is having the time to spend many hours on a bicycle. But normally, most people choose to spend their discretionary time inside, when they could walk out the door if they chose, yet they don’t. Most people can choose to get on a bike, yet most don’t. Until now. People are choosing to hop on bicycles this spring for a myriad of reasons. Maybe they’re avoiding the crowds on subways, trains and buses. For me, though, as for many others, it’s the freedom cycling outside provides, and the ability to roam far and wide.

Ah, Freedom, an elusive commodity in a Pandemic.

The great outdoors takes on new meaning when stuck inside. This year, we’ve had a proper Spring, rather than suffering the unfortunate habit Mother Nature has acquired in recent years of making an abrupt transition from frigid winter to sweltering summer, with barely a nod to the magnificence of Spring. These past two-and-a-half months, I’ve marked the change of season intimately, sensually. Mother Nature assaults the senses in Spring. In March, my chapped cheeks bore the vestiges of powerful headwinds. In April, my eyes witnessed an explosion of yellow, pink and white, bursts of yellow in the forsythia and daffodils, and unexpected delight upon summiting a challenging hill to confront a huge pink-and-white magnolia tree. In May, I willingly paid the pollen tax for a payload of air perfumed by honeysuckle and lilac, interspersed with whiffs of freshly mown grass. After the gray of winter, the color was suddenly everywhere, whimsical eruptions amid seas of pale green.

The greens deepened with the coming of May. On quiet country roads, I listened to the rushing water after a good rain on my way uphill, and felt the whoosh of air on my face on the way down. Starlings and woodpeckers seemed to chirp and hammer louder, and swans seemed to honk with gusto. Horses neighed and cows mooed behind the split-rail fences of New Jersey’s farms. Those animals were just doing their thing, singing their hearts out and exercising their lungs.

My heart and lungs function the way they’re supposed to, pumping and breathing in tandem with my legs, propelling me toward greater fitness. Way back in March, I wasn’t quite so fit. Debbie and I started with shorter rides of about 30 miles, and by now, we’ve logged a number of 70-mile rides and even one 80-mile ride, including steep hills. In a time of frustration and powerlessness, I feel in control on my bike, strong and confident. I am out, rather than in, unlike most people in New Jersey.

New Jersey gets a bad rap on the national stage. I’ve heard my home state referred to as the “armpit of America.” After informing others that I live in New Jersey, I am frequently asked, “Which exit?” as if New Jersey can be reduced simply to the New Jersey Turnpike. I cycle far from the Turnpike, through farm country (New Jersey isn’t called the “Garden State” for nothing). I cycle extensively in horse country, through the town where Jacqueline Kennedy chose to locate her horses on a bucolic estate. I cycle in areas indistinguishable from the country roads of Vermont or Maine.

During these rides, Debbie and I talk often, but not always. Long stretches of silence punctuate our time on the road, silences enabling Meditation. My phone remains safely in the back pocket of my jersey, ready and available should I need it, but I usually don’t. I neither need it nor want it. I wonder how many people can say, during the past three months, that they have gone for four or five waking hours without looking at a screen, be it large or small?

Screens. Delivering a Relentless Avalanche of Bad News these days.

The Pandemic delivers Unintended Consequences for us Cyclists.

One of those unintended consequences is the repaving of Old Short Hills Road, a main thoroughfare in my town. A project that would have normally paralyzed the entire area in any other year has transpired without a blip. I never would have even known about it if it weren’t for Debbie, who lives on the other side of Old Short Hills Road, a county road characterized as a major artery to our local hospital. Normally, commuters’ cars race down OSH Road to catch a train to New York City, and school bus after school bus stalls morning and afternoon traffic going to and from the middle school at the bottom of the hill. These days, with hardly anyone commuting and no one going to school, far fewer vehicles travel that distance. Today, the smell of fresh tar permeates the air.

I love the smell of fresh tar. It means a road is newly paved, a deeply satisfying development for any serious cyclist. I’ve encountered huge potholes and my fair share of rough road as a cyclist for over 30 years. A year ago, I hit a pothole and went down. Having managed all those years to avoid serious injury, I guess it was my time. I remember opening my eyes on the side of the road, staring up at Debbie’s worried face and the dappled sunshine through the trees. I remember the cop’s Ray-Bans and the EMT’s dimples. In case my memories fade, I have a scar from the nine stitches I received in the emergency room, reminding me of that day. Mostly, I’m grateful the fallout from my fall wasn’t worse. I know my husband was worried I’d never get back on my bike, but he needn’t have been so concerned. The accident was traumatic, true, but when juxtaposed with all the joy cycling brings me, there’s no contest.

These days, I find joy in small things. No traffic. Fresh air. Paved roads.

I’ve witnessed unprecedented paving going on all over the place. Debbie and I have been rerouted many times this Spring, encountering “Stop,” “Slow” and “Road Construction” signs on almost every ride. We wave and gratefully thank the cops and construction workers, exchanging “Good mornings,” smiling and waving at each other. We’ve discovered new routes and traveled ordinarily busy roads we would never consider in normal times. These are not normal times.

We’ve discovered that Monday is the new Sunday. In previous years, certain rides would happen only on a Sunday, when fewer cars appear on the road, when people sleep in, have fewer scheduled activities or go to church. On weekdays, cars used to swarm the roads, on their way to work or school. These days, the week and the weekend are flipped. These days, churches are closed. Now, on Sundays, in suburban and rural New Jersey, when people are sprung from their screens, they can take to the road, feel freedom in their convertibles and sports cars, roam far and wide on their motorcycles. During the week, the roads are now quiet, unoccupied — enticing terrain for a cyclist.

On a Monday ride in April, Debbie and I rode to Chester, a charming town about 30 miles west of Short Hills. Just shy of town, we stopped at a state park to visit the Port-a-Potty. Our usual stopping places are no longer available to us, like CocoLuxe, the inviting Peapack bakery which caters to cyclists, where we plucked a bottle of Bai or Gatorade from a refrigerator designated especially for cyclists, or the Oldwick General Store, where the proprietor happily filled up our water bottles with ice on hot days after we purchased his scone of the day to share. Where we normally use the facilities.

These days, our routes are determined in large part by the availability of Port-a-Potties.

Debbie has an eagle eye and can spot them before I can. We politely ask construction crews if we can use their Port-a-Potty, and they invariably say yes. We’ve found them at playgrounds, farm stands and state parks. Mostly, they have toilet paper, but in case they don’t, we carry tissues. We touch nothing inside.

Near Chester that day, when I kicked open the plastic door upon exiting, my cycling shoe narrowly avoided stepping on a milky-colored rubber sheath, the vestige of a recent sexual encounter near or inside the Port-a-Potty. I noticed a trash can two feet away, and wondered how much of a hurry the two lovers were in that day. I wondered how many people banished or stuck in homes around Chester no longer retain the privacy they crave to engage in such activities.

Privacy is achievable on a bike. One can cycle alone, if one prefers, or one can go on a bike ride with others, and countless people are doing exactly that. Biking is one of the few activities available where one can feel normal, have a “playdate” with a friend. Which is why, according to recent articles and the owner of my local bike shop, bicycles have replaced toilet paper and hand sanitizer as one of the most desired, elusive, sold-out commodities to score. Even in a Pandemic — especially in a Pandemic — the laws of supply and demand apply.

Instead of a mathematical interpretation, Debbie and I have always professed a different sort of equation, that of Weather + Time = Miles. This Spring, we’ve experienced unparalleled aspects of all three of those variables. Professor Joseph Campbell famously advised his students and readers to “Find your bliss.” This Spring has brought unparalleled levels of stress and deeply unnerving uncertainty to all. This Spring has also, however, brought me unparalleled levels of joy and deeply satisfying hours on the open road with a very good friend. Bliss, indeed.