I don’t really have any pain in the traditional, physical sense, to speak of. I do feel physical tension from time to time; I feel like something inside me is tugging at my knee from my hip. But pain, none, not the physical kind anyway.
There is another pain, though: the emotional kind. Emotional pain comes from inside and, for me, it has been based on frustration and fear. I have been frustrated for two reasons: first, because I know I have more power and I’m just not accessing it because of my hip and twist, and second, I can’t stand riding like this, feeling so wrong on my bike. My emotions were intensified by the fear that the only solution to relieve my frustration would be to give up riding my bike altogether. I love riding and hope to keep riding after racing, for the rest of my life, for the pure fun of it.
The fears and frustrations have been so great at times, only to be made worse by the endless stream of people who say the can help me but haven’t and by their seeming lack of understanding. Yikes, scary, but true.
It suddenly hit me that all this time, I have been one Rolodex removed from working with the top people in our sport. What have I been waiting for? I picked up the phone and after making a couple of calls, I was connected with Curtis. For me, working with Curtis required quite a bit more effort that finding him did. I live in Florida and Curtis is in California. Yet, within the first hour of speaking to Curtis, we had the beginning of a plan and within the next hour, I had purchased a plane ticket! This is what athletes do: they seek out the best for help and do whatever it takes to make it happen.
Flying across the country (and back) to see Curtis was actually the best decision I’ve ever made in my cycling career. You have probably heard of other people, some of whom consult with big cycling companies and bike manufacturers. Their names are on the products and behind the designs and I’ve actually seen some of these people along the way. But Curtis is different. Curtis is for YOU. He puts his name behind YOU. He puts everything he has from training to skill to creative problem solving and uninhibited innovation into making your body function correctly and in conjunction with the bike. There are no rules, no paradigm, no cookie-cutter fixes. In the time we spent together, he assessed that my problem is a 3-pronged issue:
1) Flexiblity – especially at my hip
2) Local stability – the bolts of my cannon holding it on to the canoe (soon to be battleship) are weak like noodles
3) Coordination- the ability of my ship to work as a whole is poor, my body has trouble integrating local strength with global coordination and putting it all together
Clearly, this was NOT a bike fit! More details will come about the specific work we did together and what Curtis is having me do now. But here, today, I want to define Curtis because, as far as I know, there is no one doing what he does, how he does it…so I’ve come up with a few of my own:
– Bike Fitter– yes, Curtis has one of the best reputations in the world for Bike Fitting
– Body Fitter– more appropriate to me because my bike is straight and we did NOT adjust my bike! My bike is straight, I’m crooked!
– Bike Whisperer– YES, he has crazy intuition and mad skills in sensing tension and pain
– Spirit Lifter– his soul is so good…maybe my Bike Guru? ABSOLUTELY
All of the above apply to Curtis and now it’s clear why his references simply call him “A-MAZING!” Is this a shameless plug for Curtis? Maybe, but the way I see it is there is no reason to show you everything without telling you that you have the exact same opportunities as I do. You don’t need a fancy Rolodex. You only need the desire to be your best. That’s it. Plain and simple. Anyone can do what I’m doing…all of it is available and possible to you. If your goal is to win a medal or simply keep yourself on the bike, do whatever it takes. Make decisions about opportunities in your life that you can look back at with a smile. Face your emotions head-on, figure out what they are and where they are coming from. Make yourself proud and be fearless.