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Tag: travelling with partner

  • Tandem Trust, Trials and Tribulations: Panic Attacks on the Bike

    Tandem Trust, Trials and Tribulations: Panic Attacks on the Bike

    In compliment to Alex's article on our soon-to-be-baby, 'Tan-nay-nay the Tandem Bicycle', I would like to offer up a little bit of face-saving perspective.

    I am a very proud person, it is important for me to do the best I can every time. EVERY TIME. In the case of riding two separate touring bikes on our two year journey home, it would appear that I should just suck it up and get on with riding my not-very-heavily laden purpose-built touring bike and enjoy the road every day, practising my skills and gaining confidence on the bike. In fact, if there was no option, this is what I would continue doing.

    I will tell you that at this point I don't believe that beyond a few bad days, my far-less-able riding abilities have had a huge effect on our trip. I think Alex would agree. However, there is the looming prospect of this changing with different, more difficult demands of the road environment. The main issues for me at this point are that (a) I don't have experience riding on very rough gravel roads, nor on very busy roads where vehicles travelling at high speed past by within a bee's dick of my elbow. Thus, I have zero confidence in my abilities to ride in either situation. And (b) I have suffered from anxiety and panic attacks for some time. It is mostly the second of these 'issues' I'd like you to know more about.

    For those of you who haven't experienced a panic attack, let me describe a little of what it feels like: I want you to imagine you're me – normally, riding along the right-hand side of the road is all well and good; we're used to it now and thus far the cars and trucks have had a good awareness of bike riders and give us a lot, sometimes too much space crossing well over into the other lane, right-o? You're coming along with me?

    Imagine now, please, that for some reason you're already very worried on these 'normal roads'. You can't quite find the explanation and oh! it pains you! Maybe it's because your bike is much heavier than you're used to. Maybe it's because you're also not quite fully in control of your bike, it feels unsteady, you feel like it is more in control of you than you are of it. It could be any reason because heck, rational thinking went out the window quite some time ago.

    Your state of mind is unstable at best here, you constantly berate yourself for being pathetic because jeez, you've been riding bikes for a good 20 plus years and have conquered the zip around Melbourne city on a fixie quite well now thanks. So why can't you do this? So, you're incredibly angry at yourself and still, you're trying to stop feeling so 'poor me' about it and ride fast enough to keep up and not slow the traffic behind you and not annoy others you might be riding with. You know there's no pressure, so why are you feeling it so acutely? Why can't you relax?

    You're angrily puddling about in mud-coloured shame and teeth-grinding frustration when suddenly there's a whining engine noise in the distance. Look down. Check the road hasn't disappeared from under you. But look just for a second. Don't lose concentration. Look, listen. Breathe. Oh wait, you can't. Your knuckles go so pale with tension you think blood may ever trickle in and feed the joints again, you brace yourself, heightening your heart rate and turning your body into a block of stiff but ultimately flimsy, useless wood.

    Oh, you block of wood, you worse than senseless thing.

    The sound gets louder and louder until you're hunkered down with your neck pulled in between your shoulders, you've all but disappeared into yourself like a turtle. You're holding your breath, there's a balloon in your chest, up and up and up it's blown.

    VAHROOOOOOOOOM!!!! The twelve tonne bus screams past you, you're physically blown sideways, buffeted towards the edge of the road, over the white line and are balancing on the precipice of the paved road and of your sanity. So what happens now? You cry. Yep, hot tears of fear and shame leak out of your steeply angled eyes…you weren't hit! Suck it up! Just keep riding. Except now you really can't breathe properly. You take small inefficient gasps of air, air which feels thick and gets stuck at your breast bone. You body regurgitates the air, you vomit your invisible exhale of useless breath all over yourself. You cough, trying to dislodge the insidious creature who's claws are fastened around your larynx, trying to shift the rhinoceros sitting on your chest. So, you were worried before? You're terrified now, every sound makes you flinch and you swerve a little closer to the gravel on the side of the road, gravel that you know is harmless but now just looks like it will be the perfect launching pad for you onto the road or down the ravine on your right.

    Keep trying to breathe. Struggle more and find a burning hot coal blistering in your throat. It's sliding up and down your windpipe as you swallow to rid the dry taste of self hatred in your gaping mouth. You're thinking of every possible catastrophe, your brain is stuck fast in negativity, your legs are slow and heavy. You're pathetic.

    Right-o. So, if that's just step one of panic attacks, the next step is one that can go on to more and more debilitating and irrational fear and all-consuming self distrust and confusion. I'm not making this fear up but it is all in my head which makes it worse. It threatens me with its foreboding potential to rule every ride. You can understand why, maybe, I don't enjoy riding on narrow busy roads. Why the idea of riding towards oncoming traffic on uneven chunky rocks of gravel makes me shake with fear. It's not that I am a scardy-cat, I have done lots of things that scare me, in fact I quite enjoy being frightened, but this is different for me. I don't trust myself to ride capably and strongly on this kind of road. I don't have experience doing it and the more I try and fail, the more I feel like I can't do it and so it's a self fulfilling prophecy. It's called Purely Obsessional OCD, check it out.

    This is one of the reasons a tandem bike sounds good to me. I don't like and I don't buy the idea that it will be just an easy ride for me behind ATM (Alex The Machine), I will be pulling my weight and riding my little heart out, I assure you: I'm a part of the team, not the baggage we're carrying.

    No, this reason of many to like is that I don't have to distrust my ability and have panic attacks. I can take solace in the fact that I am doing something that scares the absolute buh-jeezus out of me, but I am not alone doing it. Let me frame it this way – skydiving. Right? Frightens a lot of people, excites a lot too. For most of us it's an amazing mixture of the two and proves itself worthy when done, a challenge to complete, to think to one's self and perhaps crow to one's friends, “I jumped out of a plane!”

    However, one would not just do that activity alone, no, it would be ridiculous for your first jump to be a solo one. Tandem skydiving doesn't make you a pussy, it can be terrifying as you like, but, because there is an instructor, an experienced, confident other person strapped to you, you don't think twice about it. For me, the idea of riding bikes is all well and good. I am quite adept a managing a bike around town, navigating city traffic, trucks, trams, car doors, pedestrians, nighttime, the lot – but suggest that I do it all when I'm fully loaded on unstable gravel roads and I'll tell you to jump.

    Perhaps, if I'd had a year, half a year, a month! of experience on these kind of roads… If only I'd had the foresight to gain confidence riding in these conditions then I'd be in a better place. I feel stupid and kick myself a thousand times a day for not doing this preparation, for not realising: DUH! There are about fifty billion unsealed roads on the way from Amsterdam to Australia, and ninety trillion potholes and every car which goes past me has the potential to knock me off and I should just calm down and practise… But no, I just assumed that because I am a quick learner and I love riding my bike, especially in the company of the man I love, that I would be able to do it. But I can't and I frankly don't believe that I can, not yet and certainly not without experiencing the trauma that are panic attacks – and continuing to subject Alex to them also. I'm in my own way and in his.

    The crux is, for me it is actually more the confidence to do things that matters more than the skills – skills can be developed, confidence, of course, comes with ability and experience BUT! – when you doubt yourself every step of the way, when panicking is sometimes not an option but a mandatory experience, it is too much and maybe for once in my life, taking the easier way out could be the right thing to do. Not that riding a tandem the 30,000 plus kilometres home from Amsterdam to Australia will be any less challenging, perhaps just less terrifying!!

    So, along with the awesome prospect of riding a giant purple whale, sorry, tandem, with Alex: Team Alleykat well and truly travelling together more than ever before, it makes me worry a lot less because I trust Alex wholeheartedly. I am completely convinced what his plenitude of confidence and ability is the exact opposite of mine, he is oozing with it and I am Nutella-jar-scraped-empty of it.

    I know this sounds pathetic and not in the slightest bit fair, but I will do my bit every day because it is only my fear stopping me from being part of Alleykat in the bike able way. The prospect of developing my confidence over the next two years in a slightly different manner is a welcome, warm egg-yolk (or eggplant, even!) coloured one.

     

  • Alleykat’s Best Kept Secret: Travelling in Tandem

    Alleykat’s Best Kept Secret: Travelling in Tandem

    We only started considering a tandem after we met various couples who would “never ride separate bikes again”. They talked about being able to go faster and being more sociable on the bike.

    Team Alleykat brings with it a big discrepancy between rider ability. Alex can ride as long and far as he wants, loves riding under horrific weather conditions, loves rough roads and is not at all concerned about sharing the roads with cars, trucks and buses. Kat can mostly ride with Alex but is much more comfortable on smooth paths on a fair weather day, away from vehicles.

    We have always maintained that speed and distance are not an issue for our trip, but recently Kat has been struggling with dirt roads, and roads with fast-and-close passing traffic (and fair enough too, it gets very daunting to relatively inexperienced riders!). Read a bit more about Kat’s struggle and panic attacks in her post HERE.

    To follow in the footspinning of the tandem-loving couples and also to boost Kat’s confidence and optimise my ability, we are about to make the plunge and order a custom touring tandem through Co-Motion Bicycles, equipping it with as much of our current parts arsenal as possible.

    We figure a tandem will be better for us as Kat is much more confident with my cycling ability on rough roads than her own. We are also hoping she will be able to cope better with heavy traffic when she doesn’t have control of the bike.

    Our number one goal with this exercise is taking the stress out of bicycle touring for Kat.

    Other tandemy benefits include:

    – Being able to use my strength to more potential
    – Faster average speeds and further distances possible, meaning more time off the bike
    – Hopefully dropping a combined 12kg of bike and gear weight provided we can get away with no trailer (bringing us down to ~60kg, bike and gear)
    – We can both have ‘bad days’, where we pick up each others slack
    – Kat, if she likes will sometimes be able to ride with no hands, eat/drink, take photos and generally be Alleykat’s lookout for excitement around the bike
    – We won’t have to say “sorry” all the time when we can’t hear each other
    – We will have three less bags to carry around when we’re off the bike
    – We don’t have to carry as many spare parts
    – We will hopefully be able to fly without oversized and overweight baggage
    – No drafting behind the front rider required
    – One less bike lock
    – The bike will be less likely to be stolen because it is so big!

    Oh, we will have it in January and it will be big, purple and be named ‘Tan-nay-nay’.

     

  • Battling Personalities: An Inside into Alleykat’s Relationship After 100 Days

    Battling Personalities: An Inside into Alleykat’s Relationship After 100 Days

    It is no surprise that a relationship will be struck with all kinds of blows when you spend close to every minute, of every hour, of every day with that person. When you're travelling with your partner you need to be incredibly considerate of their basic needs, which will compromise your very own basic needs at times. It is impossible to compromise all the time; it is important to look after your own sanity just as much as your partners. Defending your own basic needs is often the point where personalities battle it out, either strengthening or weakening relationships.

    Alleykat thought about how we could best manage this in the list of agreements we set out before we left. We are keeping to some agreements and breaking others. The agreements we breach seem to not affect either of as at this time. We try to be as open and honest with each other as possible.

    We thought it would be interesting for you to read about where our personalities struggle to agree with each other.

    Personality Battle #1:

    Scenario: Alex approaches Kat about her failure to inform him truthfully about how she is coping with the riding. Kat feels this is unfair because she is just trying to do her best.

    The way I bluntly put it to Kat was that this point of contention could cause a relationship breakdown in the long-term.

    Let me describe the relevant characteristics of Kat's personality for this situation. Kat: will do anything to make everyone happy, will not speak up when she has an issue, and will put up with more physical pain than her body should tolerate (to prove that she can do it). Kat is your typical over-achiever.

    For cycling and bicycle touring these attributes are no doubt mandatory.

    The issue is that Kat is riding unsustainably. She is riding faster and further than she should because she believes I will be annoyed if I have to ride too slow, or not far enough. She has unrealistic expectations of herself. This is affecting her physical and mental health, as she is not recovering properly and is every day suffering more than she needs.

    For example, she rode the first ~1200km with fractures in her knee. Sure, she was unaware that it was as bad as it was, but she put up with the pain because she didn't want to 'ruin' the trip. It regularly occurred since breaking her knee, Kat kept trying to ride to suit me.

    Kat's 'I'm ok' or 'I feel fine' could've been translated to anything from 'I'm having a lovely day in the sunshine' to 'I have a six foot metal stake through my skull'. I always made an effort to see how she was doing, but never got straight answer and I eventually stopped trusting what she was telling me.

    This trip is about the riding, for sure, but cycling is just the means for getting from A to B. We don't count the kilometres, or try to average a certain speed. We have a general guide for where we want to be and when, and if something cool pops up, we stop. The very nature of the journey should foster, not inhibit Kat's ability.

    We spoke about Kat putting up with pain more than she should, and especially with regards to how her repairing knee was doing. It boiled down to a few things: she felt she wasn't 'pulling her weight', she wanted me to be able to ride longer distances, she wanted to prove she could ride strongly consistently, and she was worried she wouldn't be fit enough for the times when we did have to cover certain distances.

    The harsh reality is that Kat is the 'weak link', and no matter how strong she is riding, I will always be able to ride faster and further. I will ALWAYS be assisting her when it comes to the bike riding bit.

    Alleykat is a team. The healthier Kat is physically and mentally, the better she recovers from every ride, the more time she has to stop, stretch, eat or rest – the faster and further Alleykat will be able to ride in the future. Kat knows how she is feeling, I do not. She needs to tell me when we should stop or how far we should go.

    My solution was that we do hourly checks on her knee and use a number rating for the pain to track what it was actually like. This is hard for Kat to grapple with as butts directly with the various characteristics of her personality. Kat can see that it is completely logical to be transparent with each other, but deeply battles being the weaker rider.

    After some discussion, I feel more in touch with how Kat is actually feeling, and I hope that logic prevails for Kat in this situation.

    Personality Battle #2:

    Scenario: Kat approaches Alex about the fact that he antagonises her when she is trying to be serious. Alex is frustrated by the fact that Kat snaps from a jocular manner to a serious and defensive manner, which from his perspective is without any prior warning.

    This 'issue' stemmed from two conversations we had where I (Kat) was convinced we were having a serious discussion – indicated by the seriousness of content and deeper emotional undertones – but Alex felt that the conversation went from light and fluffy to dark and foreboding in an unfair way unable to be followed.

    What we were talking about doesn't bare mentioning, it really could have been anything, only that sometimes I want to have a mature grown-up discussion and because I am so used to being able to flow in and out of these with relative ease I am surprised when Alex can't adjust and come along. Dispite his prowess at talking openly with me and his plethora of friends, despite his acute and sometimes surprising level of sensitivity to my real 'self' and the generosity he gives me, Alex loves to push my buttons and indeed those of many people. He does this of course, in a jocular manner: he has a very Australian love for 'having a go', exuding pithy or rude remarks, and balancing these by having fierce and cutting views on certain topics. The problem for me is that Alex sometimes doesn't have the interpersonal sensitivity to subtle changes in the needs of a conversation. He admitted this freely to me, telling me that he wished he could give me more and understand the extra level of care he needed to display but that it really just didn't make sense and he wasn't capable of understanding why some things just needed to be serious.

    The solution to this is an easy one – it may feel a little false to me to indicate that I am being serious and need to have an open, frank and real conversation without the fear of having a button pressed at the wrong time but that's as simple as it is – if I'm feeling overly sensitive I just need to tell him and he is more than capable of adjusting his manner. It could be our boy vs girl differences, or simply the way in which we have learned to interact. It may seem obvious to me that my cues and topic are serious and need a bit of respect but it is also just as obvious to Alex that we often deal in a light, easy, happy tone and thus, things don't have to be black or white. Both opinions are true and the happy reality is simply that we need to allow for one another's needs.

    We've since become much better at giving signals and being open and upfront.

    Moving forward

    Alleykat becomes no doubt stronger through the various sticking points we encounter. These personality battles may seem somewhat petty to you, but you have to understand that being together all the time turns the most petty into the biggest deal breakers. We don't want to argue or disagree, but at the same time we both know that too much selflessness can lead to just being Alex and Kat.

    Being transparent with your travelling partner is, in our opinion, the healthiest way to be.