The Map & The Territory

Learning what Alfred Korzybski meant by pedaling for eight hours.

This summer I rode my fat bike 38 miles from Cooper Landing to Hope along the Resurrection Pass Trail. I don’t know why I did it, to be honest. I grew up riding both road and mountain bikes, but as I got into running more my road bike started spending most of its time hanging in the garage. Biking off pavement abruptly ended after my mountain bike was stolen and I never bothered to replace it.

However, the stage for a comeback (and this particular ride) was set when my brother asked me to come down to the bike shop with him. He was picking out mountain bikes for him and his wife because they wanted to get into single-tracking. The second I walked in I noticed a Ferrari Red carbon fiber fat bike on the top rack at the back corner of the shop. The shop clerk also noticed my interest and immediately began extolling its many virtues:
It can be ridden year-round with studded tires! It’s great for commuting! It was a do-all bike to take anywhere any time! And yes, it could absolutely be single-tracked if I wanted to.
I playfully accused him of trying to boost sales, but he assured me he didn’t work on commission and dared me to test ride it.

I took it for a spin and fell in love. It was awesome. A giant bulldozer that could roll over just about anything, and yet because of its all-carbon frame, it weighed less than most mountain bikes. Still, it felt like a splurge.¹ I couldn’t justify it. But as my brother purchased his two new bikes, the salesman mentioned that I could dip my toes in by renting a fat bike to try out for a weekend.

The Map 🗺️

The next day I joined my brother and sister-in-law at our local singletrack trails to break in their new rides. As they skillfully tried to negotiate roots, ruts, and ramps I sat my happy ass down and just rolled over the top. I felt unstoppable. After just one ride, it was obvious what I would do on Monday morning.

I bought the bike and rode it almost every day for the next six weeks straight. Usually I rode alone, but sometimes I rode with my brother or brought my daughter to let her try some of the trails. As my speed and confidence built, I started thinking about longer rides.

The all-carbon Trek Farley 9 on a trail in Kincaid Park. All of my bikes up to this point have either been bought used or inherited, so this is the first new one I’ve ever owned.

Somewhere from the dark abyss of memory, Resurrection Trail surfaced. I had cycled part of it as a teenager with my dad, but never done the whole thing. I knew it was 38 miles and some change. I knew it was a lot of uphill, followed by a lot of downhill. It’s considered a challenging route, but far from expert. Somehow, I decided it would make for a perfect fall ride. I ran through the situation, as I saw it:

I just set a PR in a half-marathon a couple months earlier, and as part of that training I’d jogged 20 miles. Surely, I could bike twice that distance. Bikes are way more efficient! I could carry lots of food and take breaks if I got tired. I’d bring spare clothes in case the weather changed on me in the mountains. I could carry all those things on the bike rack, or on my back! Most important: I knew winter was on the way, and would hit the mountains shortly, so if I was gonna do it, it would have to be soon.

I wouldn’t call this a plan. I wouldn’t even call this a ‘concept of a plan.’ I would call it a very rough outline at best, but really it was an idea. Put another way, I had the map in front of me, but absolutely no idea the true character of the territory it represented. I’d soon learn that a map, or an idea of what it takes to do something, is not the same as doing it.

The Territory 🚵

The dictum “the map is not the territory” was coined by Alfred Korzybski. It’s a crisp little idiom that I only recently learned.² It teaches us that an abstraction or idea of something should not be confused with the thing itself.³ This can be anything: a new job, a new relationship, or a god forsaken near-40-mile ride through Alaskan mountains in the fall. In short, we have no idea what something will be like to truly experience, no matter how well we plan, until we’re firmly in it.

The first ten miles of the ride were a joy. A bit of climbing, but lots more scenic cruising past a gorge cut by a waterfall, swooping around tight turns along a scenic mountain lake, and charging along wide double-tracks through high mountain plains. We made phenomenal time through this section, and the weather was perfect. A soft misting rain meant no dust, while the air temperature hovered in the low 40’s. This meant that I never got too hot even when working hard.

Meanwhile, all the gear, food, and supplies I’d ever need hung from my shoulders in their large dry bag. Due to not knowing the ride I brought everything I thought I’d need, which meant the bag’s weight also hovered somewhere in the low 40’s. I had started the ride with it strapped to my handlebar rack but found that it made the bike very challenging to control over the constant bumps and jutting roots. I scared myself enough swerving erratically along the edge of the gorge, just a few miles in, that I moved off the front rack. It hung heavy and awkward on my back, but at least I could turn.

A couple hours in, we stopped for our first meal break right before a wooden foot bridge. Looking at the pace, we thought we’d be done with the entire ride in just six hours. Our spirits were high! We wolfed down a couple peanut butter sandwiches, jumped back on our bikes, and crossed the little bridge.

We’d wouldn’t feel that good again the rest of the day.

The fateful footbridge, our modest gate to the trials ahead, pictured during our first meal stop. Also pictured: the big, heavy bag.

Almost immediately, the trail changed and became harder to navigate. It became a true singletrack just wide enough for my tire. The trail wore so deep that my pedals often struck the edges of the rut mid-stroke, making even pedaling a challenge. Deep holes, sudden drops, large rocks, and other obstacles slowed our progress as we bounced over the small stuff and tried to punch up over the larger ones. More than once, we had to dismount to hoof our bikes through the roughest patches, like steep climb that looked like a rockslide with mud grouted between boulders.

A few times, the bouncing rhythm of the trail became just right to launch my heavy dry bag up over my head. The momentum lifted me by the armpits off the bike and tossed me like a rag doll right over my handlebars into the brush. The first couple times it was funny, and we had a good laugh. But as the hours passed the climbing intensified and our pace ground to a crawl. Being tossed off the bike, skidding out on mud, and failing to wheelie up and over obstacles became a bit less funny as we tired.

We stopped for our second lunch two hours after the first. The preceding 120 minutes were a mix of hiking, riding, and flipping into the bushes, but we were close to the top. I checked my watch — our pace was way off. We’d left the 6-hour completion goal behind at the fateful footbridge a long time ago. The race against failing daylight had officially begun. The air temperature dipped into the mid-30’s and the mix of rain and sweat cooled dangerously on my skin as I sat.

I remembered the pack. I had dry, warm clothes in there. But to change into them I’d need to get up, dig them out, strip down on the trail, and repack my wet, dirty clothes. Too much work, I decided. We weren’t even halfway done, and I knew once I started pedaling again, I’d warm up. We just needed to keep going.

Lunch stop #2 after two hours of pure climbing, a good chunk of it on foot. It was hard to start again from this one. It took a little pep talk, a stretch, & a couple Gu packets for energy.

Life in the Territory 🧘

It was at that point I think I fully entered the territory. Not the literal territory of mountains, mud, and muskeg that I’d been in all day, but the spiritual territory where we encounter our true selves — and my true self was wondering just how in the hell I was going to finish the ride when I didn’t have enough energy to put on warm clothes.

It’s a hell of a thing to be 19-miles into a ride, with 19-miles to go, and become afraid that you’re played out. Sure, there had been stretches earlier in the day — during the mud & boulder hike or while flipping over my handlebars — that I wondered what in the fuck I had got myself into. But that’s pretty typical for me. I think it every time I’m in a race or on some kind of deadline. I can mostly laugh those off or convince myself there were better times ahead. The first half of the day had been that way: I could look up the trail a quarter mile, see the course change, and picture the blistering downhills, well-groomed downhills where we’d make up time that were sure to be just around the corner. But a hope like that is thin, and it didn’t take long for it to desert me.

The next thing to go was my appreciation of the beautiful landscape surrounding me. I retreated into my own thoughts. My brother and I hadn’t spoken to each other for what seemed like an eternity. Early on the slide outs, scraping through trees, and obstacles in the trail meant a good laugh or curse or rueful commiseration. Halfway in, nothing could elicit even a curse born of some surprise showing up in the trail. Those, too, were endured in silence. There was nothing to say — we just needed to pedal.

Then even my thought-stream began to peter out. I abandoned the normal means of self-distraction: singing songs in my head, tinkering with future posts for this blog, imagining new companies I could build. Hell, even the criticisms and negative self-talk stopped! The voice that chatters near-constantly in the back of my mind 24/7 plum run out of things to say.

And through it all, I pedaled. That was the only thing that needed doing. As my legs went round, second, third, fourth, and even fifth winds hit me. Each blew through like I was a piece of wet Swiss cheese. I tried to remember movies where people find some deeper motivation, tap into it, and discover stores of energy they never knew about. They then easily montage their way to success.

It didn’t work for me. There was only pedaling. There had only ever been pedaling. There would only ever be pedaling.

That’s the true territory. Getting to that place where the only job is to move your feet in a circle, knowing you’ve done so 12,000 times and have another 12,000 to go. Being absolutely, positively exhausted, and being exactly halfway done. Feeling no emotion at that fact, because it wouldn’t change it. No clever mind, or quick wit, or derring-do would change it. Only patient forward progress.

All the while, I watched the pace and realized this ride, so confidently prognosticated to take only six hours from the comfort of my home, would require more like eight if I was lucky.

On the Other Side ✨

My sister-in-law took this picture as we pulled into the trailhead. The light of God no longer shines in my eyes.

What I Am Left With 🙇‍♂️

1. The Territory is Constantly Changing

There are thousands, if not millions, of people who could do that ride faster and easier than I did. They’re in better shape, have stronger biking skills, or both. But we can’t do things other people’s way. We are who we are, and the trail was what it was. The way we did it was the only way it could be done. And the next time we do it, it’ll be different. I will bring less gear, pick a warmer season, and be a more seasoned rider that knows what to expect. Hopefully, I’ll be stronger.

2. I Can’t Wait to do it Again

I really can’t! Even though my hands were so stiff by the end of the ride I couldn’t shift gears and could barely brake. Even though my 28-pound bike felt too heavy to lift into my truck. Even though my ass was too sore (even with padded shorts) to sit right for a week. It was worth it. Because I set a goal, and I did it. Because I have an idea of what to expect now, and how to handle it.

3. Grounding & Gratitude

On the 60-minute drive home, I sat in a state of near euphoria. The truck was warm, I finally got into dry clothes, and the endorphins coursed through me. I sat in the passenger seat of my truck and ate a beat-up apple I found at the bottom of my bag that tasted so fucking good I almost burst into tears. I got home and the sauna was hot. I sat in there until I was jelly then took a righteous shower and crawled into bed where I slept like a damn baby.

Nothing grounds and resets me like being physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. It quiets the petty struggles and blurs the distractions. I see that no matter how well we know the map, every single moment is a new casting of lots, its own venture into the territory of circumstance.

This is at the front of my mind as my sabbatical comes to a close next spring and I consider what’s next. I am collaborating with friends new and old. For the new ones, I need to help them understand the map and how we’d best like to traverse it. I need to prepare them for the road ahead, as best I understand it. For the old friends, I must work with them to not make new adventures too much like the ones we’ve already done, and barely survived. We, too, must have the courage to chart new courses across familiar ground.

1. It was expensive, but by modern bike standards it was actually very affordable. Some of these e-bikes and full suspension mountain bikes creep past $10,000! Many high-end road bikes cost as much as a car.

2. Well after this ride, I might add.

3. There’s a lot of ways to think about this concept. In Plato’s cave metaphor, people living in a cave think the shadows on the cave walls are reality, rather than a projection. Alan Watts used food to illustrate the point by advising not to confuse the menu with the meal.