Justine Clift

I Became a Bike Racer

By InnerVoice

August 11^th, 2017

The Accident made the decision for me

Pursuing this path into elite cycling was never my goal. I was a varsity runner at UBC, and post-graduation I had ambitions to transition into triathlon.

One summer morning, those dreams were shattered by a careless driver. I was cycling to work, six weeks into my first engineering job, when a car turned left into me. The impact threw me from my bike, ruptured my achilles tendon, and fractured my ankle in two places.

The accident made the decision for me. I could no longer run competitively, and as I began rehab and sought to fill the absence of high-level competitive sport from my life, I found cycling. I competed in my first local bike race 2 years after the car accident, and was overwhelmed. Racing both terrified and excited me. The rush of the peloton, the burn in my legs when pushing up a climb, the jittery post-race exhaustion – I loved it. The near misses, the speed wobble on fast descents, the cobbled crit corners – it scared me.

Results came quickly at the novice level, and as I moved up into the elite category, I kept pushing. I rediscovered the joy, not only in achieving and surpassing my goals, but in belonging to an incredible community of athletes. Rainy four hour rides in just-above freezing temperatures left me exhausted and giddy with a sense of accomplishment I had missed. Bonds formed in frozen fingertips, road trips to forgotten towns, and shared pre-race vulnerabilities filled me as much as every podium I stood on.

Growing up, success in my pursuits correlated with the level of effort I put in. In the wake of my accident, where everything felt out of my control, cycling filled the void of trauma and depression I found myself trapped in. Though hard to admit, I had built much of my self-worth on my success. Because of this, my need to achieve outweighed the costs of my initial fear. With exposure to higher levels of racing, I began to normalize the risks of the sport I was growing to love. What used to be anxiety-ridden pre-race nights morphed into (mostly)-manageable nerves.

I started to believe I could compete at the highest levels – I raced to explore the pain of pushing myself, to find just a little bit more when I was at my limit. I learned to thrive while making high-pressure, tactical decisions, and I found fulfillment in leading my teammates. My life followed the routine of train, race, recover, as I fit my off-the bike career into the spaces in between.

Over time I became who I was when I was racing: I controlled my fear, I channeled my on-bike focus. Success bled into other areas of my life.

Bike racing wasn’t just something I did - I became a bike racer.

my bike family

This spring I met the women I call my ‘bike family’ in Sussex, New Brunswick to celebrate the life of Ellen Watters – a teammate and friend who was killed last winter after being hit from behind on a training ride. The women I train and compete with are more than teammates, they’ve become sisters who have held me up through the triumphs and tragedies of the sport. Training, racing, and travelling together – you get close fast. We celebrate our successes, of course, but we’re also front and centre for every crushing disappointment. For every podium, breakthrough or best power number – there are countless crashes, illnesses, mechanicals, or DNFs. Losing Ellen has left a hole in our family that we are still coming to terms with. Every day we feel her absence in our community, and we’re made aware of how much she held us together. As we move through this difficult time, each one of us has stepped up to support the others, just as Ellen would have.

Lingering injuries delayed my season last year, and kept me from racing this season. I started to get frantic – knowing I had more to accomplish. More to prove. The only thing that kept me sane was having my team fully behind me – even if I wasn’t pulling them up a climb or to a sprint finish – they supported my decision to make recovery my priority. Though this year’s kit has never been raced in, I have never felt less a part this team.

Ellen was among the women I could call in the middle of the night when I didn’t know how to move forward. Her and the others knew my story, because they had shared so much of it. Though some have moved on to different teams, and we don’t always wear the same jerseys, Ellen’s loss reminds us that we are in this for one another. It’s hard to imagine sharing this journey through sport with anyone else.

"I can wake up everyday and ask ‘how can I be better?’ I wasn’t born an athlete, but day-by- day I learned to train, to get the most out of myself. In the process I became one. This approach applies to anything I pursue."

the process of letting go

My last race was September 5, 2016, the last race on the calendar for the season and the conclusion of a 4-race series. I didn’t suspect it would be my last race in a long time. In the final kilometre, halfway through a corner, the wheel I was following went down. I followed close behind; super-manning into the pavement at 50km/hr. It wasn’t the catastrophic crash that dominates my anxieties, but I didn’t get up right away, waiting in the fetal position for an all-clear from medical staff. What I didn’t know then was that this second bad wreck in 13 months would necessitate a recovery exceeding the 6+month saga of concussion and complex whiplash rehab that I’d just undertaken. Eleven months out from that crash, I’m still looking for answers. Still finding my way back to a place of health, where consistent training might be a possibility. This year has been a process of letting go of what I want, and accepting where I’m at. I am trying to be kinder to myself, to have compassion for my own story. That’s not so much giving up- as accepting reality.

Unable to race, I taken on a support role for my team this season. Filling bottles, working in the feed zone, and babysitting our director’s two little ones are some of the jobs that get the team to the start line, prepared to compete. It’s the volunteers behind the scenes that make the sport feasible for many, and I am now just beginning to appreciate the toll that long race days take on team staff as well as riders.

"Ultimately, I can’t sustain the rigors of training and racing at this level right now. The harsh reality that I’m slowly coming to terms with, is that I can commit, give everything I have, and still fall far short of my goals. Failing hurts, it’s messy, and it’s an experience that is not often shared publicly."

'Be Here now'

The screech of brakes on carbon rims, of bikes bouncing all over the road, and women screaming as they pile up is a sound that I will never get out of my head. Every crash sounds the same, I don’t need to look, and if I’m lucky I’ll have gotten through. To remain safe in the bunch I need to shut off any concern for my teammates and fellow competitors and refocus on my race. If I let myself register that something horrible may have happened, my day is over. There’s no room for doubt when you’re shoulder-to-shoulder with 100 women, all fighting for the same space on the road.

I have never feared the likely results of a crash. Broken bones and road rash, while inconvenient, have never been a real deterrent to racing. My love of the sport has far exceeded the risk of a few scars. What haunts me is the deeper fear – an inarticulate darkness. The what-if, worst case scenario. It’s the loss of who I am as a person. It’s the loss of connection. It’s the loss of all other aspirations beyond sport. It’s death.

These are not irrational fears. Permanent injuries happen. People die in this sport.

The first time I saw someone airlifted from a race, I stayed removed. I told myself stories about what it took to be a professional in this sport while scouring the internet for updates on her brain injury. The next time it happened, the stories I told myself couldn’t mask the reality that racing could have catastrophic outcomes beyond my control. These are fears I have had to work through and acknowledge in order to compete.

After my first concussion in 2015, I wrote my partner my what-if letter through tears. To be opened only if that unlikely worst-case scenario came to pass.

When I can’t shut out my fear, I use key words written on my stem to bring me back to what I’m there to do: ‘Be Here Now’ prompts me to stay present, to leave the close call behind me. ‘Belong’ inspires me to compete for the front of the race. For the win.

The dominant narratives of endurance sport tell me that I should ‘never give up’, that I should work hard and earn my success. What these stories fall short of capturing is the luck, the split-second, life-changing moments that see one competitor rise to the top, while others step back, or worse, are unable to continue. Putting in the work, managing the pain, eliminating distractions are all a given to compete at this level – and all that guarantees is a place on the start line.

"Giving up control and putting my trust in others has been among the most significant outcomes of my time in cycling. There’s an abundance of humility to be found in showing up in a strange city after a delayed flight and waiting for your host family to drive you to their home in the middle of the night."

i've become numb

After my accident in 2010, I have always struggled with feeling like I am in control, that I’m not completely exposed and vulnerable out on the roads. Ellen’s death has been the crux of an accumulation losses, many close to home, and some farther removed. There are always stories of cyclists seriously or fatally injured training and racing, but this year has been especially bad. The cycling community is close-knit and if I don’t know the person, I know their friends or their teammates. For me there’s no longer separation between their safety and my own. I ride in a state of vigilance, bracing myself when I hear a car come up behind me, waiting for impact.

Watching the media that accompanies these stories, it’s hard not to lose focus on the lives that are lost.There is a steady stream of tributes, but often the individual tragedies are forgotten. The news cycle ends and the conversation moves on. I’ve found myself unable to move on this year. I’ve become numb, unable to grieve fully for each person, yet unable to let each death go. Each victim is as vital, as full of promise as the last one.

I can’t hurt for all of them, and I dread how many more cyclists I will have to grieve. I needed to put all this pain into something tangible, and have been working with the BC Cycling Coalition to raise awareness and improve laws protecting vulnerable road users in the province.

Among these would be a Safer Passing Law, also known as “Ellen’s Law” after the one that passed in NB this winter, which specifies that vehicles must leave 1.5 metres when passing.

There's a time and a place for balance

I have always balanced multiple responsibilities- first as a student-athlete and then later a career and a 50 race-day a year cycling ‘hobby’. I have always been able to manage many different commitments and goals. As a developing athlete this served me well, yet looking back I wish I’d been able to say ‘no, this is too much’ sooner. I wish I had risked more to pursue my goals when I had the opportunity, instead of trying to get the absolute most out of aspect of my life. There’s a time and a place for balance, but it’s not when you’re trying to compete against the best.

My partner Theo is an elite runner, and with us both pursuing athletic ambitions and careers, our schedules often don’t align during race season. We will alternate weekends at home, or be gone for weeks at a time as we pursue race days and training opportunities. It is not an ideal way to share a home or build a life together. Yet we share a commitment to getting the best out of ourselves, exploring our limits and pushing to be better. It is a choice we make deliberately and consciously, to chase our own dreams, together.

I will not accept that this is the end

I am working hard to get healthy, and for the first time in my adult life, I am not sure if there is another athletic goal ahead for me. I am still not accepting the end, the tears that keep flowing tell me that much. I’m grieving the loss of bike racing in my life, and exploring my identity as a bike racer— I feel like I’ve been left outside of the sport looking in, not sure where I stand— and not yet convinced if I am stepping back to move on, or to come back stronger.