Who should analyze cycling narratives?

The cyclists are the ones riding the bikes, but there’s a lot more to cycling than riding. You have to know how to ride on a daily basis if you want to improve. This means an expertise in physiology. You also have to know what to eat or how to fuel your body, linking the domain of the nutritionist. The stress of training can take its toll on cyclists. They might need the help of a psychologist to improve stress management and visualization. However, as this blog has repeatedly demonstrated, the analysis of memories is not outside of the field of narratology because a memory known is a memory told. Telling and remembering are inextricably connected. So, whereas the coach would focus on the developing body as the indicator of performance and the nutritionist would focus on the processing of nutrients to produce energy, the narratologist analyzes the relationship between the act of remembering and the the memory. The act of remembering requires the construction of a narrative necessitating a narratological analysis. This sort of analysis would not overlap the realm of the psychologist because it is focused on the story itself. Sports psychology is more concerned with tactics for preventing or overcoming weakness, obviously not the domain of narratology. But psychology is not equipped to analyze something that is necessarily in narrative form. The narratological approach to athletic training does not contradict other methodologies; it simply adds another domain of study, another field of analysis. It is the aim of this blog to develop a training/coaching methodology that would emphasize narratological analysis as well as awareness of narratological elements in decision making.

Questions for Analyzing Memories

Questions for Analyzing Memories
With so much jargon and detailed analysis required to understand the narratology behind representations of cycling stories (live commentating, first-hand account, in person spectator, spectator watching on TV at home, etc.), what is an athlete actually supposed to do with the awareness of nuanced narratives? How can a coach or narratologist provide a cyclist with what she needs to know in order to use that knowledge in real situations? I have compiled a list of questions using a race as the example. I have attempted to put them in the most useful order possible. Any cyclist can ask herself these simple questions about her remembered experience. As long as memory is being remembered it is being told, so asking these questions will at least help to reveal trends and tendencies in how you tell about your memory.
Is the story told from the point of view of a cyclist in the race?
Does the story include information that a cyclist in the race could not know?
Does the story include the first-person pronoun “I”?
If so, is the “I” riding in a race or remembering riding in a race?
Is the story told in chronological order?
How many kilometers are not narrated?
Which kilometers are not narrated?
What events are not included in the story?
What events are included that were not a part of the race?
Did these events happen during the race?
Is the story realistic?
How? or how not?

Boring, Boring… Bicycles are boring

Cycling is a repetitive action. The same motion repeats over and over. Simply put, not a lot happens. You might even say it’s boring. So why ride? Or better yet, why race? As much as the repetitive activity of riding a bike seems boring, racing seems plain disappointing. There are so many more losers in a road race than in a baseball game where one team won and the other lost. So, while it might not be boring, racing definitely isn’t always fun. I suggest that instead of explaining it by saying “having fun while racing” one should say “having fun instead of racing”. If you’re having fun in the moment, you’re not trying to win a race (a goal which is unrelated to “fun”). Again the question: what’s the point then? If you’re not having any fun, then why are you doing it anyway? Simply put, what’s fun about racing is what’s fun about riding: the storytelling. Fun is the act of remembering what happened. Of course, disappointment can also be part of remembering. However, since a cyclist authors the story and the narrative can be told from the perspective of an extradiegetic narrator remembering the past, disappointing narratives are deemed so by recipients of the story. To whom is the story being told? How fun the race was is determined by how fun the race seems, an effect created by the narrative. This means that the story (not the experience itself) has to be interpreted in order to conclude whether the experience in the past was fun or not. This explains how a ride might seem anything but satisfying while it’s taking place, but when it’s recounted later, it is presented as a worthwhile accomplishment that incites envy and is definitely worth retelling again and again.

Romantic, Realistic and Existential Cycling Narratives

In an effort to emphasize the literarity of remembering, I would like to outline a likely development in the storytelling ability of a budding cyclist. A cyclist just starting out is likely to tell epic, flowery, idealized stories about her rides. These are likely rides where she popped completely and had to crawl home, but they are told as if she just could not put out the pace anymore because of the brutality of the course, weather, pain, etc. This is the romantic period of remembering cycling. At this point the cyclist is in love with the idea of riding. She tells stories that make her rides resemble parcours in early twentieth century France. However, in order to improve, her stories have to start being more critical of the ride, and specifically of her own performance. A cyclist who wants to improve cannot simply remember in a way that is satisfying and comfortable. A different kind of story is required if you want to keep improving; one that does not build up the performance but tears it down, attempting to show the harshness of the “reality” of what happened. This is the realistic period of remembering cycling. These narratives emphasize factors that were previously overlooked, like mistakes for example. But a purely critical narrative has its limits as well. A cyclist trying to improve is a fragile thing, and being overly critical without fueling motivation is not likely to have desirable long-term results. By becoming more accustomed to the act of recounting what happened, a cyclist can improve her ability to discern between what events on a ride need to be told one way and what events need to be told differently. This awareness of the control one has over how the past is experienced in the present leads to a more refined period in the telling of cycling stories: the existential period of remembering cycling. It is characterized by intention on the part of the remembering cyclist. Memories are told in a purposeful way in order to influence certain reactions. Stories are no longer idealized, nor are they painfully “true”. They are useful. This should be the goal of all cyclists: to develop the necessary awareness to remember in such a way that accomplishes goals.

Tell the story well rather than correctly

The story of what happened should only ever help cyclist improve, meaning the events need to be recounted in an encouraging way. If you came in last, it might be hard to tell the story so that it motivates you to improve. Somehow a cyclist must balance staying optimistic about improving with being painfully blunt about performance. It does no good to simply say that the performance was unsatisfactory. The subtleties of the narrative have to be constructed in such a way that they allow the cyclist to use the past to continue working hard in the future; this is true even for a last place finish. There is no lying about what happened since the entire story is a fabrication. There is also no exaggeration because the actuality is impossible to reconstitute when remembering. So, tell the story well rather than correctly. But don’t be lazy about how you tell it. A cyclist who concludes that a ride was a disaster and that in order to move past it she must forget about it will only be plagued by the story she is not telling. Instead of a “face the facts” attitude that implies ignoring the truth, I suggest a “tell the story” approach. Remembering is storytelling and stories have no intrinsic effect on real audiences because the story of what happened on a ride has to be interpreted. One should not be afraid to remember what is negative. One should never be afraid of encountering his own story. This means that telling the story can always be a useful activity because it does not necessitate certain responses. As a cyclist creates the narrative of what happened, there is always the possibility of tweaking certain details that might lead to valuable recognition of weaknesses.

Diegetic Levels of Perspective

On the subject of perspective, one in particular might prove to be especially beneficial to cyclists: the extradiegetic perspective. Assuming that everything that happens in a story is ontologically irreconcilable with the act of telling the story (narrating is necessarily distinguished from experiencing), the participants in the story would be at the diegetic level and the act of narrating would be at the extra-diegetic level. This is why as a cyclist remembers/tells what happened she distinguishes herself from the cyclist in the story. Telling is always one level removed from the action. A diegetic perspective could be “internal” and focus on the point of view of a certain character, or it could be “external”, emphasizing instead the impossibility of diegetic point of view. However, an extra-diegetic perspective presents an ontologically possible point of view and focalization. Such a perspective would be told from the point of view of the narrator (who is looking back or remembering). It would also be focalized on the narrator allowing the story to include subsequently acquired information. So, in the story of a race, the perspective of you remembering is potentially the most useful perspective to adopt because it emphasizes the fact that you are remembering now even though the events happened then.

Perspective and the Act of Remembering Cycling Experiences

By the term perspective, we again mean the perceptual experience and the degree of knowledge the narrative reveals. Regarding the combination of point of view and focalization respectively, a cyclist needs to be aware of two distinct modes when remembering what happened: that of the cyclist experiencing the events (je-narré) and that of the cyclist doing the remembering (je-narrant). Is the narrative told from a perspective that emphasizes the quick decision making required in the moment? Or does it focus on the retrospective aspect of remembering? Does it narrate the experience of encountering the memory of what happened? In order to narrate from the perspective of the experiencing cyclist you do not have to pretend to be the cyclist in the story, since you are the one remembering. The cyclist remembering is not the narrator (extra-diegetic), so she is definitely not the character (diegetic). Like the author, the narrator is also free to distinguish himself from the cyclist experiencing the events. The story of a ride can be narrated from the perspective of the experiencing-I while being narrated from the perspective of the narrating-I. For example: “I looked ahead and the hill didn’t seem so big, and my legs felt great. I didn’t have any idea how wrong I was.” The “I” in this excerpt is not the extra-diegetic narrator. It is the experiencing-I that is looking ahead. It is the “I” who underestimated the difficulty of the hill and overestimated the sensations in his legs. The focalization, however, is on the narrating-I. This is clear by the distinction made in the excerpt between the knowledge of the narrating-I and the misguided conclusions of the experiencing-I. In conclusions, let’s look at some combinations:

 

Diegetic point of view and diegetic focalization

“A hill. Not so big. My legs feel great. But I don’t know.”

 

Diegetic point of view and extra-diegetic focalization

“Looking ahead, the hill didn’t seem too tough as I considered the awesome feeling in my legs. I didn’t have any idea how wrong I was.”

 

Extra-diegetic point of view and diegetic focalization

“I remember seeing the hill that I died on. I miscalculated my fatigue. But in the moment I didn’t know my legs were shot.”

 

Extra-diegetic point of view and extra-diegetic focalization

“I must have thought there was more left in my tank at that hill. That was where I messed up.”

Focalization and Point of View in Cycling Stories

The perspective from which a story is told plays a big role in how the narrative can be analyzed. First, we need to distinguish between two similar yet distinctly different aspects of the perspective of the narrative: focalization and point of view. Whereas focalization refers to a restriction of information, point of view refers to a restriction of perception. In other words, if a cycling narrative mentions “current” data that was displayed on a cycling computer during a ride, the narrative is focalized on the cyclist looking down at the computer because that information would not be available to other riders. However, if the story emphasizes the looking at the computer, that is to say the visual experience of seeing the numbers instead of the knowledge provided by those numbers, the narrative has a point of view. For example, if the story is told from the point of view of a spectator at a criterium, it might not include everything in the race because the pack might be out of sight for part of the course. The same race recounted from the point of view of a cyclist might highlight the smaller details of who swerved when and how hard the field had to break for such and such corner. Likewise, a story focalized on the spectator might include time gaps (something that is difficult for cyclist in the race to ascertain) but it is not likely to include speed (something of which the riders are more or less constantly aware). These opposing examples raise another possibility for focalization. If you have seen the Tour de France, you are familiar with the “helicopter shot”. From the point of view 50 meters in the air, there might not be any focalization, at least not in the sense of “real” characters (that is characters in the story). But such a narrative can still be focalized on a number of ideal or hypothetical (theoretical) narrative actants. The story told from the bird’s eye view perspective might be focalized on a coach or an announcer which means it might include expert knowledge that a spectator would not likely know. It might include a combination or multiplicity of focalization (a spectator, a cyclist and Bob Roll for example). One can even imagine a story told from the helicopter perspective but focalized on a cyclist who has ridden the race in the past or who frequently trains or races with other riders in the race. It is clear with such an example that there needs to be a distinction between point of view (related to perception) and focalization (related to knowledge or information) in order to carefully develop valuably informative narratives.

The Argument for Qualitative Data

Sometimes in road racing, the final results are determined by a factor which is indecipherable. If you consult the line graph of your power output, it will only tell you the effects of this unknown factor. Quantitative data only proves consequences; it does not reveal factors. One has to decide what and how to research before gathering empirical evidence. But even after it has been collected through a consistent method which eliminates all possible variables, quantitative data still needs to be explained. It needs to be interpreted. This obviously happens with power meters and heart rate monitors, but it is also the case with something as simple as race results. As the most obvious quantifiable number in road racing, it is best to start with the analysis of race results. I have already alluded to the different possible stories one could tell about a second place finish in a bicycle race. So, I would prefer to focus on the accumulation of race results and the stories cyclists tell to explain them. After never having been present at the end of a race, a top 10 finish can be reported as a kind of success. However, it is unlikely that several top 10 finishes would also be called a good result. If a cyclist tells about one race in such a way that it resembles another race, she might assume that the “kind” of race is a constant, a fact that would permit her to compare race results from more than one event. Such an analysis could conclude that she has not improved because her final place has remained the same. Even if that is the case, a general conclusion such as this may have wide reaching effects. There could evidently be more factors that are being overlooked when deciding the degree of similarity from one race to another. A conclusion that is based on qualitative data of the different races needs to be more mindful of how the story that explains the race results is constructed. There is no argument about the value of the cold hard facts when it comes to athletic performance, but the facts always require contextualization. That’s where the narrative comes in because you can include these numbers as details in the story, adding value to the available data.

Resituating the Narratee in the Effort

So, if there is no objective account of what happened in a bicycle race and remembering is a project that involves telling stories, what kinds of effects does this have on the interpretation of data and the analysis of information? Cycling depends on data analysis. A time trial is really just one piece of data: the time. But anyone who has ever ridden a time trial knows that there is much more to what happened than the average speed and the time at which the clock was stopped. The narrative of a time trial is likely to be much more than the simple story of looking at the speedometer. The discipline is not by any means void of decision making. Power numbers and heart-rate readings are only part of the story. They cannot elucidate the mental aspects of what happened. However, narratives are no different. They are also incapable of recreating mental functions because telling stories is always just that and nothing else. The act of remembering is the act of telling, and both are isolated from the reality of what happened. The difficulty in training is attempting to resituate yourself where you were during the effort. The contextualization of the experience of riding your bicycle has everything to do with story-telling practices and techniques. By taking into account the textual audience (the narratee), a cyclist can more effectively represent the decision demanding situation faced during the ride in narrative form. Narratives of the past can only create the effect of a situation, since the “real” situation (that of telling/remembering) is happening after the remembered events.  This is not, however, problematic when remembering because the real situation that did exist at one time is no more. So, the reality of remembering is that the verisimilitude of the memory is actually a narrative effect. Memories of rides are colored and elaborated upon as they are told not as they were experienced. The details are not simply there for the cyclist remembering to mention or not. They must be created which means the author of the memory must remain skeptical of the story because it is not the previously lived experience. Memories are always new, allowing for infinite modifications to the story and in effect the analysis of something as dependent on quantitative data as a time trial.