A Day Off Work Spent Riding With the Boss

For most of us, a day off work means an opportunity to spend quality time with family and friends, tend to the mundane chores of life and if you’re a cyclist, go for a good ole ride. A day off also means not being at work, a break from one’s co-workers, management and owners. This separation between work and personal life, I believe, is important. Part of the “work/life balance” that is essential to finding happiness and fulfilment. That said, if we are happy at our jobs, we often make friends with our co-workers. But hanging out with the boss after hours, that’s a bit different. That’s where the line get blurry. Drinking coffee Saturday morning before meeting my employer, Anne, for a ride, I debated this topic with a couple of friends.

There is the argument that if you are hanging out with the boss, even on your day off, you are still “at work.” Your activities, attitude, behaviour etc will be judged by the boss as part of their overall picture of who you are, for better or worse. That means being on your best behaviour, acting as though you were still at work. Lame.

On the flip side, there are those who argue that since it’s your day off the boss should recognize this fact and allow you to express yourself the way you would if they weren’t around. It’s your day off, they should defer to you, an inversion of the power dynamic. Risky.

Finally I decided to stop thinking about it, to just take it as it comes, to enjoy the ride and see how things unfold.

Though we’d spoken about it several times, even made plans that we cancelled, this would be our first ride together. Anne has been riding a long time, she has many miles in those legs of hers. A couple years ago, she rode solo to San Francisco, averaging 250kms/150miles a day. She says she loves to climb, loves the suffering and often leaves her partner in the dust. Clearly, I was intrigued and looked forward to riding with such a seasoned cyclist.

Our plan was to ride Indian River FSR as far as we could before having to turn around, the road leading to Indian Arms Lake. I had attempted to find this road a few weeks ago, but made a wrong turn early on. Anne had once ridden to the summit of this road, so she knew where to go.

We made a wrong turn right away. After slowly climbing that mountain logging road for 45mins, it just ended, looking as though a massive land-slide had obscured the route many years ago. “No, this isn’t our road. I’ve been thinking that for a while” Anne announced in her quebecois accent. Laughing, we turned around, descending the steep sections cautiously on our rigid, 38c, drop-bar gravel bikes.

Finally we got on the correct road, ignoring the one I had taken by mistake a few weeks earlier. Then we climbed..and climbed..and climbed. For ninety minutes we plodded along, hardly talking, just trying to keep the pedals turning over the rocks, gravel, mud and water. Though my lower gearing allowed me to pull away from Anne on the worst sections, it was quickly evident she really is very strong, the type of cyclist who will just keep on riding, no matter what.

As the wind picked up, the temperature dropped and the rain began to fall, we got to a point we felt fairly certain was the summit of our climb. From there, the road descends ever so slightly all the way to Indian Arms Lake.(round trip is about 70kms) We wouldn’t be able to test that theory, however, since we’d finally arrived at the snow obscuring our way. Hiding from the wind, we ate a little snack, took a couple pictures, added a layer then began the descent back home. All in all, an excellent four hours spent exploring British Columbia’s maze of logging roads.

So, how did I feel riding with the boss, spending my day off at work? Honestly, it never entered my mind the entire ride. The moment we started pedalling, I was just on my bike, turning my legs, miles away in my own head. Rather than doing so alone, this time I had a riding partner. A riding partner I didn’t have to worry about, didn’t need to check on to see how she was doing.  Just someone to silently share the suffering and the glory of riding in the back-country.

Typically, I prefer to cycle by myself, especially on long rides. There really are just a few people I am willing to spend long hours riding with…or who can even do it. And while Anne may be the boss, it would appear that I just found myself one more of those select few I’ll ride distance with. It goes without saying that the more we ride together the more we’ll get to know each-other, both as cyclists and as people, less as employer or employee.

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