On "turning your pedals in anger"

The first time I came across the phrase "turning your pedals in anger," I was struck by its beauty. It's so simple, so elegant, and so neatly links our most turbulent of emotions to the sport about which we feel so passionate.

I've only once had the pleasure of truly turning my pedals in anger. It happened in February of this year at an end-of-season cross race. Coming into the final lap, I had come to realize my positioning in the field was all but sealed. Barring a major crash in on my part or on the part of an unseen rider in front of me, I would finish in what turned out to be 21st place. I was coming off the final dismount portion of the course that led to the ascent to the finish. I was having trouble clipping my muddy cleat back into the slimy stomper at the end of my left crankarm when a Proteus rider passed me on the right. Almost immediately, I clipped in and let loose a deafening snarl I was previously unaware my body could produce. My legs surged with a violent electricity and I nipped the Proteus rider at the line. Each time I relived the final sprint over the next 48 hours, I felt the same charge of adrenaline course through my body.

In my 10 or so road races this spring, I've yet to recapture that same feeling. I wish I could channel it into a 40+ mph sprint at the finish line at every pack finish like Mark Cavendish, but that is unfortunately not in the cards. I know that our fair region is by no means devoid of pro-caliber sprinters and rouleurs who can put the hurt on the fittest continental pros. My question to you is this: how do you do it? Are your bodies just designed to ride a bicycle faster than the rest of us? Maybe you're better at ignoring the warning flares your bodies fire off as your extremities fill with lactose. Perhaps you're more the method actor types, channeling some misplaced rage from your childhood into your carbon cranks. In any case, it's something I've yet to add to my ready arsenal on the bike.

Listening to Leyendecker by Battles, hoping to learn to crush my pedals the way John Stanier crushes the drums.