Epic MTB (and road) Riding
Going the Distance
Forgive me Father, for I've been a Roadie
It's true. I've fallen from grace. I'm obviously paying the price
for a severe karma deficiency. It's been so freakin' wet in Norcal, and
I got so tired of cleaning up my bike after the Cool race (where i sucked,
in case you didn't read about that yet), that the best epic ride I could
muster was a road ride. Oh, the ignominy! Oh, the heartbreak! Oh, the creeping,
leaping, suck-filled bowl of lemur food. Oh well, it's all there is. Check
out a real website if you want something
more interesting.
Cabin Fever
So there I was, turning slowly into a mushroom, bemoaning the wet, cold,
muddiness of it all, when inspiration (in the form of a fat friend of my
wife's, with 2 energetic toddlers) provided me the inspiration to get the
hell out of the house, even though it was raining. I hopped on my happy
bike and went for a short (2 hr) loop with some up, some down, and some
dirt road. It was pleasant until I realized my derailleur was maladjusted
so it skipped slightly in my lowest gear, which I discovered going up a
long, steep hill for which my lowest gear was mandatory. Then I flatted
on the downhill... Then the spare I put in had a hole (of course), since
I had forgotten to fix it, then I forgot that I forgot, at least until
I remembered that I forgot, by which time it was too late. There's nothing
quite as fun as stopping in the cold rain, near the top of a descent, to
fix a flat. I was cold enough at the bottom that i just stopped every 8
minutes and pumped my tire back up until I got home.
Famous Last Words
Saturday's ride left me feeling like I could handle some cold and wet (as
long as i had tubes without holes), so I prepared for a real adventure
on Sunday. The newspaper said a shower or two in the morning, then clearing,
so about noon I set off in sunshine to do a big fat loop up to Lake Sonoma,
then out Skaggs Springs/Stewart Point (SSSP) rd to the ocean, then somehow
back down the coast and back home. I even looked at the map, sort of cognitively
digested the fact that this loop was clearly 4 times the circumference
of Saturday's ride, but no alarms kicked in. I brought along my trusty
credit card, a PB&J sammich, and a bottle of power bar's new koolaid
substitute (scammed for free from bike shop employees who called it "power
barf"). I figured i could stop at a store on the way to get more snacky-cakes
to keep me going.
Defective decision-making skills are an important part of any epic ride,
and I'm happy to say that mine are no better than they were several years
ago when I took my poor wife on the 9 hr deathmarch from hell (link
to epic rides). I got up to Lake Sonoma, which took about 2 hours, then
I turned west, without having passed a single store on the way. SSSP road
is apparently one of the more vicious sections of the course for the Terrible
Two double century. It's also one of the most remote places I've been lately.
No stores, which means no food, which means trying to ride all day on one
sammich and some power barf (which actually was perfectly palatable to
me).
To make it even funner, I'm old and fat and weak right now, so the first
thing I had to do when I left the lake was climb up forever. After that,
it got steep, for some more ever. After that (about 2.5 hrs from home)
it started raining. Then it got steep some more, then it rained some more,
then it got steep some more, then it just started pouring cats and dogs,
with occasional bits of hail thrown in.
How do you Stop these Darn Things?
Eventually I got to go downhill, which brought up another important issue.
I got my road bike in 1992, and it still has the original brake pads on
it. After all that time (and being a road bike, after all), my ability
to slow down reliably was pretty suspect. I had some pretty entertaining
moments when I would clamp down hard on the brakes, then count about 5
seconds before I started gradually to slow down, while approaching slick
corners with precipices at high speeds. Eventually the downhill flattened
out, and the road followed some river for about the next 1436 miles. It's
actually quite a nice road, with lots of moss, rocks, trees, hills, streams,
waterfalls, slugs, gravel, potholes, washouts, slides and the occasional
cows (but no stores).
Da Bonk
Going down the hill, I started to get hungry, but I figured since I was
paralleling the river, that I would have a pretty easy ride out to the
ocean, where there was sure to be a store. ha! Just about the time I was
really getting ready to bonk (after 4 hrs or so of riding), the road turned
straight up for a couple miles. The river made a left turn, and seemed
to just amble merrily away, taking the easy route. I was getting weak enough
that i could hardly turn the pedals in some sections, but I had still had
enough energy to get quite indignant at one steep embankment that people
had apparently been dumping trash off for some years. It really pisses
me off to see litter, especially litter like refrigerators and washing
machines and couches. Then I crested the hill and came into the scariest
community I've ever been through. It was like being in Arkansas (if there
are any white-trash redneck bozos reading this, don't send me hate mail),
only wetter and colder. Every house was surrounded by trash and decrepit
cars. I figured I'd better get the hell out of there before some local
thought I looked alluringly like a squealy pig (picture the mountain man
in "Deliverance"). Luckily for me, the road out was a steep twisty wet
downhill, just the thing for a guy with barely any brakes who's bonking
so bad he's seeing spots.
I survived the downhill, only to face yet another uphill. What is with
road builders in Norcal? There's a perfectly good river canyon that the
road follows for 30 miles or so, then 7 miles before the coast -doh!- gotta
find some mountain ranges to cross. I was getting dizzy as I crested the
top and started down towards Hwy 1 (finally). I was in luck. Stewart's
point has a little gas station and general store that takes plastic money.
Since it was 5 o'clock (thinking about getting dark), and since i was at
least 3-4 hours riding time from home, I called my beautiful and brilliant
wife, and begged her to come pick me up. To avoid sitting still and dying
of hypothermia, I arranged to ride south on the hwy, and meet her whenever
and wherever I happened to be on her way up. Then I went to the general
store and got drinks, food, candy, food, drinks, coffee, and some candy,
and also some food. I ate ravenously, and got good and cooled off. Then
I set off down hwy 1 in the rain, into a headwind (wheeeee!).
Salvation
After an hour of abject misery, I finally came to my wife, and my truck,
and they stopped, and I got in and changed clothes, and got warm and all
was happy. About 5 minutes later it was completely dark, and also foggy,
so I'd probably be dead (or lost) if it had taken any longer.
Sorry I didn't ride my mountain bike, I promise to do better next month.
Back to
VeloSapiens Home
Hate this page? Too bad, make your own website, don't
email
me.