Boo-boos

With my confidence flying high after last weekend's 200K, I was looking forward to another flat and fast 125 miles from SF to Point Reyes, which is... north somewhere. A 7:00 start, between 6 and 7 quick hours in the saddle, and I'd be back in SF in time for a late lunch. I found parking near the Golden Gate Bridge at 6:30 and started getting ready. This race hadn't even provided parking suggestions, so I knew better than to hope for a bathroom after last week's fiasco. I took advantage of the fact that the sun wasn't up yet to duck behind a leafy tree and eliminate. Since the urge struck me right at that exact second, I did something I have never done before in my life and... went number 2 without a toilet. I'm sure those of you who have been reading since the days of Claire's No. 1 Rule of Public Pooping: Don't will be amused to know: Does a Claire shit in the woods? Answer: If she needs to.

There was no missing the clot of about 150 riders sitting at the base of the bridge. Registration had been closed when I tried to register on Thursday, but I didn't really care. I went to the guy handing out the brevet cards and said, "I wasn't able to register and I don't really care about the card, but I fully plan to take advantage of any food at rest stops, so why don't I pay the fee anyway?"

He looked confused for a second and said, "Keep your money, you're going to need it."

The reason for his confusion became clear as I made out some of the words that the guy was announcing at the center of the crowd. "...water at check points... only enough for everyone to have one bottle... enough to get you out of the state park... receipt is your signature, so buy something... not gonna be repaved anytime soon... know from personal experience, it hurts!"

I hopped right in with the front group before we had even cleared the bridge, and concentrated on keeping up with the big boys through the endless stop signs of Sausalito and surrounding towns. I knew the first 20 miles or so of road, but soon we were out on the open road and I was in new territory. Contrary to what MapMyRide's all yellow (less than 4% grade) elevation profile had led me to believe, the route was not flat. Instead, there were endless rollers that would climb at a 5-15% grade for about a mile or so, and then come back down, which I suppose would average out to look like a 2% grade over 125 miles. From the ground though, it was draining me dry. My muscles were sore and aching, and despite my best efforts to catch up on my hydration last night and this morning, I felt like I was playing catch-up on my water and food right from the very beginning. I had trained a lot this week, and was feeling it.

Point Reyes National Park was marshland meets cow pasture, with ever-steeper rollers and never-ending cow-catchers at the bottom of each hill. I was really beginning to feel shitty, and when we hit the final climb up to the first checkpoint (a hill that I estimate started at about a 15% grade), I was FRIED. I realized too late that I was already over the red line, and had no lower gear to shift into. I thought for long minutes that at any second I was going to have to get off my bike. At the checkpoint they weren't kidding about the one-bottle policy, and I was starting to get a bit worried about my hydration.

I decided that there was no way I was staying with those guys, and I would rather just pedal along at my own pace until I found someone else to lead me through the route (I had no cue sheet again) rather than try to keep up with the lead group. Eventually a tall Latvian who sounded a bit like Boris and Natasha fell back and we began riding together in our mutual half-bonk to the next checkpoint at mile 85. I was feeling terrible and I was sure that if I didn't get my hands on some salt soon, things were going to get pretty nasty.

The rest stop was an oyster-bar-in-the-rough/convenience store, and there was more of a selection of beers than there was nonalcoholic fluids. There was no Gatorade. I bought an Odwalla, 2 Pepsis (probably the first colas I've had in several years), and a giant jug of water. I planned to slam the juice and sodas, and then fill my bottles with water, but no sooner had I finished the juice and cracked the first Pepsi, when Boris and another guy that we'd picked up in the line for the cash register said, "If we leave in the next minute we can still make it in under 8 hours!" I filled up my bottles and ditched the water jug for the next group of riders and went outside. I started fiddling with the zippers to pull my sleeves off my jacket, and I heard, "Go! Go! Go!" I looked up and Boris and Natasha were already 10 seconds up the road. That's when I did something stupid.

(Word of advice: Never do a Google image search of 'bike crash.') Normally I would have moved my bike up into the street and out of the gutter more, but I threw my leg over my bike where it stood, clipped in with one leg, and pushed off with my free leg. As I began to roll I realized: 1. That I was riding right on the edge of a drainage ditch that dropped off 8" to the side of the road; 2. That I was in too hard a gear to get the pedal all the way around and build up enough speed to be able to maneuver my bike so close to the danger of the ditch; 3. There was one of those sandwich board-style signs right in my path. It said "CRAB" but I thought it said "CARB." That was the last thing I thought before I made that noise that my mother makes when she trips on something and came down on my elbow.

This was my karma for all those times I was unsympathetic to people who couldn't get clipped out in time.

I have no idea what hit what, because a millisecond before I hit the pavement, the nose of my saddle rammed so hard into my hoo-ha that I didn't even feel my elbow hit. Without getting into too much detail, it hit "downtown," right over the pubic bone where your weight sits when you ride. For a second, I sat there on the pavement looking at all my M&M's and gum drops on the pavement around the upturned sign. A group of Team in Training riders rode by and asked if I was okay. I continued to sit. It needed to stop hurting so much before I could move. "I'm... composing myself," I told them so they would leave me alone to my blinding crotch pain.

When I got back on my bike, it was really painful. It was like I had a really bad bruise... if you can bruise on your cho-cho. Later, when I finally did get to take my shorts off, there was blood everywhere, and not for the same reason as last week. Without getting into too much detail, it seems that the pressure caused the skin to just... rupture.

I didn't notice my top tube for another 5 miles. At first it didn't register. I thought, Huh, that's funny. When did I chip more paint off my frame? Other than my painful no-no place, I had already completely forgotten about falling. It didn't even occur to me at first that it could have happened in the crash. Slowly it dawned on my foggy brain, What if it's a crack? Cool, then I'll get a new frame. Wait... but to get a new frame it has to be manufacturer's defect. What if I broke it in the crash? But I was only going half a mile per hour, and I didn't even fall hard enough to get dirt on my elbow. I checked the face of my Garmin, which I knew had hit the ground because it was stopped when I got up. The Garmin wasn't cracked or even scratched. It was too far back on the frame to be from my handlebars. Was it the sign? No, but I hit the sign on the other side, right? I couldn't remember.

Boris and Natasha stopped to exchange electrolyte pills and I checked out my bike. The scratch went all the way down the side of the top tube, and underneath I could see carbon fibers sticking out. "Fuck you guys, I think I cracked my frame."

We inspected it, and after ascertaining that there was no crack in the down tube, Boris produced a roll of duct tape. "Are you serious? Who rides with duct tape?" I asked.

"Duct tape is great for everything, even if you get injured," said Natasha. "I have some too." We reinforced my $3000 frame with some $3 duct tape and I prayed that it would get me the remaining 40 miles home. As we rode, I started to come back from my bonk, but I was despondent. I felt like I was in that turning point in Million Dollar Baby where it goes from being a happy movie to a very, very sad movie. All those rides I'd taken on this bike, and now best case scenario I'd have to give the whole frame back to Specialized to get a new one. Worst case: I was going to have to come up with money for a whole new bike. What would I do without a bike until I could afford one? And all this because these guys couldn't wait 5 extra seconds for me to mount my bike. I was getting grouchy. Really, really, really grouchy.

And I was nervous. We still had the biggest hills and the biggest descents coming up. It hurt to sit, but I didn't want to stand and tax my frame either. I tried to sit up and spin up hills with a light hold on my handlebars to keep from torquing the frame, but on the descents there wasn't much I could do. You put a lot of torque on the frame when cornering, and I kept imagining my bike snapping in half if I hit a pothole on a long, poorly paved downhill.

Coming up the final steep hill out of Sausalito and up to the Golden Gate Bridge again, we came across another rider in a Landry's jersey. Landry's. I know Landry's. Is that in Boston or San Francisco? I couldn't remember for the life of me. "Are you from Boston?" I asked.

"No, but I ride there a lot. I do the Pan Mass Challenge every year. Have you ever done the Pan Mass?" I didn't want to talk to him, I just wanted to know if my brain was working right. "This year my brother's trying to put me up to doing the whole thing, all the way from the New York border. Over 200 miles over 3 days."

I'd been here before. My whole rivalry with Big Red had started over how much more badass the AIDS LifeCycle was than the Pan Mass, and here I was signed up for the LifeCycle again and having the same damned conversation. I had been thinking about how my broken bike must be some cosmic way of telling me not to be so arrogant, but right now I wanted to punch this guy in the forehead. Instead I said, "Alright, have a good day," and dropped him. Or so I thought. It turns out he drafted me the whole way up the hill. Fucker.

I was so irritable at this point that I was sure that I would throw somebody off the bridge if they got in my way, but I made it across with relatively little effort. I eyed the potato chips and pretzels at the end, but I just wanted this day to be over. I went back to my car, parked illegally at a burrito place on the way home so I wouldn't have to walk more than was absolutely necessary, shoved the burrito in my face as I drove (getting cheese and sour cream on the steering whee)l, got home, took a shower, put my legs up the wall, and went to sleep. I still had to run a long way tomorrow.