Cyclist Interruptus

I've been having bad luck with my long rides lately. It just seems that every time I try to do a long ride, something happens and my willpower is to squishy to deal with it. First, there was the day of the many flats when I missed the last control point and was listed as a DNF. Then there was the rainy day when I drove all the way to Santa Rosa before dawn only to find that I had a slow leak and decided not to risk it. Then there was the day when I found myself alone with the most confusing part of the ride ahead of me. This weekend I decided that if I wanted something done right, then I was going to have to do it myself -- or by myself.

The first double century of the California Triple Crown is on April 30, and it's got tons of climbing. So I not only had to ride long, but I was also going to have to ride long over hills. So I designed a punishing 170-mile ride that left out my front door, rode 80 miles south, and then turned around into the mountains to come home. For the most part, they were roads I'd ridden before and they were nearly all numbered country highways, so I thought I was safe, right?

Right?

Right?!

I rolled out the door at 7:18, only about 18 minutes after my projected leaving time and headed off into the world. Only about 9 miles into the world, I was riding along happily on my highway when suddenly I found myself on a freeway on-ramp. I didn't even realize I was headed for the freeway until I was already on it! I slammed on the brakes and tried to figure out what had happened, then I backtracked. There was a bike path that I could see only a few feet away to my right, but there was a barbed wire fence in between me and it. I rolled back until I found a spot where the top wire was torn, then I hiked my bike over the fence, through a bog, and onto the bike path. An old couple out for their morning walk looked at me like I was swamp thing emerging from the murk.

Eventually I found my way to where I needed to be and rode on for a few more miles until I found... a detour. Goddammit motherfucker! I thought as I rolled down a steep hill and then back up the other side. This detour went on for about 10 miles. How far off course was I riding? It was pretty, but 'pretty' wasn't what I was after. I wanted simple and flat at this point in the ride, since I was going to have to ride back over these roads in the first few miles home when I would be blind and foggy with fatigue. Eventually, though, I got back on track and I zipped along in wonder at how good my body felt. Then I realized that I'd only gone about 30 miles. Of course my body felt good now!

At mile 50 I hooked up with Highway 1, the coastal highway that has been thrice bad luck for me in the past. Back in college, this was the stretch of road where I used to yell at the wind, but I was going south, so the wind was at my back and I enjoyed effortless supra-20mph speeds. I'm so glad that I'm not riding north on the coast so that this wind can't come back and bite me in the ass, I thought and rolled along merrily. I thought I'd outsmarted the wind. You never outsmart the wind.

The hills started at mile 80 when the elevation goes from 60' to 2500' in 8 miles as you climb up from the beach into the Santa Cruz mountains. Since these roads were just behind the UCSC campus, I had glossed over the particulars of the route on the cue sheet (that was written in Sharpie on my arm). These roads were my old stomping grounds... sorta. I mean I'd been there once or twice. Then I reached a fork in the road. Pine Flat Rd or Bonny Doon Rd? They both sounded familiar. I tried to check the map on my phone, but I had no reception (reception would be the problem again and again on my ride as I rode farther and farther into the sticks). A man was walking down the road toward me, "Which one of these goes to Empire Grade?" I asked.

"Es lo mismo," he said, making a big circle with his hands to indicate that the roads came back together.

I switched to Spanish. "Well then which one is less steep?" I asked. He shrugged and pointed at Pine Flat road. "Gracias," I said. "Que vaya bien" (have a good one).

"You're welcome," he said in English. That pisses me off. You ask a question in Engish and someone responds in Spanish. So I assume, alright, this guy's not comfortable speaking English. I speak Spanish. This is fine. Let's communicate. Then they clam up and refuse to speak Spanish and respond in English. WTF is that all about. You started it! I would have liked to ask him which one was shorter, which one spit me out further north, and was he sure, but he didn't seem to want to talk to me. Instead I stopped at every bus stop along the way to make sure that he hadn't given me wrong directions. And in case you're wondering, Pine Flats road is not flat.

When I got to the top I made a right on a road that I'd forgotten about and hated with every fiber of my being. It's a twisting, narrow, one-lane back road through the woods that is so steep that I couldn't stop my bike even if I needed to. In some 3 miles it drops almost 2000'. As I descended every muscle from my wrists to my shoulders and down my back to my hips ached from pulling on the brake levers and shivering like mad as the wind cut through my sweat-soaked clothes. The climb up from the beach had been sunny, but now that I was under the redwood canopy, it was pretty damned cold today come to think of it. I fucking hate that road.

Now I was riding through the giant redwoods and sequoias in Big Basin state park on a 15-mile loop. In a well-intentioned but misinformed attempt to see more scenery, I turned off the main highway and took a back road. While this road was "paved," the neglected asphalt was about half way through its transformation to gravel with squishy, wet blobs of old pine needle pulp covering half the "road." Even when I crested the climb and started coming back down the other side, I had to slow down to zigzag my way over the real pavement and pray that there was nothing sharp hidden in the shadows. I was beginning to see that even though I can usually polish off 220 miles (50 miles more than my route today) in the 12 hours of daylight that I had, time was still going to be an issue today. If you were looking at my speed profile, the downhills were barely distinguishable from the uphills. At 120 miles into the ride, I could feel that I was right on the edge of losing it. But luckily, I only had a few more uphill miles and then it would be a long, gradual downhill home.

Right?

Right?!

When I turned out of Big Basin, I saw that I only had 6 miles left on Highway 9 before I turned onto 35. I knew that the intersection of Hwy 9 & 35 was the summit of the ridge, and then there was nowhere to go but down. Right? Six miles seemed like nothing, until I looked down at my watch and saw that I was riding along at about 6 mph. At this rate I'd never get there! Somewhere in there I started to crack. Just 6 miles, and then another mile or 2 on Skyline (Hwy 35), and then it's down, down, down to go home, I kept telling myself. I tried to hold it together.

Then I turned onto Skyline. Skyline is not named because you can see the San Francisco skyline, it's called "Skyline" because you're riding along the spot where the land meets the sky. I'd thought I'd dodged a bullet by not riding back north along the coast, but what I'd neglected to think about was that if there's one place that's windier than the coast, it's when you're the tallest thing around. I was met with an icy full-faced headwind that felt like it was in the high teens to low twenties mph. The problem with the wind wasn't so much that it was slowing me down, but that it was fucking cold up here! I was still in the shade, some clouds had rolled in, and it must have been in the low 40's.

And that part about the hills? Well I was wrong. For hours and hours and hours I crawled along as the ridge undulated up and down 2-500 feet at a time. Through the trees I could see the bay way down to my right and the ocean way down to my left and the sun shining on the buildings on each side, but I was stuck up here in the cold and the wind and the hills, hills, hills, hills, hills! I wanted to check how far I was from home, but I still had no reception. By this point I'd lost it.

"LET ME DOWN OFF THIS FUCKING MOUNTAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I yelled out loud. I yelled it again and again.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I screamed every time I came around another bend and there was more climbing to do. "NO MORE FUCKING CLIMBING! I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"GIVE IT BACK!!!" I yelled when I came around another bend and I found that I had to keep climbing. ("It" being the elevation. I wanted some free miles already.)

I was sort of crying, but not crying tears, the kind of crying that 5-year-olds do when they're looking for attention. I wanted out of this ride. I wanted to go home. "I WANT TO GO HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I yelled. Still, whenever a car came around I tried to put on my poker face so that no one would see me throwing a temper tantrum. It was fine only so long as I was alone.

Somewhere around Palo Alto I was riding along an exposed section of road with a sign that said "Windy Hill" when I got hit face-on by a mighty gust of wind. "I'M FUCKING COLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I yelled at the wind.

Just then another rider came around. "Cold up here today, isn't it?" he asked cheerfully. I wanted to disappear. Luckily I was in no mood to be trying to keep up and he wasn't around for long.

I realized quickly that I wasn't going to get home before night fell, and that I was pretty much fucked. I decided that, pride be damned, I was going to pull over at the next gas station or coffee shop that I saw, order something warm, and call someone to come pick my ass up. My legs felt fine, but I was cold and miserable and had no lights. I wondered if when I got home there would be a genuine way to kneel down and kiss the ground that wouldn't look overly dramatic. And still, for what felt like hours I didn't pass a single business and my phone had no service.

Finally the mountain let me go. Before I realized what had happened, I was in San Mateo, only about 20 flat miles from home with about an hour of light left. But with this headwind I knew I wasn't going to make it.

There was a Starbucks.
With a fireplace (Starbucks, please sponsor my blog).

I pulled over. It was over.

In less than a month I have a double century coming up with over 18,000' of climbing. What did I learn during my ride this weekend?

1. If I go my own pace, then my energy will last but I have to be prepared for hours of speeds under 10 mph.
   
2. Even if you have to pay $3/bottle of Gatorade, the electrolytes will save your ride. Time to start springing for Nuun again.
3. Go your own pace on the hills and you won't blow up, idiot!
4. I'm fucked.