The forecast for Saturday's ride: PERFECT! High of 75. Partly sunny. Variable wind, SSW, 10-15 MPH.
The ACTUAL weather at 5:15 AM (reveille): Slightly less than perfect... 55 degrees. Rain. A lot of rain. In fact, it rained all night. The roads were soaked. Ordinarily, not a problem, but when you're banking on no rain, warm weather, and a slight breeze, one tends to pack a bit lighter.
In spite of Mother Nature's sour mood, we load the steeds and proceed to packet pickup. Rain continues to fall, as do my spirits. I REALLY was not looking forward to a 70 mile ride in the pouring rain. I'd rather crawl back into bed and dream of passing Schleck near the summit of Alpe d'Huez...doesn't even have to be Andy Schleck. I'm not greedy. I'd settle for Frank.
We park the car, scramble through the rain, and grab our timing chips, t-shirts and jerseys. Upon walking back to the car, I notice something I have never seen on my brother's face before...at least when it came to cycling: a look of consternation, of hesitation! He looked as if he actually did not want to venture out in the pouring rain. And, despite my best efforts to persuade him to ride on, he won out; we settled on an 11:00 AM rain-delayed start. Back to the hotel where Schleck and the Alpe awaited!
Fast forward to 8:47 AM. Scott bangs on the bedroom door. "Kid! We gotta go! Move it!" I scramble out of bed, throw on my gear, and am driving back to the start line before I really know what time it is. Scott is intent on making the 9:00 AM start-time. He's afraid they won't let us race if we don't cross the start line by 9:00 AM. Not sure if he was right about that or not, but either way, we parked the Bonnie on top of a grassy knoll, mounted the steeds and slipped past the start line at 8:57 AM. The up-side to my hasty wake-up: Roads were dry! Good call, brother.
What about a warm-up ride, you ask? Nah. We're hockey players. We're mountain bikers. We're marathon runners (well, one of us is). We don't believe in that nonsense. A right turn dropped us at the base of a 250-ft. "gentle riser." Not much gentle about it, to be honest.
"The key..." Scotty puffed. "The key is..." Breathe in, breathe out. "Levi said the key is to..." Breathe in, breathe out. "The key is to pace yourself... Levi and Jens said if you're feeling great on a hill, don't...." In, out. "Don't attack it or... or you'll pay for it on the next one."
"Don't attack. Got it." As if I could attack at that point. Attack with what? My Granny Gear? By the time I crested the summit, my legs were on fire, and my gears were maxed out. Even my arms hurt. Great. Really glad I signed up for this.
3K down. 110 to go.
Shortly before the first rest stop, The Jordan River Bridge, I experienced what we in the cycling world refer to as a "mechanical." Thankfully, it was nothing that a little Vermullen engineering and a bungee cord couldn't fix. See video (will be posted in future):
Apologies for the audio:
Video
Speaking of videos, apparently Scotty's Hero Cam is still somewhat of a novelty to the vast majority of the MMM cycling community. Who am I kidding? He might as well have had a newly-hatched dragon tied to his helmet for all the "Ooooooos" and "Ahhhhhhs" and "Oh my God! How does that thing take pictures?!?" he got. Incidentally, I wouldn't be surprised to see his YouTube channel subscriptions triple in the coming days.
Anyway, after a brief stop, we were back on our way. The Manly Men split off for their 150 and 200K rides at the Kearney School House, and then the road became surprisingly less crowded. We continued to struggle up massive hills, and zip down them, cracking 50 MPH on multiple occasions. The quiet road afforded us time for some brotherly conversation. The usual topics were covered: Fixing cars and bikes (including reminiscing about my early mountain biking days when I would show up at the trailhead with three-week old dirt, scum, and grease clinging to my drivetrain), and discussing our next family adventure in Ludington, among other things.
Throughout this easy conversation, we also continued to pick off riders.
After passing a particularly sinewy cyclist, on a particularly grueling climb, I turned to my brother and said, "Hey Scotty."
"You talk too much. Whaddaya want?"
"We ride a lot. Especially you. How come our calves don't look like that guy's?"
His response: "No clue, but I can guarantee that your @rse is bigger than his!"
Nice.
The solo stretch from the schoolhouse to Honey Hollow was probably one of my favorites. Don't get me wrong. It was still brutally hilly, but we seemed to roll over them like so many waves over the beaches of Lake Michigan. How's THAT for waxing poetic?! Whatever. Back to more spoke-popping action.
The final rest-stop of the day was at Thurston Park, a beautiful lakeside park in East Jordan. Try as I might, I couldn't get Scotty back on the bike. He was content, instead, picking clovers, munching on watermelon, and soaking in the quiet beauty that was Lake Charlevoix. Can't say that I blamed him.
The day had turned from dismal to, really, perfect. The SSW wind had been pushing us for the last 10-12 miles, and promised to hold its course for the remainder of the ride. Where we were headed, however, no wind could help.
An aside: I don't share this goal with many people (and since I have all of 6 subscribers to this blog, I really don't have to worry about the secret getting out), but I've always wanted to complete a stage in the Tour de France. Not, obviously, side-by-side with the super-human athletes (I don't have the calves for that kind of riding), but just to ride the same roads they ride, to share in that same spirit that gets inside of all cyclists. To feel the pain of climbing any of the fabled peaks along the route, the triumph of cresting one of those summits, would be nothing short of exhilarating, spiritual even.
I believe "The Wall" may have put an indefinite "PAUSE" on that ambition. I've included the description of "The Wall" from the MMM website:
"THE WALL" --> a 3 mile climb that starts slow and gradually gets steeper. The final stretch starts at 12% and shoots straight to 18%, what a way to end a 3 mile climb. This is the hardest climb of the day and comes near the end.
For those of you who are not cyclists, permit me (another) brief aside:
An 18% grade... what is that? Grade is basically a glorified version of "Slope" from your algebra class. Stay with me here, English Majors. To calculate the grade of a hill, you simply divide the VERTICAL CHANGE of the hill (the "rise" or elevation) by the horizontal length of the hill (the "run"). So, let's say a 1 mile hill has an 18% grade. That means over the course of one mile, we will have climbed (.18 X 5280) = 950 vertical feet.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just click the link below, and you'll see what 12-18% grade looks like.
THE WALL
Back to the ride...
At the base of The Wall, someone posted this sign:
Now, I am no civil-engineer, nor have I ever been employed by the Road Commission. However, I have always been under the impression that "Steep Hill" signs are placed at the TOP of the hills, to warn drivers (and cyclists) that there is a steep DESCENT ahead. Never, in all of my years of driving and riding, had I ever seen a "Steep Hill" sign at the BASE of an ASCENT. Bad omen? Oh hell yes it was.
We begin the climb easily enough. A decent climb, but no worse than anything else we had faced that day. And then we hit the 12%. No problem. Just went to my old standby, Granny, and continued to hammer. As the pain began to mount and the legs began to fail, panic set in.
Once the hill bucked to 18%, a single thought entered my hill-weary brain: I may not be able to make it. I may be one of those suckers whose picture is on the MMM website WALKING his bike up the hill. I may actually... No. Not today. Today, I will win. Today, my bike, my steed will not let me down. Today, my legs, my noodley, mushy, lactic acid-laden legs will carry me to the top.
Out of the saddle I shot: Standing. Dancing. Breathing. Dripping. Hoping...
Cadence. Push. Focus. Push. Rhythm. Push. Breathe. Push. Dance. Push. Breathe. Push.
I glance at my brother at this point. His face, Armstong-esque, began to show signs of fatigue.
I grunt a "C'mon, Scotty!"
He grunts his signature line from Predator: "Gonna have me some fun," which sounds to me like "Guh-ham-me-suh-fuh!"
Cadence. Push. Focus. Push. Rhythm. Push. Breathe. Push. Dance. Push... CAMERA!?! Oh hell yes!!
Gritting my teeth, I reach down to some untapped resource that most athletes possess in some form or another (some have more than others), and grind out the last hundred feet of "The Wall." I manage a weak smile and fistpump for the camera, and then begin to spin out the lactic acid.
On the back-side descent, my brother confesses that there was a brief moment where he didn't think he was going to make it.
"Really?" I ask. "How long?"
"Zero point six eight seconds..."
I almost fell off of my bike I laughed so hard. If you're a Star Trek fan, think Data and the Borg woman. If you're not a Star Trek fan, disregard my brother's asinine comment and read on!
After conquering The Wall, little remained of the course. A few speedy descents, a few grueling ascents, then the end... or so I thought.
After one particularly exhilarating and harrowing descent over a busted-up, sun-speckled, shadow-strewn road, a rider (a "pure climber" Scotty later called him), clad in red, shot between Scotty and me, and proceeded to bust up the hill. I glanced at Scotty, a puzzled look on my face, and decided that the lad needed to learn some manners.
A few clicks of the shifter later, I'm out of the saddle and charging up the hill after this guy, this "pure climber." The gloves, as they say, are off.
Halfway up the hill, he glances over his shoulder, Armstrong-to-Ullrich style, and reaches for another gear. But it's too late. We're on him, and we're not letting go. We streak down the next hill, and begin a third grueling climb. I'm nearly out of gas. Scotty takes his wheel, and I struggle to hold his. This time, my legs betray me. I feel him slipping away.
As I reach the top of the hill, only a moment or two behind the Red Rider - but miles behind him in stamina - Scotty waves him on, humbly conceding our (well, really MY) inferiority. Crest-fallen, I spin, desperately trying to regain my strength on the downhill. As I shake the lactic acid from my shredded muscles, hoping desperately for some untapped source of strength, two blue streaks (one can only assume the Schleck brothers) shoot past me, their sights set on the Red Rider.
To my brother's (and my own!) surprise I stand on the pedals. I stand and dance. I grind and pull. I'm close. I'm almost to the Blue Streak, can almost feel their slipstream. A few more pedal-strokes... I tuck in behind them, grateful for the rest that their draft provides.
Together, the four of us catch the Red Rider. To be honest, we BLOW past him on the final climb of the day. He doesn't know what hits him, and before he knows it, he's 10 feet off my back wheel, and fading fast. Only with a colossal effort on his part (at least for the purposes of dramatic effect was it colossal), does he finally close the gap, just before the final descent to the finish line.
The five of us coast to the finish line, congratulating each other on an epic finish to an epic day. A day that saw brothers ride with brothers. A day that saw pros ride with amateurs. A day that saw all riders share in the pain, the joy, the frustration, and the camaraderie that our sport provides.
