the tao of cycling: death ride

Friday, August 27, 2010

death ride

I'm not sure which cycling friend came up with this sweet little nickname, but in my mind it has stuck. tomorrow is the Death Ride.

this is the ride that three years ago Biking Buddy Bob said would confirm one's readiness for lotoja: if one could survive this ride, one could survive lotoja.

so this will be my fourth time riding this route, and as of this very moment, I have no stress about it at all.

I can do this, I will survive it, I am likely to hate parts of it, and I will be so greatly relieved when it's over that I will cruise forward to lotoja with a happy camper attitude.

it's really not that bad of a ride. it's just long, somewhere around 125 miles. this will actually be the shortest version of it I've done, as last year Biking Buddy Bill wanted to add another climb in there and we added a few miles, and the other two years it was longer due to my uncertainty about where exactly huntsville town proper was.

huntsville is the end point on the way out, the place we turn around and start the trek back home. huntsville is a beautiful place, but unfortunately, this Death Ride has colored, permanently, my perception of huntsville.

today I've been hydrating, and as I type I'm eating a bowl of pasta (ravioli, yum). I have a glass of water + electrolytes by my elbow, so that I don't flush my system by drinking too much water.

tomorrow I'll get up and eat oatmeal, drink a cup of coffee, and pack my pockets full of goodies for the road which will include at least one banana.

and then I am going to set off for my Darn Good Death Ride.

I plan to have a great day.

hope you do, too.

let me date myself by now saying,

catch you on the flip side.

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the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.