From the Archives - Daily Peloton: Everest Challenge 2009 Stage 2

Introduction

This post continues the saga, from my archives, of the 2009 Everest Challenge stage race. This originally ran in the Daily Peloton. (My dp stories were lost after a server meltdown, so over time I’m re-posting them here.)

The report below is of Stage 2 of the race; for background info and my Stage 1 coverage click here.

Here’s the Stage 2 profile. Just look at that final climb … over 10,000 feet of vertical gain. Abominable, especially after all the suffering preceding it.

Racing the Everest Challenge, Stage 2 – September 25, 2009

We ran a bit late in the morning and barely made it to the start line on time. Lucas had just enough time to check his placing from the previous day and was ecstatic to discover he’d finished sixth. So long as his legs and/or cracked crank arm didn’t fail, he figured he had a good shot at a top five overall. I decided it was just as well I didn’t know how I’d finished on Stage 1. I felt pretty good about my performance; to find out I didn’t place very high would have been a downer, while finding out I’d placed, say, top ten might have put unwelcome pressure on me during today’s (final) stage.

I did get a little hint, though. A Masters 45+ rider rode up next to me and congratulated me on the previous day. “You seemed to get stronger during the race,” he said. “I was trying to reel you in for over an hour but never actually did. Several times I thought I had you but realized it was just another rider you’d passed.” I asked if he knew how he’d done, and he said eighth. I was really stoked—the times of the 45+ riders are actually pretty similar to those of my 35+ field. (Cycling is a perfect sport for crusty old veterans, and the harder the course the better. If there was a doping control at this race, your typical 45+ would likely test positive for piss and vinegar.)

Oddly enough, I felt totally fine throughout the first climb, to Glacier Lodge. This was a 9-mile 8% grade topping out at 7,800 feet. The temperature was perfect; I managed to find others to make pace with. Here I am slogging away.

After a little over an hour I saw Lucas, then Paul, then Jamie coming back down the mountain, and then suddenly I was at the top. I took on a bottle of energy drink and launched myself at the long, relatively simple descent. Man, what a blast. For the next nine miles, I averaged over 43 mph, peaking out at 52, all the while averaging a heart rate of just 108. There was nothing to do but hold a tight tuck and pass climbers. I wish life itself could be like this: automatic, effortless success, just for being me. I blew by Jamie and thought of holding up for him, but figured he’d latch on during the flat section anyway. Sure enough, he did, and as we motored across the flats toward the second climb, I found another big guy to work with and we made contact with a group of about ten riders, including Paul.

The second climb, Waucoba Canyon, is the least difficult of the whole race—8.5 miles at 5%, to a summit of 6,645 feet. Paul, Jamie, and I worked together in our little group, which was really satisfying—after all, I’d barely seen these guys the previous day. The only question was, how long could I last at this pace? I wasn’t hurting yet, but day-to-day recovery has been a weak point for me ever since 1991, when I went from racing every weekend to just jumping in now and then. Plus, the temperature was already climbing; it was 80 degrees and not yet 10:00 a.m. 

The terrain was sparse but picturesque—like something out of the Road Runner cartoons, with ruddy, sandy hills rising up on either side, dotted with scrubby dabs of shrubs. The road snaked this way and that through the canyon.

I continued to marvel at the elite company I was keeping and the race I was having, and then suddenly—as if Fate had read my mind—I started to have stomach problems. Not nausea, but a sharp pain, like my gut being tied in knots. I didn’t have to ease up, but I was good and worried now. I didn’t complain to the others in my group—no sense tipping my hand—but suffered silently and went easy on the energy drink. All I could do was hang tough and hope my stomach problem would resolve itself.

[I’ll tell you something now that wasn’t in my original dp story: the stomach problem was due to the race-provided Heed energy drink. I’d been warned … it was notorious for causing stomach problems. One pal said, “It gave me such bad gas, my stomach bloated like a beach ball, and every time I farted my belly would get visibly smaller.”]

After about forty-five minutes we started seeing riders coming back down toward us. Among the first was Lucas, out in the wind by himself. He shouted for us to come up and help. I couldn’t understand what exactly he expected us to do—suddenly spark across, making it to the turnaround and back down to him like a fricking boomerang? Exactly what kind of rider did he take me for?

Before long we reached the turnaround, and I actually stopped, to get my bottle refilled with plain old water. I’d brought a baggie of drink mix with me, and in less than thirty seconds had mixed it all up and was back on the road. The group I’d been in had dispersed, but in no time I caught Paul and Jamie. “Oh, good, our descender is here,” Paul said. They took my wheel and we bombed the descent together, averaging close to 40. We passed a number of guys, none of whom was able to latch on. And you know what? My stomach was all better.

Now came the climb I’d been truly dreading: the endless slog to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest , 21 miles at 6% for a total elevation gain of 6,160 feet to peak out at 10,100 feet. As race director Steve Barnes had pointed out, there’s actually some descending along this route, which dilutes that 6% figure. And, of course, this was the sixth major climb in two days so we were all pretty knackered going into it. Top it all off with temperatures in the nineties and you’ve got yourself a real smackdown.

Fortunately, Jamie, Paul, and I were in a group with four others, and one of the riders had private support: a friend who would drive by in his Volvo, park ahead of us, and hand up bottles. His largesse extended to anybody riding with his pal; I had at least three nice, cold bottles of water from him (though Paul never did get the vodka martini he’d requested).

The pace felt comfortable to me, and my heart rate was only in the low- to mid-140s. The heat was a grind, but at least I was hydrated. The situation seemed too good to last, and it was: Jamie punctured, not to be seen again until the top. I felt a strange survivor’s guilt, with my 55-gram inner tubes and four-inch almost-worthless clip-on pump. I kept thinking, “That bullet was meant for me….”

Then I saw a familiar orange-clad figure up the road. Funny how you can recognize a rider from a mile away just by his position on the bike. It was Lucas, and we could tell he was having some difficulty. Gradually we caught up to him, and it was pretty clear he’d gone out too hard, probably due to irrational exuberance over his great ride the previous day. Lucas and I decided that I should pace him for the rest of the climb to defend his overall placing. We watched Paul and the other two ride away, and then over the next hour and a half, I watched my power meter and knocked out a steady, sustainable pace and kept Lucas out of the wind.

I didn’t struggle with this decision. I’ve always managed to be on teams with superior riders, making me a natural domestique, and I say this without shame. In college I always supported my star riders and it paid off—they won a lot and I felt it an honor just to contribute. My favorite event? Not surprisingly, the team time trial. So now, personal ambitions aside, it felt good to make myself useful on this endless climb.

As we gained in elevation, the heat subsided, and eventually we began to see scraggly, bent-over, blasted trees: the ancient bristlecone pines forest we’d seen on the map. By “ancient” I mean these are literally the oldest living organisms on Earth, some of them almost 5,000 years old. In other words, they are as old as I felt as I toiled away, mile after mile. I have to chuckle at the phrase “bristlecone pine forest,” though; “forest” suggests abundance, and this looked more like the dregs of a Christmas tree farm after a retail frenzy. I don’t think you can get a real forest this close to the tree line.

I suppose I shouldn’t admit this, but in addition to gazing at the pines I took a moment here and there to appreciate the vistas spread out before us—the best of the whole race (or maybe I was just finally able to lift my head up and pay attention). But most of the time the climb was a fairly grim affair, as I maintained a steady pace and kept an eye on Lucas. From time to time his muscles cramped, and I tried to help him ride through this by offering what little encouragement I could. (As he knows, I’ve never had a muscle cramp in my life.) I felt a little like a motivational speaker at times, and this was the image I had in mind:

It’s a refrigerator magnet my wife picked up during our recent vacation in London—a replica of a poster produced by the English government during the onset of World War II. Not that we were at war of course, but the sentiment seemed fitting at the time.

Exactly twice a rider came by us. Each time, I quickly asked what category he was: any answer but “35+” was the right one. Otherwise, I’d have to make a quick decision whether to keep pacing Lucas, or get medieval on the guy’s heinie. It seemed to me there couldn’t be that many 35+ riders ahead of us, and I didn’t want to miss out on a possible top-ten finish to post on my bike club’s website. Fortunately for both of us, neither rider was a 35+, and we did our climb mostly in peace.

A word of advice to anybody who tries a race like this: don’t look up—the grade and peaks ahead of you can be demoralizing—and don’t look down at your bike computer: the mileage ticks by so slowly you start to wonder if the damn thing is working. Don’t count down the miles—just turn the pedals. And don’t forget about fuel! Though each sip of energy drink brought with it a brief wave of nausea, I was diligent about drinking. To bonk after this much hard work would be a tragedy.

Finally we got to the really steep pitches that announced the imminent final summit. Looking at the percent-grade graph on my PC, it’s no wonder we suffered here: the graph looks like an electrocardiogram, with all the peaks just above the 10% line and the dips just below it, for an average grade of 8.5% over the last 2.5 miles. With my 39x27 I was weaving across the full width of the road like a drunken paperboy on a steep driveway. I’m surprised I didn’t wear out my bike’s headset. Lucas, sensing somebody coming up from behind (there was nobody) started sprinting and I had to yell at him to sit back down lest he suddenly detonate.

Actually, I was worried for myself as well: Lucas normally drops my ass on the big climbs, as does Paul, as does Jamie, and all day I’d felt like I was crashing the strong men’s party. It all seemed too good to be true and I was sure at any moment my legs would seize, or I’d puncture, or get struck by a stray bolt of lightning. But we avoided disaster, and the steepest sections didn’t find me over-geared.

At long last, to our delight and relief, we finally crossed the finish line. In our euphoria we forgot the “exit interview,” and after a short descent to the food station had to double back and do a final bit of climbing to make sure our numbers had been recorded by the race officials. Finally we coasted back down, ditched our bikes, and joined Paul for some well-earned relaxation. Miraculously, for the second day in a row there were enough chairs to go around. I chatted a bit with the guy next to me, who turned out to be the winner of my category, Mauricio Prado. Next time I’ll watch for him.

Lucas tends to sweat a bit when racing in the heat.

We all got medals for finishing (which meant everything to my eight-year-old daughter upon my triumphant return home).

Jamie and Craig rolled in, and we ended up spending about an hour at the final summit, punch-drunk on endorphins and exhaustion. “I will never do this again,” I thought to myself. “At least not until next year.”

Results and stats

The “Bay Area Five” ended up having solid results, perhaps better than we’d anticipated:

• Paul: 4th on Stage 1, 7th on Stage 2, 4th overall, Masters 35+ (and almost 17 minutes faster than last year!)
• Jamie: 5th on Stage 1, 8th on Stage 2, 6th overall, Masters 45+  (and over six minutes faster than last year, despite his puncture!)
• Lucas: 6th on Stage 1, 9th on Stage 2, 7th overall, M35+
• Dana: 9th on Stage 1, 8th on Stage 2, 8th overall, M35+
• Craig: 12th on Stage 2, M35+; alas, the officials failed to get his number on the first day

(As I mentioned in my Stage 1 report, I had no specific goal for this race other than to finish, ideally with dignity, whereas my daughter predicted a top-ten finish. I guess she was right … but I’m still not into goals.)

Some notes on the following graph:

• My bike computer does a rudimentary power calculation based on my weight, my speed, and my elevation gain (f=mgh), ignoring wind and rolling resistance, so the wattage is on the low side
• My altimeter was reading low as well, compared to the elevation marker signs
• The vertical line down each graph shows where the stage finished
• In each graph, the average values listed along the right-hand column ignore the final (untimed) descent; note the net elevation gain of 5,814 feet!
• My average heart rate not counting descents was 143 for Stage 2 (vs. 149 for Stage 1)
• The temperature readings are often exaggerated in these graphs, probably due to the sun baking the asphalt (of course, the rider feels this too)
• You’ll want to click on this image to zoom in, obviously

Appendix - bits and bobs

Ever wonder what cycling road racers eat? Well, for a long training ride it’s this. And what shouldn’t racers eat? This. And what did I eat during the Everest Challenge? During Stage 1 I consumed seven gels, six bottles of energy drink, and a bottle of water. During Stage 2 I ate six gels, and drank four or five bottles of energy drink and about three bottles of water. And what did we eat before and after the race? Click here for the full food-and-camaraderie report.

Finally, you may wonder if, having conquered the Everest Challenge, I have any advice to offer for anyone contemplating such a brutal event. Why, I’m glad you asked! Check out this post.

My pals and I rode the Everest Challenge five more times, from 2010 through 2014. I’ve chronicled all of them in these pages; if you’re interested just Google “albertnet everest challenge [year].” If this tale was too rosy for you, rest assured I didn’t always manage the race so smoothly … I had some years where things went badly enough to satisfy your thirst for schadenfreude. Enjoy please enjoy.

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

From the Archives - Daily Peloton: Everest Challenge 2009

Introduction

I originally wrote the following story for Daily Peloton. Their servers crashed a couple years ago and all their content was lost, so I’m gradually re-posting my dp articles here.

You may have noticed that I already did a post on this topic (in fact, here it is now). Well, that was the report I sent around to my bike club, adhering to our standard format of focusing mainly on the food and the camaraderie. My dp story was about the actual race. This is about the closest thing you’ll ever see on albertnet to a true race report.

Racing the Everest Challenge – September 25, 2009

I was encouraged recently by some cycling friends to join them in racing the Everest Challenge, the California-Nevada Climbing Championship. It’s a two-day stage race covering 206 miles with 29,035 feet of cumulative vertical gain. (The name refers to the total elevation gain being equivalent to the height of Mount Everest, which I’ll admit I didn’t grasp right away.) Being a large guy much better suited to fetching things from a high shelf than to riding a bike uphill fast, but having suffered gloriously in similarly brutal races (like La Marmotte), I was naturally intrigued and decided to take the plunge with four of my Bay Area cycling pals.

Now, if you had infinite time and patience, I would give a full background on the five of us, worthy of The Deer Hunter, but I’ll try to keep the following bios brief. Three of us are on the East Bay Velo Club—Lucas, Craig, and I—and we’re pretty big guys. Lucas is the most serious racer and not coincidentally the fastest. Craig, who used to play football, came to cycling only a few years ago but is strong like bull. The other two riders in our group, Paul and Jamie, who race for other teams, are built more like climbers, and (not surprisingly) climb more like climbers. Jamie is in the Masters 45+, and the rest of us are 35+.

This story is an eye-witness account of my experience, not full coverage of the race. I’m sure the winner of the pro classification did far more glorious things than I did, but I wasn’t there to see it. Continue reading only if you’re interested in the humble struggle of a mere mortal against man, nature, and his own limitations.

I’m not big into goals, and simply hoped to finish this race with some semblance of dignity. (My ever-optimistic eight-year-old daughter, on the other hand, predicted a top-ten finish). My strategy, to the extent it existed, was to pace myself well and hope the other racers would cramp or something. I learned the hard way during my first La Marmotte effort not to go out too hard; pacing myself more carefully made my second try less horrific. Craig also had experience with this kind of race, having done the Everest Challenge the previous year, and we advised Lucas, who is a fire-in-the-belly, impetuous type, to control his baser impulses and pace himself. His response was impassioned: “I’m gonna race! That’s what I do! I’m a bike racer!” Needless to say we gave him endless crap for the unspoken rebuke buried in this wild speech. Meanwhile, the three of us joked about taking advantage of our non-climber physiques by team-time-trialing for the flat section before the first climb, after a brief neutral section, to try to gain an advantage over the guys who weren’t doomed at birth to struggle in the high mountains.

It was a seven-hour drive to Bishop, where the race is based. As soon as we reached town, we got a taste of a) the community’s awareness of the event, and b) its sense of humor:

[A note on the above: I’d gotten this photo from Paul, and discovered, well after the fact, that this Wendy’s wasn’t actually in Bishop, and it was probably pure coincidence the sign talked about a challenge. Thus this was a factual error in my dp story. I’m leaving it here as a warning against unintentional fiction in bike race stories.]

We did a quick evening ride around Bishop to spin the legs, then headed to the local fairgrounds for a free pasta meal and a mandatory pre-race meeting. A whole bunch of volunteers from the community were serving the food, and the mayor of Bishop gave a speech. The hospitality was charming, and the food was good. Lucas, a born competitor, tried to match me plate for plate on the pasta. The fool! He had a stomachache the rest of the night. (If I could design my own triathlon, it’d be cycling, typing, and eating.)

After dinner the race director, Steve Barnes, gave us a slide show with instructions and advice for race day. This could have been a boring affair, but slides were mostly beautiful, sometimes terrifying, and above all useful. Meanwhile, Steve has a great sense of humor. Several times he said, with great relish, “You’re gonna be cooked!”—the verbal equivalent of rubbing his hands together in glee at the suffering that was to be had. Advising us not to run the stop sign at the end of the neutral section on Stage 2, he said, “Don’t worry about gaining a few seconds. Listen, when you wake up on the second day, you’re going to be asking yourself if it’s even a good idea to have bikes in your life.”

Stage 1 was 122 miles long, with 15,465 feet of climbing. The Masters 35+ and 45+ started in one big group, five minutes behind the Cat 3s. After the short neutralized section, Lucas inexplicably—yet all too predictably—went straight to the front and lit it up. I learned later that one rider had gone off on his own, and his buddy had boasted to Lucas, “He’s going to solo the whole thing and win it.” What would normally be standard-issue smack-talking had the effect, on Lucas, of the mind-control techniques of a Jedi master. Lucas couldn’t stand the thought of some guy winning in such a bold manner, so he totally threw down. By the time we hit the first climb, we’d caught the Cat 3s and absorbed them into the frantic serpent our peloton had become.

Here’s the profile of Stage 1:

The first climb, the oddly named Mosquito Flat, was 22 miles long, with an average grade of 5%, for almost 6,000 feet of total vertical gain. It was brutal from the very beginning. The pack stretched out like a rubber band and then blew apart into a bunch of separate echelons. As Craig would later put it in a haiku he e-mailed to the club:

First climb of the day
Lucas drills it at the front
Scattered peloton

As you can see, these aren’t the lush, green mountains of the western slope of the Sierra Nevadas, or of the Rockies. These mountains are stark and barren, almost lunar. Mother Nature isn’t offering the moist, fresh, fragrant breezes mimicked by so many air fresheners, but rather a dry, hot wind blowing across expanses of plain rock and low, scrubby brush. The terrain seemed to say, “You not in for a refreshing alpine vacation—you were brought out here to die!” And yet, there’s a stark beauty to it all, which I managed to notice even as I buried myself in the effort.

I knew better than to try to hang with the leaders, being well aware of my limits. I’m no Alberto Contador; in fact, I’m more like the UPS guy: not necessarily talented, but well trained to do things efficiently. My main ability in cycling is marshaling my resources effectively: I strive to stay out of the wind, avoid accelerations, and ultimately do less work than the next guy. So I sought out guys tapping out a similar pace, so I’d have someone to draft who wouldn’t destroy me.

The climb ground on for close to two hours. It’s an out-and-back deal, so eventually I started seeing my pals coming down the other way—Paul, Lucas, and Jamie (I can’t remember in what order). Craig was somewhere behind me and I hoped to regroup with him later. Finally I reached the first summit. This was the high point of the whole race, 10,250 feet above sea level (incidentally, more than 1,500 feet higher than the summit of the Col du Galibier, frequently the highest point in the Tour de France). Volunteers handed up bottles of energy drink. I started the first descent.

As a rule, I cut through the wind pretty well. I must have heavy bones, like a penguin. But I didn’t exactly bomb the downhill … the road was unfamiliar and had deep cracks in it, causing lots of lost water bottles. The lower half of the descent was smoother but had long, sweeping curves that were a bit hard to judge. Several times, riders ahead of me went into a curve too fast and ended up on the wrong side of the double yellow. I slipped back a bit—I’m a father of two, after all, and a son, and a husband. Why take unnecessary risks? After all, the whole race is unnecessary; in fact, the whole sport is unnecessary. Moreover, there was always somebody behind me to come by and help me close the gaps on the straightaway.

On the flat section before the second climb, I was in a group of at least twenty guys, and it looked like we might actually get a rotating pace line going. But alas, there were too many riders whose experience didn’t match their strength, and the line broke down again and again. It was frustrating and futile, like trying to herd Ewoks without a proper whip. Finally I resigned myself to dawdling in an inefficient, disorganized collection of individuals.

At the base of the second climb, Park Creek, eight miles long at 7% for 3,000 feet of gain to a 7,425-foot summit, our group blew to pieces. This time I didn’t make any effort to match anyone, and settled in to my own private slog up the mountain. The first climb hadn’t been too hot, only touching 80 degrees, but now the exposed asphalt was absolutely baking in the sun, the temperature well into the 90s. One really fiendish aspect of this climb was that it looked almost flat. I thought something was wrong with me—here I was in my small chainring, on a flat road! My bike computer set me straight: what looked flat was 5 to 6%.

That’s not a particularly steep grade, of course, but that’s what these climbs were like—through their sheer length, they killed you softly. (Fortunately this phrase didn’t occur to me until later, or I might have gotten that “Killing Me Softly” song stuck in my head. That, of course, would have unraveled me psychologically.)

When my head wasn’t down I gazed out over the very strange terrain—countless little scrubby mounds of bush, like oversized razor stubble on the mountain’s face. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Sweat drips painted my handlebar stem. My legs still felt great, but the rest of me was questioning the whole enterprise. This was the kind of scorching weather that normally keeps a sane person indoors—the kind you rush through on the way from the air conditioned car to the air conditioned house. What were we doing out here? Happily, the climb was “only” an hour long, and before I knew it I saw my pals, then the summit a few minutes later. (My altimeter was malfunctioning, so the summits came before I expected them. I wasn’t complaining.)

After a brisk, fairly simple descent I hit the flat section leading to the base of the third climb. The wind was back, blowing its hot breath right in my face. I stopped very briefly at the car to snatch a couple of bottles of my preferred energy drink and then resolutely plowed through the wind for about ten miles. With nobody to share the work, I really suffered. I went pretty hard, with my forearms on the tops of the bars to get more aero—effective, but hell on my forty-year-old back. Finally the third climb began—not that this was a respite of any kind.

This climb, South Lake, was another killer—over 20 miles long, averaging 6% for a cumulative gain of 5,410 feet to a max elevation of 9,835. It was the harder for our having done eighty miles and two grueling climbs already, and the temperature was still in the high nineties at the base. My legs were plenty heavy by this point, my back in great pain, my feet burning, and one of my toes felt broken. But nothing had gone seriously wrong and I felt I was making pretty good time. The question was, how long could I keep this up?

I came upon a lean, compact rider with whom I’d shared the pace making on the first climb. He had stopped to take a leak, but I knew he’d catch back up. When he did, however, he went sailing right by me. “I guess he found his legs,” I thought. But over the next mile, he gradually came back. This race is like that. I rode with him for a while and he complained, “I’m from L.A. and haven’t been able to train for two weeks because of the fire.” Where had I heard this before? Ah, from this same guy, during the first climb. Frankly, I was a bit insulted. Why should he have to make excuses for riding at my pace? What am I, chopped liver? But I humored him, saying, “If it’s any consolation, I’m coked to the gills on EPO, HGH, testosterone, and pot belge.” No, of course I didn’t say that. I just kept quiet, and a couple minutes later the guy dropped silently off the back and I never saw him again. Guess he lost his legs.

I went as easy as my gearing, a 39x27, would let me—which wasn’t very easy. I’d been warned by everybody to get a compact crank for this race, but I refused. This sport is already too damned expensive—I’m not shelling out $600 for a new drivetrain for this one event. So throughout the stage I did my best to keep something in the tank for the grand finale of the climb, a 15% section in the last mile, known to stop riders cold. Mile after mile I grinded patiently along, wondering in all seriousness how many more pedal revolutions I had in me. The trouble with the shallow grade is that it takes forever to achieve the vertical gain you need; the distance between elevation markers seemed endless.

It started to rain. This felt great, and lasted just long enough to cool me off. At these higher elevations the heat had largely subsided and we had some cloud cover and a the cool sighs of tall evergreens. The main difficulty now was how long I’d already been out, and how long I still had to go. I couldn’t wait for this climb to be over. The joke was getting old.

Finally, I hit the really steep section I’d been warned about so many times. I was actually happy to see it, because a) it meant I was almost done, and b) I suddenly seemed to have plenty left in my legs to mount an assault. It was steep, sure, but nothing worse than the brutal pitches on my standard Berkeley Hills training ride (which I call the Hill Climb Extravaganza). For the first time all day, I didn’t hold anything back—I had no choice, after all. Before I knew it I had crested the summit, and thought to myself, “Is that it, mountain? Is that all you got?!”

Too many times I’ve finished a race only to have the officials fail to spot my number. In theory this wouldn’t happen here, with racers trickling by one by one at low speed instead of flashing by in a giant pack. On the other hand, I reasoned, this might be a bit like the X-ray at airport security, where a firearm can actually slip by an inspector who’s gone so long without seeing anything interesting that his eyes have glazed over. So as I passed the officials I yelled out, “I’m number 96. Did you get that? Number 96?” Two officials called back, “Yes, 96!” I replied, “And that’s the finish line? And I’m done?” They assured me, laughingly, that this was the case. It seemed too good to be true.

By this time, Paul, Jamie, and Lucas had settled in nicely, having already located their bags of warm clothing (shuttled to the summit by the race organizers), and were relaxing in chairs, eating tasty hot food and telling war stories. I found my clothing bag, slumped in a chair, dragged arm warmers squeakily over my sticky arms, and dug out my camera. Hence these photos.

Soon Craig arrived, found a chair, rested a bit, and joined in the merriment. Note my bluish lips in this video … I’m a little low on oxygen.

And note the salt deposits on Craig’s face.

You know what feels really great—like unbelievably great, better than any spa treatment? It’s sitting around, not pedaling, after a race like that. We took our time, drank Cokes and V-8 juice, ate bean and cheese quesadillas and homemade soup, and I enjoyed a tall stack of real Oreos. I happened upon the race director, Steve Barnes, and thanked him for putting on such a great race.

Whatever curses we’d earlier hurled—at the mountain, the race, God, or whomever—were now forgotten as we basked in the triumph of completion and an end to the suffering.

After our battles on Stage 1, the return to civilian life was a bit rocky. The descent back to the car was a blast, and our second dinner went smoothly enough, but when we returned to the motel and tried to get organized for the following day, we found we couldn’t think straight. All we had to do was lube our chains, set out clothing, pin our numbers, pack our bags, and mix up some more energy drink, but this seemed to take hours. Though our spirits here high, we’d become temporarily stupid; groping in vain for simple words, we substituted profanities, sometimes using the f-word as a noun, adjective, and adverb in the same sentence. Moreover, Lucas made a shocking discovery: his effort the previous day had cracked the left arm of his crankset! (Actually, it’s worse: this was a compact crank on loan from a teammate.)

As tired as we all were, nobody slept well. Twice I woke up from nightmares of crashing on a descent (which is odd, because I don’t consciously fear descending). I did have one pleasant dream, though: it was of being at the summit of the final climb of Stage 2, eating hot food, having some laughs with my buddies, and above all enjoying the huge sense of relief at actually being done with the Everest Challenge. Alas, when I woke up from this, during the wee morning hours, I was hit with the unpleasant realization that it had only been only a dream—I still had another day of brutal racing ahead of me! If I’d been nervous about the difficulty of Stage 1, the prospect of mounting my bike again for yet more abuse now had filled me with intense, bowel-constricting fear.

Results and stats

We didn’t get our Stage 1 results until the next day, but I’ll give them to you now:

• Paul: 4th place in the Masters 35+
• Jamie: 5th place in the Masters 45+
• Lucas: 6th, M35+
• Dana: 9th, M35+
• Craig: alas, the officials failed to get his number

Some quick notes on the following graph:

• My bike computer does a rudimentary power calculation based on my weight, my speed, and my elevation gain (f=mgh), ignoring wind and rolling resistance, so the wattage is on the low side
• My altimeter was reading low as well, compared to the elevation marker signs
• The vertical line down each graph shows where the stage finished
• In each graph, the average values listed along the right-hand column ignore the final (untimed) descent; note the net elevation gain of 5,067 feet!
• My average heart rate not counting descents was 149
• The temperature readings are often exaggerated in these graphs, probably due to the sun baking the asphalt (of course, the rider feels this too)
• You’ll want to click on this image to zoom in, obviously

Tune in next week for my Everest Challenge 2009 Stage 2 report!

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From the Archives - Punish Me, Young Man!

Introduction

Today’s post is a story I originally wrote for Daily Peloton. (Their servers crashed a couple years ago and all their content was lost, so I’m gradually re-posting my dp articles here.) Enjoy please enjoy.

Punish Me, Young Man – October 14, 2007

On my ride today I got crushed by a guy whose bike had a front reflector. And yet, it was a glorious ride. (If that grabs your attention, read on, but if you’re looking for pro race results, you won’t find them in this story.)

I got off to a late start on my ride this morning, tired and feeling vaguely demoralized. I’d been caught in the rain on the previous day’s ride and was having that standard existential crisis of “Why do I train so much, and so hard, in October no less, when I don’t even race anymore?” So I was dragging to begin with, and then on my second climb, South Park Road, I really started to bog down. I was not feeling any of those “positive sensations” the pro racers are always talking about. And I kept seeing these squashed newts on the road.

These endangered newts are protected half the year by a road closure, but it doesn’t begin until November and I guess they got a head start on their seasonal migration because of the early rain. It was depressing: I saw like two dozen of them, smashed completely flat. Okay, this really shouldn’t have affected my morale, but that’s the kind of morning I was having. I almost turned around and went home.

Fortunately, the night before I’d watched the violent Western “3:10 to Yuma” and was still feeling the effects of second-hand testosterone on the baser part of my nature—the lizard brain that doesn’t make excuses. I decided to push on, taking the steep, long descent of Claremont Road so I could drag myself back up it. Toward the bottom I saw this guy coming up. He waved, and I gave a little nod before realizing, wait, that was a really big wave, maybe he needs some help. I sat up, looked back, and (being basically at the bottom already) turned around and rode toward him. He slowed down so I could ride up alongside him. “Hi, I’m new here and don’t know any rides,” he said.

Now, before I commit to sharing my ride with a stranger, especially if I’m grumpy, I’ll usually try to figure out what kind of rider he is. You can’t really go by how nice his bike is, at least in the Bay Area, where a newcomer to the sport will happily drop three or four grand on a bike. But you can get clues: how well does the bike fit him? Double or triple crankset? And does his gear look suspiciously new, or well used?

This guy was on a spanking new ride, an Ultegra-equipped LeMond, with not only a triple crankset but a front reflector. I think I first recognized the stigma of a front reflector when I was about eleven. In all the shops I’ve worked at, that was the one reflector we always left off on new bikes, even the cheap ones. Getting the risk-averse shop management to approve this was never hard: front reflectors only serve those who ride on the wrong side of the road at night without a light.

And yet, this guy somehow didn’t seem like a novice. (I used to hear the term “Fred” applied to beginners, but one of our local heroes, Fred Rodriguez, has pretty much put that name to rest.) This guy’s position was good—he didn’t have his handlebars jacked up Mary Poppins style, which seems an epidemic among novice cyclists. And he was lean. He also had this European accent, which I couldn’t place. He was medium height, with very dark skin. His clothing looked great (but of course this is something money can buy). I asked him how long he was looking to go, and he said four hours. Four hours!

I told him I wasn’t going that long, but if he wanted I’d take him up the steepest climb in the area. I’m always trying get my friends to do this climb, called Lomas Cantadas, which gains 1,240 feet in about 2½ miles at an average grade of 11%. My friends’ responses usually range from “Yeah, right” to “I did that once and I’ll never do it again as long as I live.” How refreshing that this guy was so willing. Of course, he not only had no idea where else to ride, but didn’t know what he was getting into.

But first there was Claremont to get over. We began the climb—about 1.5 miles averaging 10%—and he started half-wheeling me right away. That can be annoying, but then I know how instinctive this is when you’re riding with someone you don’t know and want to make a good impression. But man, the harder I went, the faster he went, without ever seeming to strain. “New bike?” I asked him. He told me he was borrowing it from a local shop: he’d just moved here from Austria and would be trying out for the Health Net team on Monday. Had I heard of Health Net? Uh … yeah. Wow. Suddenly I realized that, as ambassador for Bay Area cycling to a serious European racer, I was going to have to dig deep to make sure this ride wasn’t a total waste of his time.

Dang, he was strong. Had this climb gotten steeper? I’m known on my bike club for having the strange (and annoying) ability to chatter away merrily right up to my anaerobic threshold, but here I found myself gasping for breath. I asked him how old he was: twenty. I’d been thinking we were more or less the same age, but only because I always forget how damn old I am. He asked, and I admitted I’m thirty-eight. (Going on fifty, I didn’t add.) I asked what his specialty was, and he said he’s an all-rounder. Yeah, he looked it, but he could sure climb. Toward the top of Claremont, he said, “Hey, you ride good.” He paused, then continued, “For thirty-eight.”

I rested a bit descending to Orinda and along the flat section before the dreaded Lomas Cantadas. As soon as we hit the climb I felt its wrath. (At least there’s no traffic—the narrow road winds around through a sparse residential area that eventually gives way to ranchland at the summit.) Within a quarter mile I was in my lowest gear and bogging down, but the Austrian never slowed. I dug deeper and deeper, looking for some sign that he was feeling anything. No sign. I asked him if he raced pro or amateur. “Professional,” said, and quickly added, “but only on a Continental team.” He pointed at his jersey: this past season he raced for Swiag Pro Cycling Team, and for the Austrian national team. I asked if he got to ride Worlds, and he said that the federation screwed up and didn’t submit their results to the UCI, and ended up only getting to send one rider instead of three. He’d been among the original three, but wasn’t the one guy who got to go.

So here I was, riding with an honest-to-God European pro! I wished I’d had better legs, though the difference between my best and worst day probably wouldn’t have been perceptible to him. Boy did I suffer. Somewhere along the line I hit my highest heart rate of the year, 181. I asked him at one point what his was: 150. 150! When I was his age, I would hit 150 riding to class … he must have really been loafing. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between a local boy and a real pro. He’s basically a different species.

On the hardest part of the climb, a couple miles in, I came completely apart. I was fricking rendered. The center could not hold. The infrastructure was crumbling. The fountains no longer worked in my plazas. Goats grazed in the shell of my capitol building. I weaved, my form was shot, my legs howled (albeit silently) like spoiled children, I wheezed like a leaf stuck in the blower. And yet, it was fun! I was taking on all comers: Man Against Man, Man Against Nature, Man Against Himself. I way dying, yes, but I had that wimp in my brain up against the turnbuckles at last. Oh yeah? Feeling lousy? Feeling weak and worthless? Well, let’s head out with this guy, lets offer him up my skinny legs to snap like twigs, let’s let my male ego trounce the rational mind once and for all, let’s see just how low I can go, how much pain I can pile on. I doubted the pro even noticed what I was going through, as he always stayed half a bike length ahead.

Ages ago, when my brother Geoff was an up-and-coming eighteen-year-old racer, he often rode with a thirty-something ex-racer named Bob, a crusty old veteran who’d been pretty good in his day. One day, as they duked it out on an epic Colorado climb, Geoff tried to keep a poker-face despite terrible, terrible suffering. Finally, he sneaked a glance at his opponent. Bob turned to him, grinned, and said, “Punish me, young man!” Ever since I heard that story, I’ve longed to use that line, and this here was almost the perfect opportunity. But the Austrian pro’s English wasn’t perfect, and I’d hate for the language barrier to distort the joke into something embarrassing. I was sure thinking it, though.

My motor control gone, I fumbled and dropped my water bottle. “Oh, I’ll get it,” the pro said. Normally I’d have tried to impress him by circling back and snatching it up without stopping, but I was in no condition to do it, and welcomed a brief respite. Besides, I wanted to see how long it took him to catch back up. He took his time circling back, stopped, stashed the bottle in his jersey pocket, and then smoothly but unhurriedly cruised back up as I kept myself redlined. I was reminded of the time I watched piranhas hunting goldfish in an aquarium: they’re so much faster than their prey, they simply don’t have to hurry. “No rush, I’ll take out the fish whenever I feel like it … okay—now.”

Finally the awful, beautiful climb was over, and we cruised the rest of my ride (he still had two and a half hours to go), chatting. He told me his name, Robel Tedros, and I figured out how to remember the name of his team, Swiag (“I will get lots of swag”). I gave him the URL of the bike club I’m on, and he said he might look me up. He described his plan: if his audition with Health Net goes well and he gets a good offer, he’ll race in the U.S.; otherwise he’ll move to Italy and race there. (I’m not sure why he’s leaving Austria, though he did mention the weather is lousy there.) I described some other roads he could check out, wished him luck on Monday, and we parted ways. I can’t imagine he won’t shred the Health Net boys, but who am I to say?

When I got home I googled his name and found him all over the race results websites, lots of top twenties. His profile on his team’s website, roughly translated by my browser (I don’t speak a word of German), reads thus: “Successes: winner total valuation of the UNIQA junior Trophy 2006, 6 victories in the junior class 2006, 6 further Top three placements in the junior class 2006, Viennese master in the junior class/road 2006, summoning into the Austrian junior national team 2006, 1 victory in the junior class 2005, 3 further Top three placements in the junior class 2005. Qualities: very good mountain driver, good individual time driver, good Sprinter, very good Allrounder, my nerve strength, openness, tolerance, loyalty, ambition.”

[Here’s a photo of Robel from around the time I encountered him.]

So, next time you see a guy with a front reflector on his bike, don’t jump to any hasty conclusions. He might be one of those mountain drivers!

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From the Archives - It IS About the Bike: Part 2

Introduction

Last week I ran the first half of a story I originally published in the Daily Peloton back in 2015. Well, to be more accurate I wrote it for some other magazine honoring the bicycle frame company Serotta, which was going out of business. As you shall see, my literary scruples prevented this from being a useful article to the Serotta people, which is why Daily Peloton got it. Since DP’s servers crashed a couple years back and all their content was lost, I’m serving the story up here.

Speaking of being lost, if you didn’t read the first half of this, go back here and do that now. Or not … you’ll figure out what’s going on eventually.

It Is About the Bike – Part II – January 2015

So, as I was saying last week, having wrecked my beautiful Mercian, I was getting by with an old Cinelli frameset on loan from my friend Nico. For months I’d been waiting in vain for news about getting my bent Mercian repaired. I waited and waited, and pestered and pestered Dave Whittingham, the manager of The Spoke, but to no avail. Eventually Nico wanted his Cinelli back and I still needed a bike. Thus, was time to buy a new frame but I had no money. (I’d spent it all on the Mercian and in fact still owed my dad at least $100 on it.) My brother Geoff, who had earned a fortune washing dishes at  the Flagstaff House restaurant, said he’d loan me the money for a frame if and only if I bought another Miyata. What was I to do?

I bit the bullet and bought a Pro Miyata, 57 cm, light blue with gold panels, for something like $300 (frame and fork). It looked pretty cool, but wasn’t as flashy as that Cinelli and rode just as bad. Of course I was happy to have a bike, but it was still a letdown.

At least it had proper lettering on the head tube, instead of the cheesy badge pictured above. And obviously it didn’t have any damn reflectors.

Nico worked at The Spoke, and I used to hang around with him there, chewing the fat. Not surprisingly, what we talked about was bikes. And what we talked about when we talked about bikes was The Perfect Bike. That it would be a Mercian was a given. The only question was, what color? Those frames came in like 60 different colors and if they didn’t have the color you wanted, you could send them a sample and they’d match it. We decided the ultimate Mercian would be the Colorado model (exclusive to the U.S., with Reynolds 531 tubing, racing geometry, an all-important lack of rack eyelets, and a 531 SL fork), with white pearl paint, red panels and a red head tube. But the red, we agreed, couldn’t be a candy-apple red because that was taken, being the iconic color of Colnagos like the Russian team had in the Coors Classic. So this would have to a slightly different shade: slightly on the plum or burgundy side, or a Moroccan leather red perhaps. We talked endlessly about this.

As time went on, it became increasingly obvious there would be no repair for my poor old Mercian, and eventually this became irrelevant: at fifteen, I’d outgrown my Pro Miyata and was therefore too big for the old Mercian anyway. Fortunately, at the same time I came into some money. An uncle had died three years before and left my brothers and me a grand each. My mom had wisely locked our money up in CDs earning a whopping 16%, and now, the term being up, she agreed to let me buy a new frame with some of my earnings.

So my mom drove me over to The Spoke, and I marched right up to the counter, where Dave Whittingham happened to be standing. I’d have liked to say something amazing and bold, like “I’m here to buy a new frame and I’ve got shit-stacks of money,” but of course I was too shy and polite. In fact, before I could even open my mouth, Dave said something apologetic like, “Look, I know what you’re going to ask, but I just have to tell you: Mercian can’t repair your frame. I’m sorry I got your hopes up.”

Before I could think of how to respond, he went on, “So because I feel bad, and because you’re good kid, I’m going to let you buy any frame I have in stock at wholesale.” As he said these words his glance drifted toward a row of frames hanging from the wall. Maybe he even gestured, ever so slightly, with his chin. And there, hanging right in front, was a pearl white Mercian Colorado with red panels and a red head tube, 60 cm ... just my size.

I couldn’t believe it. There it was, the frameset of my dreams. I asked Dave to take it down off the wall. The red of the panels is hard to describe. It was lustrous, deep, and unique. It was a beautiful frameset. I looked up at Dave. He had an amused expression, much like the one I’d have years later when, in the Red Light district of Amsterdam, I watched hayseeds from Oklahoma ogling the whores in the display windows.

But before making that frameset mine, I paused and reflected. I was in the catbird seat: a kid with many hundreds of dollars to spend, a sweetheart deal, and several bike brands to choose from. For the first time ever, I got to choose my frameset.

“Wait!” you might be thinking. “This Mercian, it was meant to be! You dreamed of this frame! It’s exactly what you’d already identified as the perfect bike! And clearly it had been made to order, just for you ... a leap of faith by this shop manager! Another brand?! That’s insane!”

And you’d have a point. But remember, I was a teenaged kid. All day every day my friends and I compared bike brands, watched bikes going by, drooled over bike magazines and catalogs, and debated the pros and cons of every make and model under the sun. Which was better, the Colnago Super or the Colnago Mexico? Were Olmos as good as Pogliaghis? Were Californian Masis as good as Italian Masis? Was it sacrilege for a high-end Italian Bianchi to be painted anything but Celeste #227, that milky washed-out green color? And was it even worse for a lower-end Japanese Bianchi—a totally new phenomenon in those days—to be painted Celeste #227? Who made better tubing—Reynolds or Columbus? And where did Bob Jacksons fit in this bicycle pantheon?

And keep in mind, this wasn’t just any purchase. What do teenagers blow their money on these days? Mostly hi-tech stuff, right? Playstations and smartphones? Those are guaranteed to be obsolete in a couple of years anyway. Not so with a bike, now that I was basically full-grown. I might have this bike for years and years, for thousands and thousands of miles. It could be the bike of my life. This wasn’t like buying a consumer good; it was more like buying a horse.

My friends and I loved our bikes like they were family. After a great ride, you’d lean your bike against the wall, gaze at it, and actually sigh with pleasure. I’d even go give it a little pat on the saddle. My bike meant more to me then than a modern teenager could possibly understand. A bike was freedom. My parents never worried about me, so I could ride as far as I want. My pals and I did 80 miles at a shot, day after day (having nothing better to do). Our suntans were asymmetrical from slowly climbing north to Estes Park and quickly descending back south. A friend and I capped off the summer by doing a 130-mile trek over the highest pass in North America. Only a bike could make such an adventure possible. Our bikes were our lifestyle, our identity, our everything.

So: what bike to get? The Spoke carried Olmos, but my brother Max was buying one on layaway and I couldn’t appear to be copying him. I’d never cared for Motobecanes (which all my brothers had had) and the Prolight, Motobecane’s flagship, was rumored to be flex-y. The Specialized Allez was high-end, but it wasn’t Euro. Ah, but The Spoke had Serottas. They sold lots of Serottas.

Timidly, I asked to look at one. Timid? Well, yeah. Obviously it was the Mercian that ought to be my destiny, after all. But Dave had said “any frame.” He graciously took me over to a bright metallic violet Serotta Nova in my size, built up with Campy Super Record. (Back in those days, when all good bikes were road bikes, and when the sales floor didn’t have to accommodate today’s menagerie of mountain bikes, commuting bikes, cyclocross bikes, lifestyle bikes, beach cruisers, and fixies, you wouldn’t believe the deep inventory of kickass road bikes shops could carry, especially in Boulder.)

The deck was stacked against the Serotta, of course, but I had to admit it looked great. Nico, who’d either gone to the shop with me or was there working that day, had to agree. So I took it out.

I hammered away on that bike, taking the corners hard, following the course of The Hill Criterium, one of the big Boulder races. I really put the Serotta through its paces, shoving on the pedals with everything I had. And with a strange mixture of delight and consternation, I realized this bike rode amazingly well ... in fact, possibly better than my Mercian had. It just felt so lively, so quick. I was astonished, and was overcome with the turmoil of deciding what to do.

Maybe, I reasoned, I was just comparing this to the Pro Miyata it was replacing. That Miyata was oddly back-heavy, like the rear triangle had solid tubes or something. From day one I hadn’t much liked it. So I rode back to the shop, borrowed Nico’s Mercian, gave it a good hard test ride, then switched back to the Serotta, then back to the Mercian, etc. I didn’t dare say this out loud, but if anything the Serotta rode better. Could it be the pins the Mercian was built with, that my brothers had taunted me about? No, that’s a dumb gag I just made up. That idea never crossed my mind at the time, and I didn’t kid myself that the difference was a matter of workmanship. Probably the Serotta’s Columbus SL tubeset was lighter than the Mercian’s Reynolds 531. Or maybe the Serotta’s geometry was more aggressive. Maybe it was something else about the bike (lighter wheels?), or maybe I just had a deep-seated, perverse impulse to make trouble for myself.

Quietly, I placed the Serotta back in its stand on the sales floor, next to several other Serottas much like it. And there was the Mercian, up on the counter, standing proud, propped on its bottom bracket and fork tips. And suddenly I had this strange feeling: my tension subsided as it dawned on me what a good problem this was to have. I had money, and I was about to have a new frameset, and whichever I picked, it was going to ride like a dream.

My mom was patiently waiting. I had to make up my mind. I hadn’t ordered that Mercian myself, but it had obviously been ordered according to my specifications. To reiterate, its existence was an act of faith. Teenagers are known for their pure id, but now my nascent superego actually asserted itself: I bought the Mercian. Maybe that was the first truly grown-up thing I ever did.

So did I always regret not buying the Serotta? Did I managed to love the new bike? Of course I loved it. In fact, it ended up becoming, of all the steel frames I ever owned, my second favorite. (And what was my very favorite? Well, that’s another story.)

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From the Archives - It IS About the Bike

Introduction

Seven or eight years ago, the iconic American bicycle frame company Serotta went out of business, and there was some journalistic buzz about its legacy. A friend suggested I write a tribute based on my own love of these bikes. The problem is, I’d owned only one Serotta, and very briefly at that. I’d bought it used, and it had been a broken frame repaired by a guy who was just learning how to braze steel framesets. His novice status was emphasized when his repair failed on literally my first or second ride. So my time with the Serotta wasn’t exactly a love affair … not even a fling, really.

Could I have written about Serottas from some other perspective? Like, the reputation the brand had among my racer friends and me? Well, we did affectionately call them “Scrotums” but that wouldn’t really do for a retrospective piece. So I wrote the sprawling story that follows, which is far from the concise, zippy, fawning paean that was called for. I knew my essay was a doomed effort, almost an f-you to the editor, who didn’t even bother to formally reject it. He just ignored it, perhaps rightly so. (In the event, this eulogy would have been a misstep anyway, as Serotta is back in business.)

Not knowing what else to do with my story, I sent it to the Daily Peloton who ran it in two installments. Oddly enough, their new(-ish?) editor assumed—based on my name—that I was female. That was a bit embarrassing … look:

(I describe the lifelong indignity of having a girl’s name here.)

Anyway, since Daily Peloton’s servers crashed a few years ago and all my articles there were lost, I’m gradually reposting them on albertnet. Read on for my not-really-about-a-Serotta article.

It Is About the Bike – January 2015

It was the bicycle equivalent of sensible shoes: a Miyata 310, the second bike I ever owned. I first saw it in a catalog, upstaged by the Team Miyata and Pro Miyata that were obviously out of my league. The 912, Miyata’s entry-level race bike, was almost within my reach, which gave me pangs. But I was resigned right off to the 310, which I only dared hope I’d get for my 12th birthday. I still remember the catalog description: “Offers the looks and the handling ease of the 912, with a price to fit most budgets.” It cost $265, in 1981. Since my choices were effectively limited to the one bike my mom would pay for, it was really she who chose it. And it was just the beginning.

When I outgrew that bike I sold it, ponied up my life savings, borrowed $250 more from my dad, and bought my first real racing bike. This was my friend Nico’s Mercian. It was practically new. He’d just gotten picked up by a team that gave its riders bikes. Imagine! Mere teenagers getting free bikes! Never mind that these were used bikes (also Mercians) that the senior team had ridden the year before and handed down to the juniors; the cachet of a free bike surely overcame that. Of course, Nico’s old Mercian being the only pro-quality road bike I had the chance to get cheap, I didn’t exactly choose it, either ... no more than I had that Miyata.

The Mercian—my Mercian—was a beautiful bike, possibly the most beautiful I’ve ever owned. (That’s saying a lot: I’ve had over 20 road bikes.) The color was officially called “champagne pearl,” but it was more like—what? Ginger ale? Not exactly. It was the color of a young gazelle, but sparkly. The lettering was pure white, whiter than snow, whiter than the cleavage of a Shakespeare heroine. I loved that bike. Here’s the best photo I have of it. See the guy with the Shaversport jersey and no number? That’s Nico, in the Red Zinger Mini Classic race leader jersey, on the Mercian before I owned it. I’m two guys to his right (#62) on the blue Miyata 310 with the clamped-on water bottle cage.

I’d had the Mercian for only a couple of months when, one night out with Nico, enjoying the warm and the dark and the freedom of riding bikes, we swung into a parking lot that ended up being a lot smaller than expected. I rammed that poor bike right into a curb. I flipped over the bars and landed on grass and was unfortunately totally unhurt. I say “unfortunately” because when I saw that I’d bent my frame—so that the paint on the top tube cracked, and the downtube crinkled—I wished I was dead.

Did my brothers comfort me? Of course not. There were three of them: the twins, Geoff and Bryan (three years older than I) and Max (a year and a half older). They taunted me about my wrecked bike: “Those MUR-shans”—my brothers mispronounced it just to piss me off—“are made with pins, which puts a strain on the tubes and weakens them. The right way to hold the tubes in place is with a jig, but at the MUR-shan factory they use pins because they’re lazy. Any other frame would have handled that crash just fine.” I got so sick of hearing this explanation ... they wouldn’t shut up about it.

Looking back, I can see why my brothers gave me a hard time: it’s because I had a cooler bike than they did. Never mind that I paid for it myself. I’d earned the money through one odd job after another: working for Eco-Cycle (the curbside recycling pickup program); cleaning Laundromats; standing in front of a grocery store handing out flyers for Fiske Planetarium; blanketing the neighborhoods with flyers for Save Home Heat, a solar energy company; installing pipe insulation; timing sailboat races at the Boulder Reservoir; and helping my friend’s mom deliver newspapers. This mattered nothing to my brothers. I had the cool handmade English racing bike that they didn’t, and this was an act of insubordination.

(Would my brothers agree, today, with that last paragraph? Who cares! This is my story ... if they don’t like it they can write their own.)

Finally, to shut them up, I wrote a letter to Frank Berto, the head gearhead at Bicycling magazine. (Among bike nerds, he was something of a celebrity.) I described my size and weight, the speed of the crash, the fact that I hit the curb head-on, and so forth, and asked if the pins caused the frame failure. My brothers swiped the letter and played keep-away with it, reading snatches as they went. Of course they preferred paraphrasing what I’d written: “As I hit the curb, my slight but highly-muscled build holding the bike in a perfectly perpendicularly fashion, a grimace spreading over my face,” etc. It wasn’t enough to mock my bike. They had to mock my prose as well, by resorting to the cheap trick of pointing out absurd descriptions and grammatical errors that didn’t actually exist in my letter.

Well, they could laugh all they wanted because I knew that letter would eventually ensure my vindication. Perhaps they fantasized that I’d get some cheap form letter apologizing that due to the high volume of letters received, not all could be published, etc.

Instead, I got a letter back from Frank Berto himself! I can’t remember exactly how he put it, but his letter conveyed that of course my brothers were full of shit, and that pins are perfectly fine, and that any bike with a light tubeset like that would have bent just like mine did. As an extra bonus, the secretary at “Bicycling” added a little note saying, “Our editor was very impressed that someone your age could write so well. He said, ‘Sign that boy up!’”

Well, I really rubbed my brothers’ noses in it, which felt great. But antagonizing my brothers may have been a poor strategy long-term, as I’ll get to in a bit. The immediate problem was: I had no bike to ride. Dave Whittingham, the manager of The Spoke—the bike shop that imported Mercians into the U.S.—told me Mercian might be able to fix my frame for a couple hundred bucks. Thus began an interminable cycle of my asking him about it every time I went into the shop, which was a lot, and him responding with a hangdog look and an apology. I still can’t figure out why he kept stringing me along with false hope.

Short term, I borrowed another frame from Nico. This was a rose-colored Cinelli. I can’t remember where he got it or why he had it. Looking back, it was probably the coolest, most iconic frameset I ever possessed. It was very old school—and in fact, just plain old. The head tube logo wasn’t the winged “c” they use now, but an elaborate coat-of-arms deal. The lettering was ornate and blocky and vaguely Roman, like something engraved on the tympanum of a coliseum.

The frame was heavy: probably made of primitive Columbus straight-gauge tubing, from the days before butted tubes. This frame may have even dated from the early days when Cino Cinelli himself was in charge and his company produced only 350 frames a year. I had worshipped these bikes for years … in fact, two or three years before, I’d worn a Cinelli cycling cap 24x7. Check it out:

Alas, all the old-world class and pedigree in the world couldn’t make that Cinelli ride as well as my old Mercian. I hate to say it, but the Cinelli was sluggish.

After a few months Nico wanted his frame back and there was still no progress on the fool’s errand of getting the Mercian repaired. It was time to buy a new frame. So my brother Geoff, who had earned a fortune washing dishes at the Flagstaff House restaurant, said he’d loan me the money for a frame if and only if I bought another Miyata. What was I to do, having sassed him with the Frank Berto letter, thus putting myself at his mercy? Tune in next week for the tragicomic denouement of this tale.

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