Cycling Smackdown - Man vs. E-Bike

Introduction

If you’re a cyclist, you are probably now accustomed to being passed up by non-cyclists on e-bikes. When this happens, you may be puzzled, for a fraction of a second, by how some non-racer-type in a big puffy jacket sitting bolt upright on a humble commuting bike is so much faster than you, and then you realize. My eyes still dart to the down-tube of the person’s bike, to confirm the presence of a giant battery pack, as if to reassure myself that the universe still basically makes sense (if it does).

Mind you, I am 100% in favor of e-bikes … for adults. Especially for commuting. But I am also 100% not in favor of kids on e-bikes. If you agree, and particularly if you don’t, read on.

Cycling Smackdown – Man vs. E-Bike

I was on a solo road ride. I was not happy. I felt old and slow and fat. This isn’t very charitable and you likely wouldn’t call me fat, especially if I remembered to suck in my gut if I thought you were looking at me (but then, why would you be?). But being fat and feeling fat are entirely different things. I think anyone can feel fat. As a cyclist whose midsection used to be concave, I am admittedly unfair with myself.

I almost cut the ride short. I’ll confess I was indulging in a disgraceful amount of self-loathing and self-pity. Some days you have it, some you don’t, and I was really lagging, dragging a baggy, deflated ego behind me. I guess that’s the problem with ever having been really fast on a bike … you can’t help but compare. But enough of this.

At about the halfway point of my 30-mile loop, I turned onto Happy Valley Road to do “Half Happy,” which is halfway up what would be a pretty tough climb if you didn’t take the merciful turnoff down Sundown Terrace. The grade starts out at 1% for a tenth of a mile, then dabbles between 2% and 5% until a final really steep bit and then the turnoff. Half Happy is 2.5 miles at an average grade of 3.5%. (You can view the Strava segment here.)

As it happened, two teenagers on e-bikes turned onto Happy Valley Road just after I did (coming from either Happy Valley Lane or Hester Lane, just after Highway 24). One of the kids was on the kind of total cop-out e-bike that doesn’t even pretend to be a proper bicycle and that nobody actually pedals (see photo above). It’s more like a mini-bike, with the fat tires and the manual throttle. The kid yelled at me, something I didn’t quite hear (not expecting to be accosted). I said, “Huh?” and he yelled again, “You wanna race?!”

In the same millisecond that I parsed the question, I answered it. This was long before I devoted any thought to actually considering his proposal. It turns out my lizard brain is able to direct my vocal chords, tongue, and lips without needing to engage my neocortex, because I was surprised to suddenly hear myself yelling, “Yeah, I’ll race you! Let’s GO!” My naysaying inner voice—that is, the wimp in my brain that had been complaining the whole ride—said, “Oh boy. This is not going to end well.”

But my arguably better brain, the impulsive one that at least isn’t so pathetic, shouted down the inner voice, yelling (silently, internally), “GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!” And for better or for worse, this wilder, bolder part of my brain was, at this time, in charge of my body. I launched the hardest attack I’m capable of.

Here is where we started our race:

This is of course the part of the story where, according to classic narrative tradition, I am supposed to say, “I threw her in the big ring.” If this were fiction, that’s how I’d structure it. But full disclosure: I was already in the big chainring (i.e., higher gear range) because the climb is only 1% at this point. Nevertheless, as I accelerated, out of the saddle, I shifted up a few gears on the back so I could really dig in. It was crazy: out of absolutely nowhere, I just had this enormous rush of energy, like I was a surfer who’d just caught a 40-foot wave. I was flying! I glanced at my bike computer: I was doing over 25 mph!

The two kids, who’d been flanking me on either side, were quickly falling behind, and one of them—to my delight—yelled, “Oh, SHIT!” Needless to say, now I was fully committed and as the climb got steeper I had to go harder and harder. My suffering increased exponentially as the grade went from 1% to about 4%. I was still hauling ass in the big ring, and couldn’t believe how much energy I actually had. I felt strong like bull! But how long could this last? Of course I didn’t want to just start well and fizzle, because as we all know, he who laughs last laughs best.

Why did I even care about this pointless duel? It’s because, like I mentioned earlier, I hate to see kids on e-bikes. Why do their parents think kids need this product? Kids throughout time (well, at least for the last hundred years or so) have gotten around just fine on regular bicycles. It’s a great form of exercise and, given that riding a bike replaces walking or running—undeniably slow, hard, and inefficient ways to travel—kids have historically loved the increased speed and range that a good old fashioned bicycle can provide. Perhaps modern helicopter parents (or recovering helicopter parents), having habitually driven their kids everywhere, have finally had enough, and now refuse to drive them—but feel guilty about adding difficulty to their kids’ lives, and thus get them e-bikes to cushion the blow. Or maybe these parents think the kids will have more energy for studying and extracurricular activities if they don’t have to pedal their way around. Maybe these kids are so oversubscribed that they don’t have time to ride regular bikes from one activity to another. Or it could be these parents are not only sedentary and out of shape themselves, but lack the imagination to think of their kids as able-bodied people perfectly capable of pedaling their own asses around. Whatever the case, these parents are clearly defective. The kids, for their part, are lazy and shameless. If, when I was a kid, my parents had offered me an e-bike (had such a thing existed, and had they been defective parents), I’d have been offended. Thus, when I see a kid on an e-bike, it’s as galling as seeing a cat on a leash, or a dog in a stroller, or a toddler with an iPad.

How could I keep this pace up? Could I keep this up? A boss once advised me, when I had an important decision to make, “Go with your gut”—but then, after a moment’s reflection (and likely remembering the business zeitgeist of the moment), he added, “but make sure your decision is data-driven.” Well, which is it? I guess you can do both: decide what to do based on intuition, but then keep yourself honest via whatever objective metrics are at hand. My decision to pick up the gauntlet having been purely impulsive, it was now time to look at the data side of things. I figured the e-bikes, if they hadn’t been tampered with, were configured not to go over 15 mph, therefore as long as I could average higher than that, I could hold the kids off. The climb was close to 5% in places so my speed dipped below 15 here and there, but overall this pace seemed doable. I now know this analysis was flawed: having reviewed my own research on this, and corroborating this with friends, I’ve confirmed that Class 2 e-bikes such as these kids were riding will actually go up to 20 mph. Fortunately, my oxygen-starved brain couldn’t really do math (e.g., calculating how long I could go below 15 mph and still maintain that average), so I had to err on the side of going as hard as I could anyway, numbers be damned.

I allowed myself a glance back to see how my opponents were doing. The kids were still at it, but my gap was pretty good. The really peculiar thing was how blasé their effort looked … until I considered what “going hard” on an e-bike means. On a traditional bike, of course, the rider is out of the saddle, his body thrashing as he rocks the bike, generally with an agonized expression. Often his mouth will gape open; sometimes I wonder, during an all-out effort, if I’ve managed to unhook my jaw the way some snakes can. But on a Class 2 e-bike the pedals are practically just for show, and once you’ve twisted the throttle to full-on, there’s not much more you can do … the bike is doing all it can, and its capability is governed not by pluck, grit, determination, or anything glorious like that, but just by the limit of its design (i.e., its governor). There is no “digging deep” on an e-bike … the outcome in a man-vs.-e-bike contest is in the hands of the real cyclist. I focused on the road ahead and kept the pressure on. My legs and throat were burning, but by God, I kept the speed up. Stroke after stroke, my legs kept turning over the big gear. It was like those trick birthday candles that relight themselves every time they’re blown out.

Protracted suffering ensued which there is no point describing other than to say it seemed to go on and on. Finally I got to the really steep part, just over two miles since the start, and still no annoying teens had buzzed by me. I looked back again … and they were gone. (There can be no fixed finish line in such an impromptu race; suffice to say, I gave the kids all the runway they wanted to try to beat me.) Looking down at my bike computer, I noticed I’d actually increased my average speed for the whole ride! On a climb! Frickin’ glorious. The hapless teens, through their hubris, had done me a solid!

In a perfect world, those teenagers would declare my victory “iconic,” and—inspired by what’s evidently possible even for an ancient guy like me—they’d go get real bikes and become athletes. But surely the more likely scenario is they’ll tell their parents their e-bikes suck, and demand better ones. Or, they’ll go on YouTube and learn how to disable their bikes’ governors. But whatever their story is, I’m sure I have the better one to tell!

Epilogue

At what point did the kids give up? Who knows … but if they’d stayed at it all the way to my turnoff, they’d necessarily have beaten me. Going back to the data, I see that the KOM for this Strava segment, set by a far faster rider than I, was at an average speed of 19.4 mph ... that is, below what the kids’ e-bikes were able to sustain. I find it remarkable that the kids quit the effort even though it didn’t cause them any pain or suffering. I guess they weren’t being “data driven.” Maybe without the opportunity to consult ChatGPT, they just didn’t know what to do...

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A Scattershot Approach to New Year’s Resolutions

Introduction

Well, it’s that time of year again, when you start to wonder whether your neighbors are ever going to take down their holiday lights, your friends start cracking jokes about turning “dry January” into “moist January,” and you find yourself endlessly ignoring articles about New Year’s Resolutions. Well, don’t ignore this one, because, well, just don’t. I worked hard on it. I mean, I’m about to. I will have worked hard on it by the end, unless it comes easily, who knows … wish me luck.

The scattershot approach

If you’re a longtime reader, you may recall that I’ve taken a variety of approaches to the New Year’s Resolution topic, from beating around the bush to a one-size-fits-all blanket Resolution to the highly specific treatment to the “wide net” approach. Well, I’m taking this latter tack again this year: throwing out a bunch of suggestions in case one or two hit home with this or that random reader. It’s like speed-dating. So get ready … many of these won’t apply to you, a few might, and I hope most of them will give you a chuckle if nothing else.

Get out there

I think a lot of people developed bad habits during the COVID-19 pandemic. It became so easy to stay home, spend half the day in pajamas and the other half in sweats, amortize that pandemic-purchased treadmill or Peloton exercise bike, and basically embrace our inner troglodyte. Well, it’s time to unlearn that. Why? Because humans are social creatures. I have been getting out more myself—less indoor training, more errands on foot, and I’m even doing more window shopping—because seeing other people out and about is like a balm to me now after having been cooped up. I’m actually surprised by this, having been a lifelong introvert, but there you have it. Even when I’m stopped at this one endless traffic light in Orinda during my bike rides, I take pleasure in seeing the menagerie of motorists parading by. So resolving to get out there more isn’t just for yourself—it’s for everyone else, too.

Stop floss-shaming

I guess I should say floss-self-shaming, by which I mean feeling like an idiot because you find it such a struggle to throw away a strand of used dental floss. You try to ball it up (it won’t stay balled), maybe you twist it into a snake so it’ll be shorter (pointless), you try everything, but when you go to drop it into the wastebasket it never lands there. For me it’s particularly hard because the bathroom trash can is always sliding into the far corner behind the sink and when I stoop to drag it out I have to watch I don’t bonk my head on the medicine cabinet door, and then the can’s got that pedal-activated lid that’s tough to use when I’m all crouched over because my vision is so crappy that it’s hard to see if my floss made it all the way in, only part of the way, or none of the way. Disposing of floss at day’s end is such a discouraging task, it makes me wonder if life has just gotten too difficult to even stand.

But there’s hope! Last week I stumbled across a New Yorker cartoon on this very subject: a guy meets his gal at an outdoor coffee shop table and says, “Sorry I’m late—I was trying to throw a string of dental floss in the garbage.” So fear not, we are not alone. It’s not just you and me being lame … this floss difficulty is a known thing. So have some self-compassion around this. (And no, self-compassion will not make you a wuss.)

(Now, if you though this Resolution was about not needing to floss, that’s absurd. If you don’t already floss at least once a day, make that your Resolution. We only get one set of teeth, and we’re all living longer … I could write a whole post about dental hygiene. In fact I did.)

Get less takeout/delivery

It seems like we live in the golden era of takeout (unless that  era is still ahead of us, meaning one day nobody will ever cook or go out anymore). This needs to change. There are so many reasons to get less takeout. First of all—and I speak from experience here—it’s so often a capitulation. Not something festive or fun like going out, but an admission that you just don’t have the gumption to cook. Why pay money to indulge a sense of defeat?

Meanwhile, there’s the packaging. Just picture all those plastic and styrofoam containers, yours and everyone else’s, lining our landfills … doesn’t it fly in the face of last year’s Resolution to take better care of the planet? And don’t kid yourself about recycling. My trash company sent us this stern bulletin recently that said something like, “We’ve changed our policy around recyclables. Only cans and bottles will be accepted: no other form of plastic is allowed, and we will be watching your bin. You get only one warning and then we will fine you a gazillion dollars. And don’t even think about sneaking your plastic into a neighbor’s recycling … if you try that, rest assured, we will find you, and we will kill you.” (Yeah, I exaggerated a bit, but it really was a snotty bulletin.)

What’s more, you’re doing your local restaurant a disservice because the lovely food they create is severely compromised by the transportation delay. It’s less than piping hot, and it’s sweaty from being trapped with its steam, plus the presentation is ruined. So the restaurant you think is just-okay is probably actually great but you no longer know it. On top of that, you’re slowing down the restaurant’s kitchen and thus compromising the experience of their dine-in guests, all because you’re too lazy to put on a pair of pants, brush your hair, and go be out in the world. (Didn’t I just tell you, via my first suggested resolution, to get out more?)

Delivery is even worse … you have to pay extra, plus tip the driver, and you’re not even leaving the house. I was shocked to learn that people are now using DoorDash to get McDonald’s. As if a non-piping-hot French fry were even edible. And McDonald’s is actually calling this McDelivery®. Did you just throw up in your mouth? I did, too! The center cannot hold. The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

I know what you’re thinking right now: “Yeah, but who has the time to cook?” Well now wait a second. Haven’t you been going on and on, like everybody else, about how useful A.I. is, and how much time you’re saving using ChatGPT? For example, when your daughter needed help with her homework for art class, and instead of spending an hour or more counseling her you just outsourced it and got a finished artwork in under two minutes?

Think of all the time A.I. has freed up for you to cook! And hey, here is a link to some easy recipes even a time-strapped college kid could make. (No, they’re not perfectly salubrious but neither is the stuff restaurants produce.)

Get control of your dog

I am not a dog person, which gives me special insight into what’s it like to not be enthralled by dogs. If you are a dog person, it might come as a real surprise to you that what you consider either adorable or at least lovably rambunctious misbehavior is actually a drag for grouches like me. For example, I’m out for a walk and your dog comes bounding over to me and tries to run up my body, his front paws raking my legs and groin, and you call out, “Don’t worry, he’s friendly!” And I’m thinking, fine, you’re probably friendly too, but would you windmill me like this? Or, your dog terrorizes me with aggressive barking and instead of apologizing to me, you only bawl out the dog, as though I could get satisfaction from that. Look, I can enjoy dogs, if they politely come sniff me and wait patiently to be adored. Maybe you could, like, train your beloved pet better so that everyone can love her?

Stop using my hairbrush

This one really only applies to my younger daughter when she’s home from college. So, L—, to be clear, it’s actually okay if you use my hairbrush on the sly such that I don’t even know about it. But when I have to look for it, I get nervous … what if you took it to a slumber party and lost it? As you know, it’s my oldest possession so I’m inordinately fond of it. And to my other readers: if you routinely borrow a hairbrush (or anything else) that is somebody’s oldest possession, please stop, or at least be more discreet.

When in Rome, wear a mask

I am not suggesting that there is an outbreak of COVID or any other disease in Rome. I mean this figuratively, and what I’m saying is, if you enter a business where the staff are wearing COVID masks, maybe you should, too, just out of respect. It’s no real hardship, after all, and isn’t it nice getting sick less often than we used to? After those pandemic years it seems like every jacket I own has a mask in its pocket, along with every bag and backpack. So just put that mask on as you go through the door … don’t cost nothin’.

Stop wearing a mask alone in your car

Look, in the early days of the COVID lockdown when nobody know what was going on, we did all kinds of silly stuff, like forensic-grade wipe-downs of shopping cart handles and wearing a mask in the car. But it never made sense to wear a mask when driving alone, did it? Are you worried you’ll give your car COVID? This behavior makes even less sense now than at the height of the pandemic, but I still see people doing it. If that’s you, just stop. You’re making mask-wearers look like lunatics. Let’s not re-kindle that whole mask-ideology war, okay?

Entertain more

Remember when people hosted dinner parties, or cocktail parties, or birthday parties? Well, at least in my community, it seems like entertaining guests has become a lost art. Is it just me or are fewer people hosting than in years past? (That you can’t reply “It’s just you” is why albertnet is a blog, not a panel discussion.)

I think people have either gotten lazy, or out of practice, or they’ve just forgotten entertaining is a thing. Look, if you have social anxiety, don’t worry about it … blow this Resolution off. But if you used to host parties or dinners, how about reflecting on how fun that was, and getting back into it?

Lose the motion-activated stadium lights

Most nights, my wife and I take a walk after dinner (we call it our Post-Prandial Promenade) and it’s all very pleasant except the half-dozen or so houses that have installed motion-sensor-activated lights that are blindingly bright, like we’re suddenly being interrogated. What the hell? What ever happened to the 40-watt porch light? Trust me, that was enough to deter burglars, who a) can be spotted in very low light, and b) don’t tend to do their thing at 8 p.m. anyway. If you have one of these crazy-bright lights, you’re basically blinding your neighbors on a regular basis. What for? Are you worried we’ll veer off the sidewalk, trip on your lawn gnome, get injured, and sue? With this thoughtless technology you are being antisocial, and giving me—a conscientious, law-abiding citizen—a serious temptation to commit vandalism (e.g., bringing a slingshot on my walks to take out your light bulbs).

Stop holding your smartphone up to your mouth

I’ve seen this for years: an otherwise normal-looking person is using his or her smartphone in speakerphone mode, but has determined that the person on the other end of the call may be having trouble hearing, and thus holds the phone directly ahead of his or her mouth as if about to take a bite out of it:

This might seem like a victimless crime, but it’s really not. Not only does it look ridiculous, but it reminds the onlooker that this person is so lost in his phone call he’s lost awareness of being out in public—which is unnerving. Earbuds with microphones are so cheap and unobtrusive, not to mention they protect your caller’s privacy. Why not just use them? As a bonus, you might be mistaken for a crazy person talking to himself, which is amusing.

But seriously…

If you earnestly want some help with your Resolutions and are disappointed with the above suggestions, here are some less flippant ones:

• If you’re over 50, get the shingles vaccination
• Improve your balance
• Discover the power of loafing
• Configure a mental firewall
• Dodge the exercise gumption trap
• Stop discussing politics
• If you have kids, try to unplug them
• Consider donating blood this year
• If you’re over 45, get a colonoscopy
• Learn how to cure your hiccups
• Switch to a proper razor
• Adopt the “Dutch reach” when getting out of your car
•  Stop pushing STEM
• Learn self-compassion
• Master multitasking
• Cut out cream and sugar
• Avoid bad movies
• Develop a family Internet use policy
• Avoid phishing attacks
• Switch to a wax chain lube
• Try these life hacks
• Hold yourself more accountable
• Avoid bad restaurants
• Be ready for an earthquake
• See the bigger picture
• Switch to a better keyboard layout
• Stop worrying about goals
• Try to have more fun

 Further reading 

• New Year’s Resolutions
• One-Size-Fits-All New Year’s Resolution
• New Year’s Resolutions - Dental Hygiene Edition
• New Year’s Resolutions - Let’s Get It Right This Time
• A Wide Net Approach to New Year’s Resolutions
• The DUMB Approach to New Year’s Resolutions
• New Year’s Resignation

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Epic Trans Alps Cycling Trip - Part V

Introduction

Wow, five blog posts in a row on the same topic? Well, yeah, if that’s the only way to keep my readers from having to wade through a single 15,000-word post. Look, you’ve had a week now to recover from my last report. Besides, what I recount herein is the tale of the hardest day yet: a route so brutal, it was used for Stage 11 of the 2022 Tour de France, ending on the very climb where Tajed Pogacar had his hopes dashed. Did I suffer the same fate as Pogacar? Well, now, hang on … who said I’d ever had any hope(s)?

(If you’ve fallen behind, Part I of my French Alps series is here, Part II is here, Part III is here, and Part IV is here.)

Breakfast

According to the cold cereal industrial complex, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Even so, I usually skip it, and in my reckless youth I’d even do 80-mile rides on an empty stomach. But in France, breakfast was one of life’s great pleasures and I’d have chowed down even if I were planning to spend the day at the library. As it turns out, even a buffet seems impossible for the French to screw up.

Not that it didn’t have its quirks. There was still no butter for the bread, most of the time; there was usually some weird porridge I didn’t have the guts to try; there were so many types of cured meats I’d have had a heart attack if I sampled them all (or at least wouldn’t have been able to mount my bike); and one day Craig went to peel a hard-boiled egg only to discover, messily, that it was raw!

That’s right: at a French buffet, they provide raw eggs and the tools necessary to boil them yourself. Look at the bang-up job K— has done on his. I mean, it’s perfect. And look how beautiful that bread is. And—WTF!—he even managed to find butter! I really need to pay more attention when I’m travelling (and to fire my albertnet fact-checker).

The route

As I mentioned before, our route on Day 6 was very similar to Stage 11 of last year’s Tour de France. (For an awesome 8-minute video recap of that, click here.)

The only difference was that we actually started out heading north to the first climb, and after it we headed way back south like the Tour stage. That’s right, we started out in the opposite direction of our final destination. Why? Because Lacets de Montvernier. This civil engineering masterpiece is well worth going out of the way for: it’s a Category 2 climb, only 2.3 miles long but with an average grade of 10.6%, featuring 18 switchbacks in under two miles. Check out how it looked on the cycling GPS app on my phone:

The crude display on my bike computer provided an even stranger representation:

Here’s a nice stock photo of the Lacets:

K— was feeling his oats (okay, his eggs) and tapped out a sweet tempo. If memory serves, he totally dropped the rest of our East Bay Velo Club cohort.

Here’s Ian, in his stealth non-EBVC cycling costume, savoring the grade as I peer over a switchback.

Craig cruises through a stone-walled section, then stretches his legs while taking in the view.

One of the guides snapped this pretty amazing shot.

Oddly enough, I can’t say it was a very hard climb. For one thing, the weird pain in my gluteus whateverus had finally subsided. Also, we took it really easy, knowing how much we still had ahead of us. After a glorious twisty descent we headed south over rolling terrain, toward the Col du Télégraphe.

Col du Télégraphe

After some time we reached the base of the Télégraphe, a Category 1 climb, and I wisely set out at my own solo pace, having learned the hard way twenty years before not to ride this one too hard. Here’s a nice shot from pretty early on.

Here’s my next and final shot of the Télégraphe, fifteen minutes later. Just look how far down the valley floor is … yet we’d been there so very recently. That’s the Alps for you.

We had a brief picnic at the summit before the 3-kilometer descent to Valloire, where the Col du Galibier starts. This is the oddly difficult descent where Team Jumbo-Visma attacked Pogacar and caught his UAE Team Emirates guys napping, as I recounted here.

Here is one of many excellent cow sculptures we encountered during the week. The French seem to really celebrate their cows, and based on the lovely cheese we’d been eating, I’d say they have a lot to celebrate.

Col du Galibier

If the photo above were higher-res, you could zoom in and see we had 17 kilometers (almost 11 miles) to go. The good news is, we had a very strong headwind.

Oh, wait, did I say good news? It was terrible. The first few miles of the climb aren’t that steep, but sufficiently so that our Epic A group broke apart right at Valloire. There was one dude in our group who had soloed right away. He is a big, strong guy, and it would have been good to have him around when facing that wind. So, I was stoked to realize I was slowly catching him, and figured we could work together until the steep section.

The trouble is, this guy wasn’t having it. All week he’d been kind of the “lone wolf” of the Epic A group, tending to do his own thing. For example, the rest of us had stopped to pee and get food at the base of the Télégraphe but he’d forged on ahead alone. So now, when I passed him, I eased up a bit to let him get my wheel, figuring after he’d drafted a bit he’d naturally return the favor. But instead, he slowed his pace to let me ride away from him. I’ve never seen such a thing. Clearly he just didn’t want company. Okay, fine. I pushed through the wind on my own. It was a cold, strong, biting wind and these miles seemed endless.

“My god,” I thought, “I am actually facing a headwind on the Galibier.” As you can read here, one of my most soul-crushingly brutal and wrenching experiences ever on a bicycle came on this godawful hard Hors Categorie climb … so to have a headwind into the bargain just seemed way over the top. This experience will forever serve me as a useful metaphor: next time I’m up against some quotidian difficulty and am tempted to feel sorry for myself, I can just think, “Hey … it could be worse. At least I’m not facing a headwind on the Galibier.”

The wind got stronger as I very gradually approached the first 180-degree switchback. As I cranked on the pedals, leaned over as aerodynamically as possible with my forearms on the tops of my bars (a position now banned by the UCI), I felt like the switchback was actually drifting away from me, perhaps on a tectonic plate. Finally I got there, took the 180-degree hairpin, and felt the thrill of the wind now at my back, pushing me along the first really steep section of the climb. It was thrilling, perhaps like surfing or being shot out of a cannon. In what seemed like no time at all, the valley floor was way down below me.

Of course, a pure tailwind like that couldn’t last, and the climb was long and steep. And long. And steep. As the road curved this way and that, the wind did everything it could to torment me, just short of spinning me around like a pinwheel. Needless to say, the temperature dropped steadily as I gained altitude. The sun went away for good.

It’s not exactly postcard-pretty up there but the views are impressive.

This is the part of the report that gets really difficult: conveying exactly how much this climb wore me down. Reading is such an easy task; so is writing, for that matter. I’m searching for a suitable metaphor for my dwindling power. You know how when you use a bar of Ivory soap, it gets smaller and smaller until it’s just a sliver, and not only is the sliver small but it’s spent, and just doesn’t deliver suds anymore? Or think of a pencil lead, or the tip of a crayon, that just gets blunter and blunter until it can’t write, it just makes kind of a blur on the paper. Consider a ball point pen that has somehow hung around so long it’s actually running out of ink, and puts frustratingly faint, broken marks on the page, so you shake it violently (like God seemed to be doing to me) to try to get it to work. Oh, here’s another one: think of trying to use a teabag a second time, so that the resulting drink is just weak and bitter. Such was my ineffectual plod up the mountain. Yes, I did keep the pedals turning, but this process seemed to affect the motion of the bicycle less and less.

I saw a random cyclist up ahead who had dismounted and was peering at the sky with binoculars. He was watching birds. I took them to be circling vultures at first, a perception obviously based on my morale. But they didn’t look like vultures, and they were darker than hawks, and their wings were different. I asked the binoculars guy what they were, but in my oxygen-starved state I made the offensive error of asking in English. Grasping the point of the guy’s blank stare, I tried again: “Excusez-moi, mais quel type d’oiseaux sont elles?” Now the guy looked excited, because (I suspect) he was a birder first and a proud Frenchman second. He leafed quickly through a little book (either a bird book or a dictionary, I guess) and it’s a testament to how slowly I was approaching that he had time to do so. He hurriedly said something completely nonsensical, like “They are Canada war knives.” I can’t remember the exact phrase; though I’d really tried to shunt it, my brain was cold and the synaptic signals sputtered and stopped. I nodded vaguely and kept riding, and the guy flipped through his book some more, and then jumped back on his bike and pedaled madly to within hearing range and called out, “Golden eagles!” Ah, so they were, and there were at least half a dozen of them up there, wheeling and cavorting in the wind. I didn’t have the presence of mind to reply, “Oh là là!” but I murmured my approval. I don’t know what was more impressive, actually; the birds or the birder.

On and up I rode. As I periodically looked back down the road, trying to cheer myself by noting my (albeit gradual) progress, I noted that Lone Wolf was gradually reeling me in. I had to hand it to him, he was tenacious, and strong. It took another couple of kilometers, but about three fourths of the way to the summit he finally came by. This time, I decided, I wouldn’t offer to take turns pulling, since he obviously wasn’t into sharing, but I was going to suck his wheel for as long as I could or unless he told me to stop. But there was just one problem: he was riding on the wrong side of the road. Not just a few inches from the center line, but spang in the middle of the oncoming lane! I couldn’t figure this out. I watched, bewildered, through a couple of switchbacks to see if he even had the sense to hug a right-hand embankment to escape the wind, but he didn’t. He was firmly committed to riding on the left.

Others had mentioned this mystifying behavior of Lone Wolf’s in previous days, and now I was witnessing it. My best guess at his reason for doing this is simply that he was embracing his divine sense of privilege. He’s probably a guy who made a lot of money, probably in tech, without needing to collaborate with anybody, and is very proud of that. Thus, he doesn’t see why he should cooperate with other bicyclists, or with traffic laws, and is just determined to do his own thing at all times, on principle. (This might explain why twice during the week, on descents, he made no attempt to hold his line and totally chopped other riders, almost taking Ian out at one point.) Needless to say I stayed on the right, and kept my distance, and eventually Lone Wolf dropped me.

Near the summit the mist increased, and it was blown around cinematically by the wind, and the terrain became even more desolate. It was oppressive but impressive, severe but sublime. And I suppose I should take a moment to point out that I was having a grand old time. Yes, I was seriously suffering, but after all that is the point. I chose this sport, and I chose this vacation, and every difficulty was within spec for a weeklong adventure that was supposed to be epic.

Finally I reached the junction where, with one kilometer to go, you either head left to the summit or go straight to a tunnel that we’d been warned not to take. The fog now was so thick I couldn’t even see the tunnel.

I took the left turn and started that long final kilometer, which averages 9% and—without anything left to provide shelter—I was fully in the wind. Somehow I made the summit. There was no picnic set up. It was frigid up there. The conditions were, to quote Lorrie Moore, “fit for neither beast nor vegetable.” I climbed into the warm van, found my backpack, and started putting on all the warm clothes I had. Here’s my only photo of the summit, taken through the van window.

Ian had joined us and, like Superman, was suddenly all ready for the descent and waiting for me. “Hang on,” I drawled lugubriously, “I just need to find my gloves.” Ian seemed to panic. “I have extras, take them!” he all but shrieked. I’m not sure what his rush was, other than it looked like it could storm at any second (and this was the forecast, actually). I found my gloves and we set out. (Ian lampooned his own impatience later, before I had the pleasure of doing so.)

OMG, what a descent. The road was wet and I didn’t want grit in my eyes so I kept on my sunglasses, though they were all steamed up. Between that and the fog, I could barely see … just the dark road between the white lines. But after a few miles of this, the fog lifted and blue sky appeared, the sun having finally decided to show his face. Everything was suddenly brilliant and the remaining globs of distant mist were tumbling and turning in the wind even as they dissolved. It was so improbably beautiful that I actually started laughing, tears in my eyes. The descent just got sweeter from there and soon we arrived at the little down of Le Monêtier-les-Bains, and stopped just a few blocks from the hotel we’d be staying at that night. The crew set up our picnic here, and we contrived beautiful sandwiches with cheese, cured meat, and great bread which we enjoyed in a glorious spell of sunshine. I was trying to pretend that soon we’d just head over to the hotel, but I knew we had one more climb to go.

Col du Granon

Look, I know this is already a very long post, over 2,500 words so far, which would take (me, at least) well over five minutes to read. Well, boo fricking hoo. This was a long-ass day on the bike, and it takes a lot of text to make a proper report. Just bear in mind that this day’s ride took me something like 20,000 pedal revolutions, and I didn’t get to leave off whenever I got bored or tired or listless. So if you feel like this is just too hard and you can’t go on, fine, go take a bubble bath, call it a night, come back later. Or not. Whatever. I’m not going to break this into two posts because it was all one day and that cumulative effect is what made it so hard.

As we started moving toward our bicycles (I’m tempted to say reluctantly, or was that just me?) it started to rain. We discussed whether it actually made sense to ride another 27 miles in this weather, after all we’d already been through. It was starting to sound like we had a consensus that we should just bag it, and then someone said, “Okay, let’s go” and we found ourselves rolling out, down a shallow descent into another headwind. It seemed like madness, but I’m nothing if not a follower. We continued, our trusty guide driving the pace on the front for us, Craig taking a pull here and there just because he’s a strong and generous guy and actually loves this kind of weather. (His spirit animal is a sled dog.)

We’d been given the basic stats about the Granon: 10/10/10, meaning it’s ~10 kilometers long, climbs roughly 10-hundred meters (that’s 1,000, for the less math-inclined readers out there, which is about 3,300 feet) and averages (needless to say) ~10%. In fact, the tour organizers rank it the fourth-hardest climb of the entire week. For some reason, I was ignoring these stats and pretending this climb would be no big deal, just a little tacked-on thing like the Lacets de Montvernier. I guess I was in denial. At least the weather improved a bit … the rain went away and it was mainly just cold. We reached the base, stopped to throw our jackets in the van, began pedaling again, hit the climb proper, and once again our group fell apart, or at least I fell out of it. Here’s a picture from pretty early on, before my hands became too cold to bother with photography.

The Granon is like being sucker-punched. It’s not that famous, not that scenic, and   isn’t anything I’d psychologically prepared for, but it’s simply relentless. Once it gets going, it never, ever lets up. We’d grumbled good-naturedly earlier in the week about how the road up the Col de la Loze would sometimes dip down, meaning even more leg-wrenching steepness to come, but at least we’d gotten a chance to rest our legs, our backs, our butts. No such respite here. Imagine if your workweek were all Mondays, or all your meetings lasted eight hours. Or imagine going on a walk and every step you took was barefoot onto a Lego. Oh well, at least it was nice and cold up there.

Wait, did I say nice? Damn was I sick of the cold and the wind. Give me 90 degrees and heat any day. At some point, for lack of anything else to help pass the time, I decided to photograph a guidepost, perhaps to show how every one of them casually declared that the next klick would also average 10%. Here’s what I got.

It’s actually not that easy to get a blurry photo with a smartphone … the image stabilization is remarkably good. But right as I hit the shutter button (not the elusive touch-screen one but the physical button on the edge of the phone) a giant shiver went through me. I’ve included the photo anyway because it might do the best job of all in capturing how I felt on this climb.

I’d started out with my vest unzipped, and for a good while I argued with myself about whether to try to zip it up. As much comfort as this would give me, it didn’t seem possible to actually get it done. If I stopped, I feared, I might not ever find the resolve to get going again, or my punch-drunk foot would fail to get my cleat engaged with the pedal and I’d tip over. On the other hand, it seemed implausible that I could ride no-handed long enough to get that zipper engaged, with my cold, numb, barely prehensile hands and this constant steep pitch. What is the minimum speed at which a person can even ride no-handed? I’m no slouch at bike handling—I can actually tie my shoe while riding—but this seemed like the wrong day for a new PR. Still, I could take the wind no longer and decided to have a go. I furiously pumped the pedals, sat up, secured the flapping ends of the vest (here I drifted into the left lane like Lone Wolf), managed to get the zipper end engaged, and zipped that bad boy all the way up without even jamming it. As I slumped forward I even managed to catch the handlebars and get the bike under control again, and back in the right lane. This may have been the finest moment of my life, and if I ever decide to go to grad school, I’ve got the kernel now for my personal essay.

As a victory lap I spent a minute or two, a bit later on, extracting my phone from my pocket and snapping a non-blurry photo of a guidepost. See? The vest works!

Finally, the summit. It was starting to rain again and I didn’t even look for the summit/elevation sign. I leaned my bike on the van, climbed in, and allowed my sinews and skeleton to dissolve the rest of the way until I was just a bag of spent flesh wrapped in clammy Lycra.

Fortunately, only Craig seemed interested in riding back down, across the valley floor, and up the shallow climb back to the hotel. (Our guide, of course, was required to accompany anybody who felt like pushing on, and had a great attitude about it, as though nothing would please him more than continuing the ride even beyond what the Tour de France riders had done.) Did you see what I did just now? In those parentheses? I made it seem like it was completely normal to wimp out and not actually finish the ride. Yeah, what can I say. I suppose you could conclude I’ve fallen prey to the modern practice of self-compassion. But actually, it’s just that I didn’t want to make Ian, M—, and Lone Wolf feel bad by showing them up. Yeah. That’s it.

Dinner

The hotel was gorgeous and we relaxed in the lounge with some recovery beers. (I generally define “recovery beer” as either a watery lager, or a 25-cl serving, but after this brutal ride it meant “whatever we feel like we wanna drink, gawd!”) Then we walked maybe ten steps to this incredibly long table, built from a very thick slab of wood, like we were at King Arthur’s court or something, but in a non-Disney way. A new friend we made on the trip, KR, visited the concierge or chef or somebody and negotiated a bottle of what he declared a very good local red wine, and although I am generally suspicious of epicures, especially in the realm of wine, it tasted really good to me. And then we were served this delicious corn gazpacho.

Who knew gazpacho could be made with anything, not just tomatoes? The French, evidently. In other news, it turns out a couple of riders were missing from dinner and someone had the brilliant idea to lie and say they’d be arriving shortly. So I inherited a second bowl of soup. The evening was just getting better and better.

Then the main course arrived and it was almost too pretty to eat. OMG, did I really just type that? Nothing is too pretty to eat, and we were starved. This was amazing. Even the carrot.

KR noted, with a tinge of concern, that his chicken looked pretty seriously undercooked. I have to say, he was a really good sport about it … no sign of outrage or anything. I pointed out, to his great relief, that the pinkness was because it was stuffed with (what else?) cured meat (ham or prosciutto, I can’t remember, and with my memory dimming it’s a good thing I didn’t wait even longer to write all of this down). The chicken was also stuffed with some fancy French cheese. I could have died right then and been satisfied with my life, even if (perhaps especially if) I were to be drowned somehow in a vat of that delightfully rich sauce you see above.

That would have been a shame, though, because we hadn’t had dessert yet. It wasn’t anything that original:

That said, I’ve tried a couple times to make flourless chocolate cake and both times crashed and burned, so it’s nice to see (and taste) it done well.

The only slight blight on this delightful night was the tour director coming around to see who still planned to ride in the Epic A group the next (and final) day, given that the forecast was for persistent drizzle, if not rain, all day long. I was sorely tempted to step down and sign up for the shorter route, knowing I’d completely (and satisfyingly) destroyed myself on this brutal day, but my pals promised to hang back with me on Day 7 (at least until Alpe d’Huez). And so, with a heavy heart I committed once again to Epic A. So watch these pages in a week or so for the final chapter of my Trans Alps epic.

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I Drank a Gallon of Water a Day for a Week - Here’s What Happened

Introduction

What follows is a work of fiction. All characters, situations, observations, and insinuations are fictitious, coincidental, or accidental. The characters were pulled out of thin air and have nothing in common with any human being who ever lived, nor any zombie or otherwise undead individual. Nothing that happens in this story ever happened to a real person, or ever will. In fact, this story is practically science fiction, except that it’s totally unscientific and doesn’t have spaceships or aliens or anything. That said, any similarity of any character to an actual space alien, past present or future, is (obviously) purely coincidental or conjectural.

I drank a gallon of water every day for a week – here’s what happened

I was casting about for a New Year’s Resolution but nothing was coming to mind. Last year I resolved to dance like nobody’s watching, and I even bought a new Bluetooth speaker, but I found the dancing made me sad, because I live alone and there was nobody to watch me. A one-man dance party doesn’t feel much like self improvement.

So this year I decided to try drinking a gallon of water a day. Supposedly hydration is really important, and after all, what have I got to lose? Because I’m in an apartment building, my water bill is the same no matter what I do.

I thought about buying one of those graduated gallon water bottles with motivational phrases on them—you know, starting at the top with “GOOD MORNING” then “HYDRATE YOURSELF” then “REMEMBER YOUR GOAL,” etc., down to “ALMOST FINISHED” and then finally “YOU DID IT” at the bottom—but then I’m like dang, that’s $25 I’d rather not spend. Plus, I know myself, and I respond better to the whip than the carrot, if you catch my drift. So I washed out an empty gallon milk jug and wrote on it with a sharpie:

7AM GET COFFEE
9AM NO EXCUSES
11AM THIS IS NOTHING
1PM DON’T BE A LOSER
3PM NO PITY PARTY
5PM OOH, BIG MAN
7PM EVERYONE GETS A RIBBON
9PM BIG WHOOP

I set everything out the night before, feeling pretty excited. I hadn’t felt such keen anticipation since I started charging my new Bluetooth speaker at about this time last year.

Day One

At 9am I filled my big jug and then poured about a pint of it into my teakettle. This is the hardest part since there’s some sloshing and trial-and-error involved but I think it’s the genius of my method. See, others who do this drink only out of their $25 graduated jug and drag it around with them, like wearing a badge of honor so everyone will ask about it and they can start taking credit for their awesome resolution in advance. That’s not for me, I don’t need to brag. Plus, I don’t need the ruggedness of the Motivational Bottle … I don’t worry about leaks since I’m mostly at home. When I go out I’ll fill some smaller, more reliable vessel from the main one and then return for refills.

Some say it’s bad to hydrate with coffee but if I gave that up, I’d be doing two New Year’s Resolutions and I don’t want to boil the ocean here. I’m trying to tackle something I can actually achieve, so as to be more compassionate with myself (my Resolution from two years ago that I’m still struggling to keep).

Well, things were going fine until about 11am, when I’d peed so many times I felt like I was wearing out the carpet between my armchair and the toilet. I was peeing so much it seemed like the bowl would be completely full by nightfall. I’m of the “if it’s yellow keep it mellow, if it’s brown wash it down” school, in terms of flushing, except “keep it mellow” never made sense—I mean, what’s non-mellow about flushing? So I think of it as “if it’s brown, flush it down, if it’s jaune leave it alone.” (I am considering putting that on a placard above the toilet, with a little translation of “jaune” from the French.)

Just to divert my mind from the constant awareness of my pestering bladder, I went to the park and sat at my favorite bench for a while, watching life go by, and then this man came up to me, sat down, and said, “Hey, are you one of the dads?” I was like, “No,” and he said, “So you just like sitting and watching kids on a playground?” and I just stared at him, like, isn’t that obvious? He went on to say, “Look, a couple of other parents and I have talked about this and we all agree, we’re gonna have to ask you to leave.” So I shot back, “I was leaving anyway, I have to pee!” I have to admit, it was nice to have a really good comeback for once.

In terms of the more tangible benefits of all this drinking, I have to say that by 9pm, I’d never felt so good. My skin seemed better, I felt stronger in my body, my posture was more erect … even my hair felt better. Totally worth all the peeing.

Day Two

My bladder woke me up from a dream in which I was touring this old Victorian mansion that they’d turned into a museum, and I had to pee (yes, even in my dream) and found this tiny little half-bathroom, but instead of a toilet it just had a little portal to pee into. Halfway through my business the whole room started to move, slowly lowering toward the ground floor, and I realized it wasn’t a bathroom, it was an elevator! Yikes! I was like, “When I reach the next floor, the door’s gonna open and I’d better be finished!” Then I woke up.

The drinking itself was still pretty easy today and I nailed the pour into my teakettle, first try. If anything the constant peeing was even worse, though, and beyond that, by lunchtime I started getting pretty bored of drinking plain water. I’d been warned by drink-a-gallon-a-day websites not to have any sugar, though, because it’d throw off my electrolytes. Then I realized hey, if I make Top Ramen soup and drink the broth, that’s two cups of water right there! So I did that.

Big mistake! OMG, all the salt in that ramen totally bloated me! I should have known! Salt is an electrolyte! I stood in the mirror looking in horror at my bloated (and unfortunately hairy) belly (though not hairy due to drinking water, I hasten to add). I looked kind of like ET. Out of habit, I also scrutinized my face in the mirror, and as I looked closer I realized hey, my eyebrows are looking good! I flicked them with my finger a few times and realized, wow, drinking all this water has totally cured my eyebrow dandruff! Bonus!

All the afternoon water drinking eventually brought down the bloat, and after my final 9pm pint—nailed it!—I was ready for some yoga. I put in my video and (literally) went through the motions. I still can’t even come close to the Yogi Squat, but it’s only the second day of my new hydration regimen.

Day Three

I have hit my stride. The more I drink water now, the more I love it. In fact I doubled up on my 9am pint, drinking a whole quart, and it felt so good. I paid a price, though: I immediately had to pee, and then afterward, the sensation of water on my hands as I washed them made me have to pee again immediately, and for a second it looked like a vicious cycle I’d never break out of.

I went for a little hike and had to pee so bad halfway through. Alas, the outhouse at the trailhead was still at least thirty minutes away, which was like two pees worth, and there were so many hikers! I couldn’t find any privacy! I bushwhacked off-trail for a bit, and then my sneakers lost traction and I slid down into this ravine, and at the bottom I discovered—to my shock and horror—a dead body! It looked like some young adult hiker, halfway claimed by the earth. I scrambled up that slope so fast I couldn’t believe it. Surely my excellent hydration gave me wings. Problem was, just before reaching the trail again I slid on some leaves and tumbled all the way back down there. Then I looked more closely at the body and realized it was just an old shirt tangled around a fallen tree limb. Silly me.

Day Four

Another peeing dream woke me up and for a terrifying moment I thought I’d wet the bed. But I hadn’t … just a little leakage which is totally normal when you drink a gallon of water a day.

In addition to the better skin, relief from back pain, and higher energy, all of which I’d secretly hoped this hydration would give me, I got a big surprise: I got a job! My first in years! It’s selling tickets at the Events Center. The ticket window opens hours before the game and things start off really slow, so peeing wasn’t a problem at first—I’d just put the “BACK IN 5 MINUTES” sign out and go do my business. But once the rush started, no dice. I could not leave my post. It got worse and worse to where people were asking, “Are you okay!?” I guess my face was getting contorted. But then I realized I could just pee in this wastebasket without even getting out of my seat! Don’t worry, the wastebasket has a liner. All the wadded-up paper napkins in there dampen the sound down to almost nothing. I did have to sit pretty far forward in my chair to, well, eclipse everything, but nobody was the wiser.

Now, if you think I’m trying to connect the dots between drinking water and getting a job, I totally am. Those may seem unrelated but if I hadn’t been so hydrated, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to accept the offer.

The health benefits continue. I did an experiment: I looked in the mirror, located a zit, studied my face carefully to remember exactly where it was, drank a pint of water, and then looked again. Sure enough, the zit was gone! Water is like a miracle elixir!

Day Five

Other gallon-a-day blogs had warned me that I’d get bored of drinking water. Well, so far they’re wrong, but you know what is boring? All this peeing! It’s getting so old! Also, even though practice normally improves one’s prowess at practically anything, I seem to be getting worse at not spattering the rim. Either that, or I’m just more observant. I have to mop up the rim pretty much every time now. And my hands are starting to get a bit raw from all that washing, like with OCD people. The rest of my skin is positively glowing from all the water, but for some reason not my hands. I was reading on this one blog about smearing lotion on my hands and then putting on disposable rubber gloves, right before bed, so I’m considering that.

I showed up to work today but nobody was there. I searched everywhere and finally found my supervisor, and it turns out I misunderstood about the job: it’s not a daily thing, but only as needed, when they have a big game and somebody calls in sick. Oh well. I have a small passive income and it’s better to focus on my blogging anyway.

I fell asleep today and had one of those marathon naps where it’s hard to move afterward, so I missed one of my drinking sessions. I chugged a quart after that and was back on track.

Day Six

Not so much to report, actually. Drinking water, even a gallon a day, turns out to not actually be that complicated. One highlight: the hydration is helping my vision. If I really squint, I can read the kitchen clock from the kitchen nook table without my glasses.

Day Seven

This has gone so well, I woke up this morning thinking about continuing my gallon-a-day habit for the whole month, or more. This would give me a good blog topic while continuing to improve my health in umpteen different ways! But I’ve also been thinking a lot about the new Avatar movie, which is over three hours long. I really want to see it in the theater, and I’m sure the crowds have thinned out by now, but there’s no way I could make it through without getting up to pee at least six times. Who knows how many plot points I’d miss. And I’ve been looking forward to this movie for a long, long time.

And that got me thinking that, just like with last year’s dancing, achieving this Resolution is making me a little sad. Why, you may ask? Well, at some point I’ll have reaped all the health benefits, and then I’ll have nothing left to look forward to. So I think after I polish off my last pint tonight, I’ll call it quits, and keep the optimal hydration project in my back pocket for later. It’ll be like my ace-in-the-hole, my Plan B, the card up my sleeve. Next time I’m feeling really low, I’ll just start back up the gallon-a-day, and things will start to get real, real good again!

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Further reading

• New Year’s Resolutions
• One-Size-Fits-All New Year’s Resolution
• New Year’s Resolutions - Dental Hygiene Edition
• New Year’s Resolutions - Let’s Get It Right This Time
• A Wide Net Approach to New Year’s Resolutions
• The DUMB Approach to New Year’s Resolutions

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