Pretty Good Guacamole

Introduction

It’s still summer, which means it’s time for guacamole. If you’re interested in learning how to make it, you’ve come to the right place. Don’t bother with any of the recipes you’ll find online. My instructions are better, more complete, and best of all aren’t infested with annoying ads. Recipe websites are the worst, with nefarious pop-ups, videos suddenly springing to life, requests to access your location, invitations to mailing lists … just keep all that crap out of your life.

Following the structural tradition of my posts on homemade pasta, fettuccine Alfredo, Bolognese Ragu, and homemade macaroni and cheese, I’ll give you this guide in the (perhaps mythic) who-what-where-when-why-how format of the newspaper reporter.

Who, where, and when

The first time I had guacamole I was a little kid. It was a bad batch made with really awful avocados that were not only basically rotten, but also really stringy. (I’ve never understood why, but that occasionally happens.) I was revolted, and decided I didn’t like guacamole or even avocados. My evil brothers encouraged my utter failure of judgment because hey, more guac for them. (I should have been more skeptical when they didn’t ridicule my taste. They pretended that their love of guac was a bizarre idiosyncrasy and it was only natural I didn’t share it.) When I finally gave guac another try, many years later, and realized the error of my ways, I was livid—at myself, of course, but also at my brothers. On some level I still haven’t forgiven them.

I didn’t learn how to make proper guac until about 1990, when I was a student at UC Santa Barbara. A Chicana friend of mine named Tina showed me the ropes, and I have zero reason to doubt her ethnic and culinary cred. (For some reason I’m more nervous about presenting myself as an authority on this Mexican dish than I am with regard to Italian food. Perhaps it’s because I once recommended a Mexican restaurant to a friend of mine who rinsed the piss out of me for its not having been authentic enough for his more sophisticated palate.)

What

Guacamole is something made right before you eat it, whether you serve it with chips or as a topping or both. Guac is not that homogenous over-smooth green stuff you buy in a tub, and I don’t care where you buy that. (Just because Whole Foods charges like six bucks for a paltry inch-tall tub doesn’t make it good, and scarcely makes it guac). You cannot cut corners with this food, even if the store-bought stuff is arguably better than nothing. They should have a different name for that stuff, like Avocado-Whiz.

Why

Obviously you should make guacamole because it’s delicious. It’s also good for you, because avocados themselves are nutritious as is everything else that goes into it. And if you have a bunch of avocados that are perfectly ripe and will be rotten tomorrow, you practically have to make it. (Back when I commuted to San Francisco for work, I once called my boss and told him I had to work from home because my avocados would be perfect at lunchtime and rotten by dinnertime. As a fellow foodie, he was fully supportive.)

How

The best thing about guacamole is that it’s pretty easy to make. So long as your ingredients are good, all you have to do is basically get out of Mother Nature’s way. By this I mean you need to refrain from doing all the things people do to ruin their innocent produce and turn out an inferior product. Here is a list of what not to do:

• Don’t put sour cream in your guac. I cannot fathom why people do this. It simply doesn’t belong. I mean, would you put sour cream in your beer?
• Don’t mix your guac in a blender. It’s not supposed to have the texture of mayonnaise. I was once at a dinner party and the hostess set out a bowl of this strange white-green substance. Since there were chips nearby, I grasped that it was a dip of some kind. It tasted like nothing. I asked what it was and was shocked when the hostess said, “It’s guacamole!” I was struck dumb. I’d had no idea that’s what it was trying to be.
• Don’t put garlic in your guac. Yes, some recipes call for this, but garlic is not authentic, it doesn’t greatly enhance your guac, and it gives you bad breath.
• Don’t roughly hack up the onions. If you get big hunks of onion in your guac, that drowns out the other flavors, plus you (again) end up with dragon breath.
• Don’t just mix avocados with commercial salsa and pretend that’s guac. It won’t work. The only exception is if the salsa is from Mario’s La Fiesta, but this is sadly impossible as they folded a decade ago.
• Don’t make it right at the table in front of your guests like some silly overpriced Mexican restaurants do. That’s just a gimmick. This takes a little more work than your guests would have the patience for.
• Don’t start with inferior ingredients. If the avocados and tomatoes aren’t in season, it’s just not going to work out that well. This is a summer food, unless you live in California and your local produce market has connections in South America (though really, shouldn’t you source your produce locally, blah blah blah?).
• Don’t add peyote. That’s totally not the point. I don’t care if the characters in Oscar Zeta Acosta’s Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo spiked their guacamole … you shouldn’t. (Note that Acosta himself just said no to that spiked guac.)

So here are all the ingredients you’ll need:

• Avocados (preferably Hass)
• Onion (red is best, or white)
• Cilantro
• Lime
• Tomatoes (preferably dry-farmed Early Girl, though cherry tomatoes work too)
• Salt
• Crystal sauce (or Tabasco)
• Rice vinegar (optional)

I won’t bother with the quantities of each ingredient because how much you use has simply to do with the number of avocados you have, and (to a lesser extent) the number of people who’ll share it. Everything else is up to your judgment: what looks right, like what you’d see in a good restaurant? What tastes right? You can always taste as you go (chips being easier than a dozen little tasting spoons) and add more of whatever it seems to need. Experimentation is necessary and fun. If you avoid the don’ts listed above, it’ll turn out fine.

OK. To start, sink a sharp chef’s knife or paring knife into the avocado, across the middle horizontally, until you hit the pit. Rotate the avocado so that you cut all the way around, then twist the two halves apart. Thwack the knife into the pit so you can pull it out. Now slice the flesh of the avocado into rows, then go across those like a grid so it’s kind of cubed. Scoop that out into a big bowl. You’re not really going to mash this per se. By the time everything is mixed, it’ll be mashed enough. Again, you want it chunky.

It would be a shame to use mealy, pink tomatoes like what the giant supermarkets have. I suppose really good commercial pico de gallo would work in a pinch, but really you want those Early Girl tomatoes, in season. They should be bright red and so flavorful that you actually curse under your breath that you spent so much of your life eating terrible tomatoes before discovering these. Dice them into pieces roughly a centimeter on a side (though of course they shouldn’t be perfect cubes—what kind of nutjob are you?). Throw them in the bowl without the juices. (If they’re really watery you might question their quality. The non-flesh part with the seeds should be fairly gelatinous.) Can’t get good tomatoes when you need them? Not to worry. The photo at the top of this post was of a batch that didn’t even have tomatoes … it was still pretty good.

Now dice up those onions. If they’re strong, use less. And like I said before, don’t just hack them up willy-nilly. Use a razor-sharp knife and make very thin slices, like you could read through, almost all the way through the onion but not quite. Then shift it 90 degrees and slice the other way. Now turn this on its side and slice down again to create tiny cubes. Once you have a nice pile, hack it all up further, pivoting the knife around. There’s no such thing as too fine … your patience will ultimately limit you. Throw those in the bowl.

Next comes the cilantro (which is the only ingredient Tina didn’t teach me to use, probably because we couldn’t get it). Tear the leaves off the stems, wash them, and hack them up nice and fine and throw them on the pile. How much you use is a matter of taste. If you don’t put any in, your guac will still be just fine, but cilantro really does make it better.

Squeeze in some lime, and shake in some salt, and then glug in some Crystal sauce. How much of each you add is, again, all up to taste. (As explained here you should not skimp on salt in the name of good health.) If you have very young children you might go light on the Crystal sauce. (Why wouldn’t you just use cayenne pepper? Well, you could, but the Crystal sauce includes vinegar which makes your guac tastier. If you don’t have Crystal or Tabasco sauce, or are going light on that so the guac isn’t too spicy, add a tiny bit of rice vinegar for a bit of zip.)

Now, if you’ve started with beautiful ingredients, take a moment to gaze at your bowl of goodness before you mix it up. It should look about like this:

Note the fresh red and green peppers in the background of the above photo. Did those go into my guac? Nope. They’re just for show. I’m not sure what that salsa is doing there either … I was probably just eating it with chips while I made the guac, out of sheer gluttonous hedonism. By the way, I’ve noticed how modern smartphone cameras take liberties with the color, trying to make everything look better than it is. I really don’t like this about the camera software. But rest assured, my tomatoes really were that red. Just gorgeous. Note the size and shape of the Early Girl on the cutting board there. It’s not a beefsteak tomato, and it’s not a Roma, okay? If you can’t get Early Girl, get cherry tomatoes, like I said earlier. (Weren’t you paying attention?)

Now you stir everything together … not with a whisk, not with a hand blender, and not with any force. Just mix it gently with a big spoon until the ingredients are combined. Then stir it more only as needed to re-mix as you adjust the flavor. The great thing about making guac is that you can just go crazy fine-tuning it by adding more of this or that ingredient, tasting all the while by dipping in chips. If half of it’s gone by the time you declare it officially done, that’s not such a bad problem to have, innit? I mean, you’ve just had this blissful kitchen time…

Here’s what the finished product ought to look like:

If you’re serving this at the table, you’ll want to move it into a nice clean bowl that’s just large enough to hold it all. (This provides the added benefit of giving you, the deserving chef, the opportunity to clean out the mixing bowl with a rubber spatula like a cat licking her paws.) I took a final photo of my latest batch in a nice white bowl, but I won’t post it here. The phone software went nuts and enhanced the color to the point it almost looked like the guac had M&Ms in it. This was a ridiculously brazen act of auto-retouching and I cannot deceive you like that. Maybe next time I make guac I’ll get out my real camera and snap some more photos to post here. Sheesh.

Now, one of my favorite things about making guac is the way you get people to eat it. If your household is anything like mine, all you have to do at this point is say, in voice only slightly louder than normal conversation, “There’s guac.” You’ll witness a stampede as your family members descend on the bowl from every corner of the house.

Oh, one more thing: don’t serve your guacamole with lame national-brand chips like Tostitos—it deserves better. You don’t need to go full-yuppie with chichi brands like Late July either. Get that weird brand whose label is in both English and Spanish, if you’re lucky enough to live somewhere that offers such a thing. (I have no idea what people do in, like, Vermont.) My favorite brand is a local one, Casa Sanchez, that offers both thick and thin varieties. Find the chips that look like what you’d get at an authentic taqueria, not what you’d get at a Super Bowl party in Cincinnati or Green Bay.

A final note

If you follow these directions, don’t be surprised if your friends and family gush about how great your guacamole is, like you’re some kind of legit chef. It would be deceitful to accept the credit, though, given that all you did was cut up and combine some basic ingredients. Reply modestly, like, “Oh, I didn’t make this. God did. I just assembled some stuff without screwing up.”

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Ask a Morning Person

Dear Morning Person,

This early rising habit … is it so you can watch the sun rise? 

Justin D, San Francisco, CA

Dear Justin,

That’s a nice idea, but honestly, I can’t say that I do. It would be pretty hard to swing that, as the timing is a moving target and I need to keep my routine, well … routine. But once in a while I do luck out, such as this morning. (I wish I’d reached Inspiration Point just a couple minutes sooner, actually…)

Dear Morning Person,

My wife says I could become a morning person if I just “applied myself.” I say morning people are born, not made. What’s your take?

Brandon D, Portsmouth, NH

Dear Brandon,

Did you know that the average morning person’s hematocrit is more than 10% higher, her lactate threshold more than 5% higher, her IQ at least a dozen points higher, and her eyelids 15% thinner than those of a non-morning-person? No, of course that’s not true. Look, there’s no special talent for getting up early. Your wife is right … it’s possible some people take to rising early more easily than others, but anybody can do it.

Dear Morning Person,

Are you a caffeine addict or are you lying?

Alexa A, Isla Vista, CA

Dear Alexa,

That’s kind of a loaded question. First off, “addiction,” as the term is most commonly used, implies that the psychological or physical dependency is on something that produces adverse consequences. Being aware and alert, of course, is a good thing. Meanwhile, if I go without coffee I do miss it, in the sense of not having something I enjoy, but I don’t get a headache or anything. Where caffeine gets a bad rap, I think, is when people use it in place of sleep, in which case they build up a tolerance to it and need increasingly high doses, like you see with classic drug addiction. Myself, I have a big mug of coffee first thing in the morning and another in the early afternoon and that’s about it.

(Of course, I could be lying … whether to you, to myself, or both. And it must be said, coffee is, so often, the lynchpin of a morning person’s routine.)

Dear Morning Person,

Are all morning people as insufferably self-satisfied and annoying as you are?

Peter S, Golden, CO

Dear Peter,

No, I’m particularly bad. That being said, we morning persons probably just seem annoying to thin-skinned late-risers with chips on their shoulders. Like yourself, apparently.

Dear Morning Person,

I am fascinated by the very idea that anybody willingly gets up early on a regular basis. Is this like some pissing contest among you freaks? Do you, like, get together at Morning Person conventions and brag, share tips, etc.? And what’s the most extreme case of morning-person-ism you’ve encountered?

Tasha M, Port Townsend, WA

Dear Tasha,

If there’s a National Association of Morning Persons, I’m not aware of it. Look, we’re not like superheroes or anything and there’s no accreditation involved. Some people get up early on a regular basis, that’s all. As for as the most extreme case, my family did a house-swap with some Glaswegians some years back, and the window blind in the master bedroom was obviously brand new and installed for our benefit. The first time I tried to use it I pulled the whole thing down, because the anchor screws were only like half an inch long. I didn’t get around to buying proper molly bolts and reinstalling the blind until the end of our stay, meaning we were awake with the sun every morning for two weeks. That was brutal: Glasgow is so far north, civil twilight started at like 4:00 a.m. The fact that this family didn’t see the need for blinds or curtains demonstrates their commitment to early rising. (For the record, yes—both the husband and wife are total world-beaters.)

Dear Morning Person,

In a previous column, addressing the ubiquitous soul-crushing torpor suffered by many morning persons, especially us middle-aged ones, you called out caffeine as the single greatest coping mechanism available. That’s all well and good for you, but I can’t have coffee—my wife won’t let me. She says it’s “bad for you.” Any advice for me?

Clark H, Asheville, NC

Dear Clark,

It really sounds to me like your wife could be an honest-to-God sociopath. No scientific study has ever proven that coffee is a risk factor for any disease. In fact, efforts to link coffee with health problems invariably end up showing that it actually decreases the risk. As documented in this article by the Harvard School of Public Health, coffee consumption has been shown to lower the risk of cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression, Parkinson’s disease, gallstones, and early death. (The only established health “risks” associated with coffee are insomnia and jitteriness, which are easy to avoid if you’re not an idiot.) Assuming you’ve already tried to reason with your wife and gotten nowhere, you should seriously consider leaving her. She sounds crazier than a pet raccoon and possibly evil.

Dear Morning Person,

I made a new year’s resolution to exercise in the mornings before work two to three days a week, and so far I am just not sticking to it. I’m sure you get this question a lot, but do you have any advice for people like me?

Whitney P, Casper, WY

Hi Whitney,

First off, I’m really impressed that you’re still working on your resolution this far into the year. Now, as far as tips and tricks, I’ll give you my three favorites.

1. Don’t try to wake up early only on those days you want to work out, and then sleep in on the other days, as you’ll be stuck between two habits and nothing will feel normal. If this workout routine is really important to you, try waking up early every morning, or at least most mornings. On the non-exercise days you could read a book, do some housekeeping, snuggle with your cat or dog, or start accepting more 8:00 a.m. EST (i.e., 6 a.m. your time) meeting invitations.
2. Set out all  your workout gear the night before, in a prominent place, so that if you wimp out and go back to sleep after your alarm, you’ll feel like a jackass later when you have to put away your stuff unused.
3. Ideally, find likeminded athletic morning persons to work out with. Standing them up would be embarrassing, and if they’re good friends they’d shame you mercilessly. I have three friends who regularly force me out of bed early on the weekends for “dawn patrol” bike rides, and this keeps me in the early bird habit for my solo weekday rides.

Dear Morning Person,

My husband really likes to unwind by curling up on the couch with me to watch a movie before bed. I enjoy this too, but by the time we’re done with dinner and the dishes, it’s usually at least 9pm and—being a morning person—I want to start getting ready for bed. I don’t want to be antisocial but I need my sleep. Any pointers here?

Angel L, Waco, TX

Dear Angel,

Ah, that’s a tricky divide … you sure don’t want your useful habit to mess up your marriage. I deal with this a bit myself. I have two suggestions. First, instead of a full-length feature film, you might try a comedy show (there seem to be an infinite number of them) that runs under half an hour. (When your husband begs you to watch a second one, relent.) Or, you could kill two birds with one stone and sleep while “watching” the movie. Good cinematic choices for this second option include Andrei Rublev, Last Year at Marienbad, Melancholia, 2001 – A Space Odyssey, and Remains of the Day.

Dear Morning Person,

Is it possible for a teenager to be a morning person? My kids are never out of bed before 9 or 10 during the summer and they’d probably sleep until noon if I let them. My friends say their teenagers are just the same and this is perfectly normal. In fact, a few years ago our school district pushed out the start of the school day by an hour based on recent studies about fundamental differences in teenagers’ circadian rhythms. So it seems impossible for them to do what you do, i.e. rise before dawn.

Charles D, Ross, CA

Dear Charles,

That’s all nonsense, and another sign that our youngsters are being needlessly coddled by well-meaning but maladroit parents. Haven’t you ever read Farmer Boy? Myself, I had a paper route as a kid and got up at quarter to six every morning to earn less than two dollars. Not only was it doable, but it was a hell of a lot easier then than it is for me now. These modern kids have really had their way with our modern parenting cohort, convincing us that permissiveness is good parenting. Don’t get me wrong, my own daughters sleep in late too, but I don’t kid myself that this is Mother Nature’s intent.

Dear Morning Person,

Be honest … don’t you look down your nose a bit at us non-morning-people, who waste the best part of the day sleeping?

Elisa B, Berkeley, CA

Dear Elisa,

If I were to look down on people with different habits, I’d have to first establish that they’re accomplishing less than I am, which is a pretty absurd assertion. So if non-morning-people are able to get everything done and still get to sleep in, I actually envy them!

It’s also a bit tricky to call these early morning hours “the best part of the day.” When I do my bike rides just before dawn, it’s cool and foggy whereas I’d much rather ride in the warm sun. That said, some aspects of my routine have kind of grown on me. For one thing, before I head out I’ll often get a few minutes of quality time with my cat, who is normally too twitchy to spend much time in my lap. Also, the regulars I see along my cycling route are amusing. There’s this one baby-faced guy in a neon green safety vest I always encounter along Wildcat Canyon Road, walking along the other side of the road toward me, and although I’ve greeted him with a slight chin nod and a quiet “Mornin’” many hundreds of times, he refuses to acknowledge my existence … he just continues on his way, wearing a contented Mona Lisa smile. There’s also the incredibly old woman, all bent over with a cane, I see walking, also on Wildcat, practically every time I ride. She’s gotta be in her nineties, making her way along the edge of the road. And then there are the middle-aged twins on their road bikes, grinding along slowly, never together, usually one a couple minutes behind the other, both looking grim and resolute, and never returning my greeting. I’ve seen these two along my route for more than twenty years and they’ve never been together. The closest I’ve seen was just last week, when they were neck and neck but one was riding all the way over on the wrong side of the road, as if refusing to be anywhere near her sister.

I find these people charmingly bizarre and bizarrely charming. But I can’t look down at my nose at you for missing this because it’s pure blind luck that I have these people in my lives … I could not have engineered this situation, and for all I know the late morning or early afternoon randos are even more uplifting.

Dear Morning Person,

Will you always be a morning person?

Morgan B, New York, NY

Dear Morgan,

No. As soon as I reach retirement, I’m gonna start sleeping in!

A Morning Person is a syndicated journalist whose advice column, “Ask a Morning Person,” appears in over 0 blogs worldwide.

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The Case Against the Metric System

Introduction

It’s easy to argue the merits of the metric system—its ubiquity in the developed world, the ease and elegance of doing calculations with it, etc.—but this is not very interesting. Meanwhile, proponents of the metric system (aka “metricites”) have often struck me as very secure in their position, to the point of smugness. My dad—a gruff, dyed-in-the-wool engineer—was this way, and after decades of sucking up to him, trying to gain his approval, I became disgusted with myself and looked for ways to occasionally nettle, annoy, and provoke him instead. Toward this end, I discovered that praising the imperial system of measure worked great. The withering, disgusted look he gave me, bordering on anger, was priceless. Ever since, I’ve been pondering the advantages of the imperial system and planning a more widespread assault on the metric. Here it is.

(A semantic note: in this country, the measurement system developed by the British, generally referred to as the imperial system, often goes by the term “US customary system.” I’ll use the term “customary” in this sense throughout this post.)

Leadership vs. subservience

Because some metricites will write off the customary system purely because most of the developed world has, I’ll start there. The prevalence of the metric system cannot be denied: look at this map of who uses what system.

Look at how many nations are on the metric system! Could this many people be wrong? Sure! Keep in mind that almost 3 billion people worldwide waste their time, ruin their privacy, and compromise their emotional health by using Facebook. And when they do, the vast majority use a terribly antiquated and inefficient keyboard layout. Don’t look to your fellow man for the best way to live a perfect life.

Meanwhile, consider that the map shown above would probably bear striking resemblance to a map of where you can get a good taqueria-style burrito, and what nation creates the best movies, software, and rap music. The US is not traditionally a follower on the world stage. We’re probably much of the reason English is the lingua franca of world trade, and our dollar is also the foremost global currency. Don’t look at that turquoise coloration and think “outlier.” Think “leader” (or at least “leadership potential” since, admittedly, the rest of the world doesn’t always follow us).

Temperature

This is an easy one. The fact of Celsius having zero as the freezing point of water and 100 as its boiling point is admittedly cute, but not actually very useful. My brother Bryan, solicited for comment on this debate since he’s an engineering sort but also an expansive thinker, has eloquently pointed out:

As elegant as the Celsius scale is, I find it’s a bit crude for actual measurement of the human condition. Most of our experience takes place between really cold and really hot, which is to say from well below the freezing point of water to a bit above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Much above 100 F, you’re kind of toast anyway; once your flesh starts burning it doesn’t really matter what the number actually is. It’ll never get anywhere near 100 Celsius, so that part of the scale [38 to 100] is just wasted. And if you want to talk about it being really cold with C, you have to use negative numbers, which is kind of awkward, especially if you want to compare temperatures.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Meanwhile, the other obvious benefit of Fahrenheit is that the units are smaller so it’s more precise.

Distance

No matter how handy calculating with base-10 may be, there’s no arguing that 60 mph—that is, a mile a minute—is a really handy mnemonic, since it’s roughly the speed we drive on the highway (the >60 mph speed limit being offset by roadside stops, etc.). If our destination is 300 miles away, it’ll take about 300 minutes. The kilometer cannot offer any similar trick. And since the typical speed limit on a city street is 35 and on a residential street it’s 25, we can estimate the time for a non-highway trip by just doubling the miles … so a five-mile drive across town will take roughly ten minutes. (If your community is more congested than this, leave your car at home and use your bike. In fact, do that anyway.)

Another benefit to miles is the word “mileage.” This is a very useful word, both literally and figuratively (e.g., “Your mileage may vary”). There is no equivalent in the metric system: “kilometerage” is not a word and if it were, it would be a dumb word used by nobody ever. Same with the word “milestone.”

Weight

As with temperature, the larger weight units in the metric system make it less precise, a kilogram being 2.205 pounds. But the lack of precision isn’t the only problem; it’s also the case that since a majority of humans would like to lose weight, this larger unit is demoralizing. Imagine eating right and foregoing fattening snacks for a whole week and then having to express your weight loss with a fraction: “Oh, boy, a lost a whole half-kilogram!” That kind of discouraging scale (no pun intended) is the last thing America needs.

Liquid measure

Actually, this is one area where Americans do dabble in the metric system: although we measure most liquids (fuel, beverages) with customary units (gallon, pint), there’s one product that’s sold in metric units: wine. How fitting, since so many wine lovers are annoying and pretentious. Humbler, more down-to-earth Americans drink beer, which is of course measured in ounces (excepting some small and/or lazy overseas breweries that don’t bottle or label their product specially for the American market).

Why does it matter that wine is sold in metric units? It’s because Americans have no sense of milliliters, so we can’t keep ourselves honest when drinking wine. It’s hard to develop a sense of volume with an ungainly basis like the liter, as it’s too large, and nobody ever uses deciliters—they’re too small (less than half a cup)—and there’s nothing in between a liter and a deciliter. With beer, you can keep track pretty easily: whatever vessel you pour that can or bottle of beer into, it’s a known entity: 12 ounces, one drink. From a temperance perspective, the 750-ml wine bottle is a black box: the servings vary with your glass and how much you fill it; the milliliters are like Monopoly money; you just pour and pour, and you wake up hung over and overweight. This is what happens when Americans indulge the metric system.

Another benefit to the customary system: when you go out for a beer, you can say to your pal, “Shall we go grab a pint?” This has a nice ring to it. What would you say in France? Perhaps “Allons-nous prendre un demi-litre?” (literally, “Shall we grab half a liter?”) That sounds terrible—how do you grab half of something? And “Allons-nous prendre un litre?” sounds like you have a drinking problem—I mean, drinking beer by the liter? Yes, I know the French wouldn’t actually say this; they’d say, “Allons-nous boire un verre de vin?” (literally, “Shall we grab a glass of wine?”). I rest my case.

Air pressure

When it comes to inflation, you can’t beat the pounds-per-square-inch (PSI) unit, because the proper inflation for a road bike tyre is a nice, round 100; for a commuter bike it’s a nice, round 50; and for a mountain bike it’s a nice, round 25. What are the metric equivalents? That would be 6.895, 3.447, and 1.724 BAR, respectively. Nothing nice or round about that. (Apparently some Europeans prefer kilopascals, which is just fricking goofy. Imagine pumping your bike tires up to 690 kPa, or 690 of anything, for that matter … I’d be afraid!)

Meanwhile, the giant size of the BAR presents an obstacle to precision. I can input my weight, tire width, and riding style into a handy-dandy mountain bike tire pressure calculator and it gives me a nice precise inflation number: in my case 25 PSI for the rear tire. Since the calculator is trying to be metric-friendly it also gives me 1.8 BAR … but that’s not right—that’s actually 26 PSI, which could be the difference between great handling and merely good. To be sufficiently precise we have to go into the hundredths, with 1.72 BAR, and who can remember that?

(Arguably air pressure measurement isn’t that important, but it’s simpler than some of the next few categories.)

Construction

As detailed here, much of American industry does use the metric system (which, I hasten to point out, is no reason everyday Americans need to do so in their personal lives; after all, it’s not like web developers speak in HTML at the dinner table). One standout is the construction industry, and for good reason. As my brother Bryan explains:

Using inches is really handy for doing the mental arithmetic associated with carpentry. When a carpenter uses inches, he’ll keep track of the bit smaller than an inch using fractions, with as much resolution as is necessary for the application at hand. For example, if he needs to cut a two-by-four to use as a brace while framing a house, he may only need to cut it to within an inch. If he’s cutting a piece to be used as part of an internal structure for something, he may need it to be accurate to half an inch. If it’s a finishing piece, he may want it to be much more accurate, say a sixteenth of an inch. Using fractions, you can decide before you start cutting what units you’ll use—half inches, quarter inches, and so on. Each division is twice as precise. It’s easy to adjust the accuracy of your calculations as you go, too. For example, if you find that ¼ isn’t accurate enough, say you want slightly more than a ¼ inch, you just go to eighths of an inch: ¼ is 2/8, so a smidgen more than that is 3/8 (three of them instead of two), and so on. The tape measure shows these gradations elegantly with longer and shorter ticks, making it easy to visualize these fractions as well. So in ‘merican, you have all these units to choose from that we’re all familiar with and that are easy to convert among: 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, and even 1/32. In metric all you have are centimeters and millimeters, which are significantly different in size, so if a centimeter isn’t enough resolution, you have to jump all the way to millimeters and keep track of a bunch of them.

Another thing that carpenters often must do is find the midpoint of a piece of lumber or whatever. So if a carpenter’s board is 21-½ inches long, he can calculate half of that easily: 21 divided by 2 is 10-½" for the whole part, plus ½ divided by 2 which is ¼ for the rest. It’s easy to add the ½ and ¼, since ½ is 2/4, making ¾” for the fractional bit and thus 10-¾” for the whole thing. Dividing that in two is 5 & 3/8”, which is easy to compute since dividing a fraction in two is just doubling the denominator. I feel like doing this kind of mental arithmetic keeps us closer to the numbers and to their scale, while just plugging numbers into your phone and tracking them to four significant digits makes you lose touch with reality.

Yeah, exactly! This guy knows what he’s talking about ... he even holds a math degree!

Firearms

Okay, that was a lot of math so this next category will be simpler: guns & ammo. This is another area where Americans are dabbling in the metric system. Traditionally, firearms were described in customary units, such as the .45 Colt, the .308 Winchester, and the .30-06 Springfield (all of which numbers indicated the bullet diameter in inches). These are all old school, and American. Now, your more worldly guns, like the Uzi and the Glock, use the metric system with their 9-millimeter round. Which is better? From a practical standpoint there can be no difference because the utility of a firearm, for civilians, is essentially zero. To split hairs we’ll have to consider the matter culturally. In that vein, I have to admit that the modern automatic weapons heralded in rap songs sound cooler and more sophisticated (e.g., “slapped a clip in my nine”) than older American standards—and that’s exactly why the metric system is a bad choice. America has a huge gun problem and the last thing we need is to be glamorizing firearms of any kind. If the .45 Colt and John Wayne seem anachronistic, that’s good … because guns are, too. The wild west days are over and (to paraphrase Ice-T) your best weapon now is your mind.

Shoe sizing

It’s pretty normal when thinking about the metric system to lump the European shoe sizing standard into it. Thus Americans are tempted to think that European shoe sizing, with its smaller units, is both a) metric, and b) more precise. In actuality, European sizing is a disaster. As explained here, this sizing is based on the “length of the last, expressed in Paris points,” which are 2/3 of a centimeter. There is absolutely nothing elegant or sensible about this, and even with this smaller unit of measure I’ve bought cycling shoes in half sizes (e.g., 45.5). Any perceived benefit of greater shoe sizing precision is an illusion, because with shoes you simply must try them on as the fit will vary widely across manufacturers (shoe size expressing only one dimension to begin with).

So why is this a mark against the metric system? Because Americans who have been brainwashed that the metric system is superior will automatically assume that European sizing is a) metric, and thus b) better. If Americans stuck to their guns (an unfortunate turn of phrase, I’ll admit) about our customary units, we’d probably kick this silly European shoe sizing basis to the curb as well. At least our size 12 shoe is approximately 12 inches long … give me one good reason why 45 makes more sense.

Let’s put this base-10 thing to rest

Naturally the metricites among my readership are all saying, “But wait, none of the above matters because base-10, base-10, base-10! Elegant calculations! Engineering! Stuff that matters!” Even if I indulge this by pretending that the industrial world is more important than the quotidian doings of your average joe, I take issue with base-10 being obviously better. Why? Because the base-10 system lacks sub-multiples. To explain this, I will quote from my friend Peter’s son’s friend, a recent high school grad named Kellen Sisco (who may or may not be ready for the worldwide fame he’s about to achieve through this blog). Kellen, in an anti-metric essay he decided to write (totally unconnected to this post, by the way), explains:

In base ten, there are two sub-multiples: 2 and 5, and these are both prime, inconvenient numbers. Now, contrarily, base twelve is good, as there are eight sub-multiples: 2, 3, 4 (which divides by 2), and 6 (which divides by 2 and 3). So, at least four times as many sums in base twelve will [yield] convenient numbers. Base 24 has 19 sub-multiples! Number 16 is a particularly liked number amongst mathematicians because it is good for halving and doubling. As one can see; number 10 is not a distinctly good number; numbers 12, 16, 24, and 60 are considerably better numbers.

Now, I don’t expect you to take this young man’s word for it that mathematicians like the number 16, or that 12, 24, and 60 are better than 10; instead, I’ll give you some real world examples. Consider mathematicians … what do they even do and why do we even care? Well, you like money, don’t you? And what math is lucrative, besides the boring engineering that goes into, say, building bridges? Answer: the Internet. Mathematicians do crazy-ass stuff like string theory which you assume is useless until they suddenly solve some Internet routing thing and become gazillionaires, etc. And I’m here to tell you, Internet engineers just dig hexadecimal, which is base-16, just like Kellin said. A classic dot-com interview question, when hiring engineers, is a pop quiz on network subnetting, which requires the kind of in-your-head division I described above in the construction example; it’s fractions, not getting out your phone and calculating to several decimal places. So beloved is hexadecimal among engineers, I had a boss who balanced his checkbook with it! Sometimes network guys will use octal (for arcane reasons), and when constrained by electrical engineering requirements around on/off (i.e., 1 or 0) they’ll use binary, but they don’t tend to use decimal unless they’re pressed into financial projections (the least fun part of the job).

And what about 12, 24, and 60? Well, it’s no coincidence we use those to describe time, whether we appreciate all the sub-multiples involved or not. We can say “Meet me at quarter past nine” and that’s really easy to grasp (and to visualize, clocks being as elegant as they are). With a base-10 time system we would all be totally screwed. Decimal time has a 10-hour day, so the units are impossibly huge: the minute is 1.44 times the size of ours, and the hour 2.4 times the size, so you’d always have to use decimals since you wouldn’t have handy fractions to play with. Just look at this preposterous base-10 clock:

I’ve tried to figure out how to express 9:15 a.m. in a base-10 time system, and my head exploded—and I’m no slouch at math (being well versed in binary, octal, and hex, and being nerdy enough to blog about daylight saving time, leap years, and leap seconds). If my head explodes contemplating base-10 time, surely billions of heads would explode worldwide if we tried to adopt it. And of course nobody has (except, briefly, the French, who abandoned it after less than a year … ‘nuff said).

Since we thus acknowledge base-10 is not necessarily superior, I think we can agree the metric system doesn’t automatically get a huge benefit from it. So to the STEM types promoting the metric system on this basis, I have this to say: you talk dog farts.

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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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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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