It was six in the morning, we were driving to Moab for our annual Ride Around White Rim in One Day (RAWROD) ride. And the wind was so strong I was literally having a difficult time keeping the truck in the correct lane.

So sure: I was being a little hyperbolic. But only a little.

Anticipating that the wind would be a part of this story, I sagely took a screen grab of the hourly weather forecast on my phone:

I just wish I had taken a screen grab of the more detailed forecast I had seen online the night before…the one that said we could expect gusts of up to 45mph.

And in short, I had concerns about riding in the desert, against harsh winds, unsupported, for 100 miles, in one day.

I know, I know: call me a pessimist.

Long Ride, Short Time

You’ve got to give us credit, though: we did show up. The Hammer and I got to where we traditionally begin the ride — at the end of Mineral Bottom road, the top of Horse Thief climb. We unpacked and were ready to roll by the 7am starting time.

But not a lot of other people were ready.

Now, I’m not saying that the people who were there weren’t ready. Because they were. What I’m saying is that there weren’t a lot of people there. 

As it turns out, I was not the only person who had checked the weather and found it wanting. Others, however, had elected to do things with their weekends that did not involve harsh winds while mountain biking unsupported in a sandy desert all day.

However, Kenny and Heather were there, on their tandem. And Kenny’s and Heather’s friends, Kathleen and Lucas, were also there.

And Ryan Thompson, to whom the laws of physics don’t apply even a little bit. And Jaoaoaaooa. Whose name I am pretty sure I am misspelling, but I think it has pretty close to that many vowels.

And in short, I am not good with names.

We began on time, more or less. I was chatting with Kenny and Heather, while noticing that The Hammer was beginning to pull away.

Hey, she’s The Hammer. It’s what she does.

I stood up and chased, managing to catch her. I looked over to my right, and there was Ryan. Thanks to a nice tailwind, the elevenths miles of straight dirt road warmup climb went by fast, and The Hammer claimed the QOM of Mineral Bottom as her own — even with a pee stop.

I looked back. Kenny, Heather, and the rest of the gang were nowhere to be seen.

“Should we wait for them here?” I asked?

“No,” The Hammer answered. “They’re all much faster than we are when descending. They’ll catch and pass us by the time we get to the bottom of Schafer.

We turned right…and into a ferocious headwind.

Safe Words

The three of us took short turns pulling as we climbed and battled the wind. I thought to myself how incredibly unfair it is to be the largest person in a pace line. 

I thought to myself how I didn’t want to spend a whole day fighting a hard wind like this.

I thought to myself how it would be really easy to turn left and ride the Mag 7 trail instead of riding the White Rim today.

“Hey,” I said, brightly, “What if we ride the Mag 7 trail today instead of White Rim?”

“That’s a good idea,” Ryan said.

“That’s not a good idea,” The Hammer said.

We kept going.

The wind got worse.

“I have nothing to prove,” I said to Ryan and The Hammer. “Let’s end this ride while we still can.”

“That sounds good,” said Ryan.

“We’re already out here; we may as well keep going and see if the weather improves,” said The Hammer.

We kept going. I thought about how cycling needs safewords: words that we use when we’re not joking around. When we seriously want to cut out this nonsense RIGHT THIS MOMENT.

We approached the toll booth, where we’d each need to pay $10 to continue on and do the ride.

“Oh, I’m afraid I forgot to bring any money,” said Ryan, cleverly.

“We only brought enough for us to get through,” I said, wishing I had also been smart enough to forget our money.

“It’s free pass day!” said the woman at the toll booth, helpfully.

Ryan said something, but it’s not the kind of word I generally allow in this blog.

Something Is Amiss

Let me say this: The Hammer was not being silly when she said that we should keep going and let everyone catch us as they descend the Schafer road. It’s a long, twisty, scary descent, and The Hammer and I aren’t good at that kind of thing. 

We figured that by pressing on and staying ahead now, we’d all be together and could ride the rest of the White Rim.

And that’s how it should have been.

But that’s not how it was.

Instead, we got to the bottom of Schafer…and it was still just the three of us. 

But the wind was Blowing. So. Hard.

“I just don’t want to wait around,” I said. “If we’re going to do this, let’s just keep going to Musselman’s Arch. They’ll catch us there while we eat.”

And so we went, the three of us, fighting the wind. Heads down. All three of us wondering where everyone else was. And at least two of us wondering how we had gotten into this mess.

We got to Musselmans. We ate. We looked at the arch. We took pictures.

We even took time to take silly pictures.

But neither Kenny nor Lucas nor Heather nor Kathleen appeared.

And in fact, we would never see them again that day.

Which seems like a pretty good spot for us to pick up in the next installment of this story.

No, I didn’t come to visit him in the hospital, where he had just been released from the ICU. In fact, I met him while standing in line to get the post-race meal we got as part of the race.

He was there, as you might suspect, because I had saved his life so well that he had been able to finish the race.

He thanked me. Because I’m awesome at life-saving.

How to Save a Life, Part 1

The thing is, his wasn’t the only life I had saved during this race. Earlier, I had noticed a racer walking his bike down the trail. His rear tire was clearly flat.

Pulling to a stop, I said, “I have stuff to fix a flat. Want it?”

“No,” he replied. “I’ve had three flats today already. I’ve had enough. I’m done.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “You don’t want to quit this race, right?”

“You might need that to fix a flat of your own,” he pointed out. 

“Yeah, but if that happens, I guarantee someone will help me out. People around here are like that,” I said. Which is totally true. I am 100% certain that anyone who needed help during this race would have gotten that help in short order (exactly this happened, in fact). Which is an awesome vibe to have during a race. 

“No, I’m going to take three flats as a sign that this just isn’t meant to be,” he said. “I’d probably crash and die on my next flat.”

I had volunteered my stuff (at least) three times, and he had turned it down each time, enough that I felt like he wasn’t being polite. He really had flipped the switch. He was done. 

So I left him without giving him what he needed to ride again, thus preventing him from almost certainly having a horrific, life-ending crash.

It felt good to have saved his life.

How to Save a Life, Part 2

I confess that this first saving of a life may not have been all that dramatic. I would now like to further warn you that you probably aren’t going to feel like all this buildup to the cliffhanger I set you up for yesterday isn’t going to be worth it, either.

In which case I would like to offer you a refund of your ten minutes.

As I concluded in yesterday’s post, I was riding strong. Feeling great. Happy to be outside and riding my heart out.

Then I saw a man, not on his bike. Walking up an incline — a steep incline, to be sure, but not unrideable. He was slowly pushing his bike, clearly in agony.

I recognized that agony. I’ve been there before, pushing my bike because I was in too much pain to ride. 

That’s how you keep moving forward when your quads and hamstrings are both locked up, fully cramped. 

The pain is incredibly intense. I swear, it feels like you are going to die. 

I slowed to his pace. Which, basically, means I was going just slightly faster than a trackstand. “Cramps, both legs?”

“Yes,” he grunted between clenched teeth. “It’s killing me.”

“I’m going to save your life,” I said. And — very dramatically, as is my way — I climbed off my bike and produced a fliptop tube of Gu Roctane Electrolyte Capsules. 

“Take a handful of these and you’ll be back on your bike in no time,” I said. He stuck out his hand and I shook half a dozen (maybe more) pills into his hand. 

“All of them, right now,” I emphasized. “They’ve brought me back from cramps just like yours. They’re a lifesaver.”

He nodded, popped them into his mouth, and washed them down.

“Good luck,” I said, and got back onto my bike. 

Clearly, I am a hero. A life-saving hero.

Still, as I rode off — my heart full and my chest puffed out — I couldn’t help but wonder: Under what circumstances would I accept and unquestioningly swallow a handful of pills (pills that had not been identified, no less) from a complete stranger?

While racing and cramping so bad I thought I might die, came back the obvious answer.

Which made me feel like even more of a hero. Because I am. 

How to Save a Life, Parts 3 and 4

I had been out Carborocket for about ten minutes, and already I was getting concerned. I drink quite a bit less than most people do during races, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to not have water available when I need it.

Fortunately, about fifty feet after I had saved this (second) man’s life, I arrived at a popup tent. Beneath, a man stood, fiercely guarding several containers of water.

OK, it’s possible he wasn’t guarding the water. In fact, it’s possible he offered it to me freely. 

You could even say he saved my life by refilling my Camelbak, though I might quibble with you on that score, due to my aversion to hyperbole.

Anyway, with my Camelbak replenished, I continued on, feeling like I probably would not need to stop again for water.

I was right, but I was also kind of wrong. Because not ninety minutes later, I came across the official aid station. Which means I had refilled my Camelbak with unofficial water!

I chose to press on. Indeed, thanks to the location of this unofficial aid station I had unwittingly used, I thought that I would not be using any official aid station for the entirety of the race.

And then, as I passed by, I stopped suddenly. For I had seen…a can of Coke.

A can of Coke, I tell you. 

“Can I have that Coke?” I asked the aid station person.

“Sure,” this Angel of Heaven replied, and commenced to pour it over a cup full of ice. 

I drank. It was glorious. I had not even realized that I had been dying, but this Coke was so wonderful that there is no possible other explanation of its perfection than that I needed it in order to survive. 

Thereby was my own life saved.

Next: A Flashback

I had one more loop — on a trail called “Barrel Ride” or “Barrel Roll” or “Big Barrel Full of Rolling Riders” or something like that. And then a mostly-downhill ride to the finish line.

So you’d think this story is mostly over. But you’d be wrong, because tomorrow I’m going to flash this story back to earlier in the race, when I was a terrible person to some of my very best friends.

Things have changed.

As a darned-near-49-year-old-man, it’s rare that I get to say this, but as I hit the first climb of the day, it was immediately apparent. For one thing, I stayed seated for about 3/4 of the climb; a winter of TrainerRoad has changed my riding behavior. Instead of hitting everything like a singlespeeder (whether I’m on a singlespeed or not), I was shifting to a lower gear and spinning.

Oh, and instead of a fully rigid singlespeed, I was on a technological marvel of a bike: a full-suspension Cannondale Scalpel Carbon Team, complete with a SRAM XX1 drivetrain, a fork that…doesn’t fork, and high-zoot ENVE XC wheels. 

Sadly, I was killling myself a little too hard to take a selfie, but here I am with this beauty of a bike on the exact same course, wearing the exact same thing as I did during the race, but a few weeks earlier:

So really, you just need to imagine a lot of people around me. And also, I’m about four pounds lighter now than I was back then.

Anyway, while I am probably a hardtail guy at heart, this Scalpel was beginning to change my mind about full suspension.

Etiquette

After the first big climb — a great chance for me to move forward a few places in the group — the True Grit Epic puts you on rolling dirt roads for a few miles, punctuated with short stretches of singletrack.

I got into a nice uncomfortable riding groove, repeatedly telling me several important facts about this race:

• I would not place well. As a 48-year-old man, I was in the largest age group division: 40-49. There were 99 of us, and I recognized more than ten names of people who are much faster than I am. I would not get on the podium. I would not even get close.
• I had no objective. With a course that was changed from previous years, and with weather that was better than in any previous years, previous finish times of my competitors meant nothing. I wasn’t racing against anyone, and I wasn’t even racing against a clock. I was just racing. Going hard as practice for going hard.
• I could get injured. This course is no joke. It’s mostly extremely technical singletrack. To ride all of it would require mountain biking skills beyond what I’ve got. All the fancy suspension and geometry in the world won’t prevent me from panic-braking and going over my handlebars. The season hasn’t even begun, really. I would err on the side of caution.

During this few miles, I slowly reeled in a guy on a very nice Ibis Ripley. As I finally caught him, I said, “Hey, that is a really nice bike.”

He did not reply. 

“Super nice Ripley,” I said, again.

No reply.

That’s when I saw the earbuds in his ears. Both ears.

I’d see this guy probably a dozen more times during the day, but I never tried talking with him again. When I passed him, I didn’t bother calling it out. And I noticed other people frustrated with getting no response from as they called out they were coming by on one side or the other, too.

I’m not one to preach about listening to music while on your bike. Not even during races. Do what you want to do. But how about this: During a race, don’t listen to your music to the extent that you are unaware of your fellow racers. It’s dangerous, and it’s rude.

A Really Nice Surprise

I promise, that was the absolutely last grumpy thing I’m going to say about this day, in large part because it’s the only even slightly bothersome experience I had from the day. 

It was mid-March and sunny, with temperatures staying in the 70s. The wind was never stronger than a couple miles per hour: just enough to be pleasant.

People were courteous. Those of us who were tentative on some of the really technical stuff were doing our best to get out of the way of those who are technical superstars.

And the course was marked beautifully. 

I can’t emphasize what a wonderful relief that was. 

As a person who is…um…challenged with directions and course markings in general, I had been really nervous about the True Grit Epic, especially after pre-riding the course a few weeks earlier with Kenny. Both The Hammer and I had agreed that we would never have succeeded in making the correct turns in this labyrinth of trails; we were sure to get lost or misread the course.

But I didn’t. Ever. Not one single problem with seeing the course, not one blown turn, not one question in my mind about whether I was currently going on an unmarked adventure.

Every single turn was indicated, and most places where you shouldn’t turn were taped off or marked with a “Wrong Way” sign. 

I don’t think I ever went more than fifty feet without seeing a course marking, making it so I could spend all my time concentrating on riding well and trying to be fast.

GRO Productions deserves kudos galore for their extraordinary work in making this one of the easiest-to-follow courses I’ve ever been on, especially in light of how it could have easily been one of the most confusing.

Looking for The Hammer

Before long, I encountered a racer buddy / friend: Mark Nelson. He and I aren’t related (as far as I know) but we seem to have similar power, similar speed. I’ve ridden a big chunk of the 6 Hours of Frog Hollow with him. I’ve ridden a smaller chunk of the Rockwell Relay with him.

And here at the True Grit Epic, for the next two hours or so, we’d be playing a game of leapfrog. I passed him on every climb. He passed me on every descent.

I tried to get him to talk during the climbs; he tried to get me to follow his line over more technical terrain than I should have during descents.

All the while, however, I kept looking back over my shoulder. Because I was looking for my real competition: The Hammer.

Yes, I viewed my wife as the most important competition I had in this race.

Yes, also I realize that’s kind of messed up.

But here’s the thing. When The Hammer and I pre-rode the True Grit course a few weeks ago, she killed me. She was faster on the climbs. She was nearly as fast on the descents. 

And — very importantly — she got stronger and faster as the day went on…while I started sagging.

The below photo, for example, shows her easily riding behind me as I do my level best to not let her hang:

This had caused me some concern for the race day. Because, you see, if The Hammer caught me, it didn’t mean we were racing together, it meant that she had made up the five minutes between our starting waves.

And I…just…didn’t…want…that.

That said, before the race I had admitted the possibility that this might happen, and had given The Hammer strict instructions on how to interact with me as she passed.

“Don’t make fun of me or yell at me to get out of your way,” I said. “That’s humiliating.”

“OK, no making fun. No humiliating,” she said.

“And don’t tell me I’m doing good as you ride by. That’s condescending and embarrassing and I won’t believe you.”

“Fine. I won’t tell you you’re doing bad, but I won’t tell you you’re doing good, either.”

“Maybe you should just pretend you don’t know it’s me as you go by,” I concluded.

Cliffhanger

I kept looking over my shoulder, wondering if I’d see her. Whether I’d see her. Whether she’d actually not say anything when she rode by

But she didn’t pass me. I was, I had to admit, riding really strong.

Strong enough, in fact, that I caught up with and passed several racers.

Including a racer who was no longer on his bike.

At which point I got off…and commenced to save his life.

Which seems like a good place to pick up tomorrow.

When adventure writers tell their stories, they start with the dramatic ending.

Dramatic Ending

May 3, 8:30 PM – After riding the White Rim Trail in one day, Paul decides he’s done riding for the weekend and starts the drive home to St. George. He pulls over and dry heaves.

May 3, 9:00 PM – After riding the White Rim Trail in one day, Dug and his son Holden drive into the parking lot of Moab Brewery. Holden tells Dug to stop the car, now. He opens the door in front of the overflow crowd waiting to get a table at the restaurant, and vomits. The crowd looks on in horror.

May 3, 11:15 PM - Dug and Holden return to camp and climb in their sleeping bags, waking me up from a happy slumber. Dug warns me that Holden has been sick. He tells Holden to use a bag of donut gems in case he needs to vomit. Holden uses it. He continues to wake up and vomit into different containers over the course of the night.

May 3, 11:30 PM – The last pair of cyclists complete their ride in the dark with little fanfare. Everyone else is asleep or dealing with sickness.

May 4, 3:00 AM – 30 miles away from the White Rim Trail, Lisa vomits in her hotel room.

May 4, 4:00 AM – Unable to deal with the peer pressure, I crawl out of the tent and vomit in the sand.

Adventure writers also shift dramatically from present tense to past tense.

The Beginning

After having done a 4-hour, 20-mile mountain bike ride on Friday—my longest mountain bike ride of the year—we drove to the top of Horsethief Trail and set up camp at the parking lot.

Kenny has been hosting this event for years, but this year was special—his 50th birthday. He was also doing something different this year. No sag wagon, and no group really. The only plan was to meet at Musselman Arch for photos, and then everyone was on their own, or hopefully in pairs.

We knew the next day was going to be a hot one, so we loaded up as much water as we could carry. My backpack had two one-liter bladders and a few gels and nut rolls, and my bike carried two bottles. I stuffed other food packets in my jersey pockets.

The goal was to leave at 7:00 AM. I wanted to take off a little earlier than everyone else because I’m one of the slower riders, but that was ruined when I woke up sluggish and wandered around like the camp idiot.

I was glad to hear that Paul decided to make a go of it. After the previous day’s ride, he had lost some of his confidence and wasn’t sure he wanted to try it.

On the ride from the Horsethief parking lot back out to Highway 313, I felt weak and uncomfortable under my heavy pack, but happy to be with friends and doing a ride I hadn’t done in almost two decades.*

* In truth, I’ve never actually done the full 100-mile ride before. We always skipped the 13-mile stretch of dirt road.

When the 13-mile stretch of rolling dirt road ended, we gulped down cached drinks and headed up the 8-mile paved road towards the National Park camp entrance.

It was at the camp entrance where I had perhaps my finest moment of the day. My performance in the outhouse was nothing short of spectacular. The golf equivalent would be to bend a 3-iron from the deep rough around a tree and to within 10 feet of the pin. As I emerged from the outhouse, happy and light, I raised my hand in a polite yes-I-acknowledge-your-applause-and-I’m-secretly-thrilled-but-want-to-act-cool wave to my imaginary audience, who really had no business being there, imaginary or no.

Because of my majestic delay, we were now behind the other riders by several minutes. Entering Shafer Trail reminded me of how beautiful this area was.

As I started the Shafer descent, I noticed that my front brake wasn’t working. Elden had loaned me his rigid single-speed bike for the trip, which is kind of him, but the bike wasn’t in great shape. One of the bottle cages was broken, the rear tire was bald, and the power brake was out. I normally wouldn’t say bad things about Elden’s loaner bike—mouth, meet gift horse—but Elden frequently disguises his generous heart with vile meanness. For example, after the ride, here’s what he texted me:

“it was great to see you — bummed i didn’t ride a ton with you, but i am far too strong to hold back at your pace”

Not wanting to fly off any of the switchbacks, I did a slow descent, skidding wildly around corners with only a rear brake and bald tires.

Paul and I met up at the bottom and rode hurriedly at a leisurely pace, if that makes any sense. We arrived at Musselman Arch to see other riders hanging out. Someone in our group took this picture.

A Note From Fatty: Here’s another shot at Musselman’s Arch, this one of (left to right), me, Lisa, Bob, Dug, and Holden]

After a couple of group photos and general milling around, we got back on our bikes. That was the last I saw of the Kenny, Heather, Elden, Lisa, and the rest of the fast riders.

The ride from Musselman to White Crack, which is roughly the half-way point, consists of a series of bends that wind around canyons. You descend slightly as you ride away from the rim and then ascend slightly as you ride back towards the rim. Rinse and repeat.

The flowers and cactuses were blooming. At around 10:30 AM, it was already hot. Here, I turned around for the camera to capture the purple flowers, which unfortunately got washed out in this picture.

[A Note from Fatty: I didnt’ have a lot better luck getting pictures of the expanse of purple flowers, but I got a pretty good close-up of one of them, below]

[Another Note from Fatty: There were incredible yellow flowers on some of the bushes, too — all in all, I’ve never seen the desert look so beautiful.]

Once we finally got around that last mesa that we had been looking at in the distance for hours, we biked through a wide open desert. As we made the turn and headed northwest, I noticed a nice breeze coming from the south.

People accuse the White Rim Trail of having a constant headwind regardless of the direction you’re going. For the record, on May 3, 2014, I do hereby proclaim that we had no wind during the first half of the ride and a mild tail wind during the second half of the ride.

Progress

In my memory, the major checkpoints—Shafer, Musselman, Vertigo Void, Murphy’s Hogback, Hardscrabble Hill, and Horsethief—were spread out fairly evenly. In reality, Shafer and Musselman are close to each other, Vertigo and Murphy’s are only a mile or two apart, and there’s a huge distance between Musselman and Vertigo.

The tentative plan was to eat lunch at Vertigo Void, but several of us weren’t riding fast enough for it to make sense to wait that long. Paul and I ate our lunch in the slim shade of a juniper bush, and pressed on.

By the time Paul and I reached Vertigo Void, the other riders were gone. Here’s what they had been up to:

Paul wanted to keep pushing on, knowing that we had three difficult climbs in front of us, including Murphy’s Hogback in a short while.

The ride up Murphy’s is steep and loose. Paul and I didn’t even try to ride up the steep pitches. When I last did the White Rim Trail back when Bill Clinton was POTUS, Dug and I took pride in being able to clean all the moves. Now, I thought, How did I ever ride up that? In retrospect, I am in awe of my 32-year-old self. In fairness, my 32-year-old self was riding a geared bike with suspension, not a rigid single-speed. So I’m proud of my 51-year-old self as well. Good job, mes present and past.

After pushing our bikes to the top, Paul and I ate a snack and watched a few other riders do the long climb. Cori, who was hanging back with his girlfriend Emily, cleaned it. So did Jolene, who was hanging back to help out a struggling rider.

Cori then proposed to Emily at the top of Murphy’s Hogback. She accepted.

I thought that group of people represented the last of the pack (the gruppetto for you Tour de France fans), but it turns out that a couple of riders were even further back.

Suffering

There was a nice long drop down the other side of Murphy’s Hogback, and then there was, for me, the most difficult part of the ride. It was hot, 90-degree weather. We had been on our bikes all day long. Eating was hard, and Paul stopped trying to eat altogether, relying on CarboRocket for his energy. CarboRocket, where energy meets experience. CarboRocket, a boost of freedom. CarboRocket, for her pleasure.

The heat was getting to me. I was weary, colicky, and dragging behind Paul, Cori, and Emily. I talked Paul into stopping so that I could transfer water from one bladder to the other and down some ibuprofen, and Cori and Emily pulled ahead for good.

For the next stretch of trail, I don’t remember much. For me, every endurance ride has the same characteristics:

1. Pre-ride excitement 
2. The this-is-never-going-to-end section 
3. The problem (neck pain, hot spots, sunburn, not enough water, can’t eat, can’t poop, stomach, mechanical) 
4. Crux fatigue (or worse, bonk) 
5. Resignation to suffering 
6. Energizing homestretch 
7. Emotional finish

Riding near Candlestick, I was dealing with the crux fatigue, which Dug calls the “cave of pain.” I didn’t bonk, but I was miserable. I was saddle-sore, my feet hurt, my neck hurt, my legs were cramping.

Jolene’s group of riders caught up to us at the start of Hardscrabble Hill. Paul and I again walked our bikes up, relieved to be off the saddles.

Bry also caught up with us and told me he was running low on water because he was giving it all away to an embattled friend. I told him I had plenty of extra water, so I filled one of his bottles with CarboRocket.

The Homestretch

Once we got to the top of Hardscrabble Hill, where you can look down at the trail as it runs along the Green River, everything turned around for me. The ibuprofen had finally kicked in, so my neck pain was mostly gone, and I had adjusted to the suffering. All I needed to do was keep riding another 11 or so miles along the Green River before the big finish up Horsethief.

Here’s a picture that Paul took of me with my camera. I rode down a bit and then rode back up to face the camera:

This was a beautiful section of trail. We got a nice cloud cover, a tail wind, and cooler temperatures as it approached evening.

Paul had a GPS on his bike, so we knew exactly how far we had to ride before the start of Horsethief. That helped us avoid wondering if the turn-off was right after this next bend, or maybe the next one. We knew we still had 7 miles to go, or 4 miles to go, or 2 miles to go. Horsethief is at mile 99, period, end of story. And then it’s 1.5 miles of climbing.

Here’s a picture of Horsethief that Todd Winner took.

After Elden and Lisa finished their ride, they jumped in their car and drove down to the bottom of Horsethief to help struggling riders. They asked Paul and me if we needed extra water, or if they could take our camelbaks, but we both declined stubbornly. We did agree to gulp down an ice-cold Coke that Lisa fished out of a cooler.

Here’s a picture of Dug’s son Holden, also getting a Coke from Elden and Lisa at the bottom of Horesthief:

At the top of Horsethief, the riders who had finished sat in chairs at the top of the hill, watching, cheering, cajoling.

I decided that I wanted to try to ride up Horsethief. I let some air out of the bald rear tire so that I wouldn’t have to stay seated to avoid skidding out and hammered up the first long stretched before it turned into switchbacks. Sadly, I had to push my bike up a couple of stretches. I like to think that I would have made it had Elden loaned me a better bike.

Then I rode up the last few switchbacks, doing everything in my power—including what Dug called the “paper boy”—to stay on my bike. Dug took this picture of me. I think that’s Paul a little further down the hill.

“Go Bobby!” “Don’t fall!” “Paul is catching you!” “Stay on your bike!”

Here’s Paul riding up Horsethief:

Here’s Paul finishing:

And here’s me the morning after the ride:

Great adventure.

Special thanks to Kenny, Heather, Dug, Elden, Lisa, and Paul for all your help.

I love this design. It’s both beautiful and an excellent mission statement. 

In addition to this new design, I’ll be bringing back the painted-look FatCyclist.com design, this time as a long-sleeve T. And the FatCyclist holiday sweater-ish long-sleeve T. 

So, look for the announcement and links to the Twin Six site this Monday, November 25. You’ll only have two days to pre-order, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. 

The t-shirts will ship 12/12 to 12/17, so if you’re in the US, they will be arrive by Christmas. 

And when you buy one, you’re going to be helping me make ends meet while I’m writing Fight Like Susan. Which is awfully cool of you.

25 Hours in Frog Hollow, Part IX: Podiums and Ill-Timed Naps

It is such a strange feeling to be done with a big race. Somehow, by riding my bike for just under 26 hours, racing around this loop had become my whole universe. Somehow, suddenly not having to race seemed strange. Foreign.

And incredibly luxurious.

I cleaned up, got into some jeans, a t-shirt, and a jacket — so exquisite to not be wearing a jersey and bike shorts with a damp chamois — and walked around (I had tried to help tear down camp, but Zach, Trisha, and Brooks laughed at my uselessness and told me to go relax).

There was a free lunch — loaded up tostadas from Costa Vida. The Hammer and I picked ours up, then sat down in the dirt to eat, killing time ’til the awards ceremony.

Within moments my head was nodding forward. My food mostly untouched. I have a singular ability to fall asleep instantly, and that ability was asserting itself, big time. 

Then I was startled awake by The Hammer, who was squealing, “That’s Jill Homer!” You see, The Hammer is Jill Homer’s biggest fan.

So we went and talked to Jill, finding that — like us — she and her boyfriend Beat had done the race solo and ridden it together. Unlike us, Jill had crashed out of the race, finishing ten laps. 

Meanwhile, The Hammer used all her willpower to not ask for an autograph.

Which makes me think: the coolest Spreecast I could ever do would be one where I just have The Hammer and Jill swap stories about what it’s like to be really nice, normal women who also happen to love doing monster endurance events.

Don’t you think?

On the Podium

It was time for awards to be handed out. Of course, it was no surprise at all that The Hammer won her Women’s Solo Singlespeed division: 

What we didn’t know for sure — and which the announcer was very cool about announcing — was that The Hammer had also put in the fastest overall women’s solo time. Since she wasn’t registered in the geared solo division though, she wasn’t on that podium. So I have taken the liberty of slightly modifying the official results:

And for the singlespeed men? Well, they called Jamon up for first place — no surprise.

Then they called Kenny up for second place — no surprise.

And then they called me up for third place. 

Which was a surprise. 

I had — without knowing it — finished my 17th lap just five minutes ahead of El Freako:

To be clear, El Freako’s (aka Jeff) lap times are consistently faster than mine. But sometime during the middle of the night, he did a 4:33 lap. Was he sleeping? Fixing a mechanical? Tending to an injury? I dunno. But this was definitely a tortoise-and-the-hair moment. 

And as a result, I got this very cool Lezyne Port-a-Shop toolkit as a prize. 

With a retail value of $139, that’s by far the nicest third prize I’ve ever seen at a race. And now this lives in my truck, and I have pretty much every tool I could need to fix anything.

So now it’s especially sad that I’m such a miserable mechanic.

Inopportune Naptime

And then it was time to head home. Now, we were smart enough not to attempt the four-hour drive back to Alpine. No. We instead were just going to do the forty-minute drive back to Kenny and Heather’s house.

By the time we got on pavement, I was having a really hard time keeping my eyes trained. “I think I may need to pull over,” I told The Hammer. 

And then my head drooped forward. Followed by The Hammer screaming. 

Which woke me up pretty thoroughly. 

You know what would be a good idea at 24-hour races? Designated drivers for afterward.

Weeks Later

And now, for the first time since Spring, The Hammer and I have no races coming up. Nothing to train for. 

It feels wonderful.

The only problem is, I still can’t feel my index or middle fingers in my right hand.

• Part I: The Things that Hurt
• Part II: Meet Your Competitors
• Part III: Team Fatty Cannot Seem to Catch a Break
• Part IV: Support from a Unicorn
• Part V: Life as a Domestique
• Part VI: Everything Falls Apart
• Part VII: Changing and Chasing
• Part VIII: End of the Road
• Part IX: A Moment of Awkwardness
• Part X: How to Not Eat
• Part XI: G’night Everybody

I was asleep, on my bike, flying downhill, with my hands on my aero bars, for two seconds. Maybe not even that long. Maybe only one second. Half a second. Long enough, though, for my head to fall down toward the bars, startling me back awake.

I realized what had just happened — that I could have easily crashed in that moment. Or drifted into oncoming traffic. Or veered into the guardrail and flipped over, down the steep mountainside.

I could have died in a number of ways.

A massive rush of adrenaline hit me as I started to understand my near miss, completely solving my drowsiness problem.

Good Change

We were getting close. Down to the last thirty miles or so, in fact. We now knew the road we were riding on: it was much the same one we had been on earlier this year when we did the Half Ironman on these same bikes — our Shivs.

But we weren’t getting much of an aero advantage from these bikes anymore. Our backs and necks were just too tired, too sore, too stiff for riding in an aero position.

“Let’s switch to the road bikes,” I said.

And we were so glad we did. Having been on our Shivs for most of the past 400 miles (it’d be interesting to know what the exact mileage breakdown is, but we didn’t keep track), I had just about forgotten how much more comfortable and forgiving a regular ol’ road bike is. 

The Hammer confirmed what I was thinking, saying, “Oh, this feels so good.”

Discussion on the Home Stretch

Even before the race began, we knew that the Salt to Saint Ends hard — with a longish climb, then a short-but-steep climb, and then with one last long climb.

We climbed slowly. We had no intense efforts left in us. 

As we climbed, I started thinking. An idea occurred to me. A really good one. I just needed to present it properly.

“Do you think Russell, Jason, or Jake have passed us?” I asked. Then I followed up with my real question. “Or is there a chance we’re somehow the lead solo riders?”

“I don’t even care,” The Hammer said. That wasn’t a snub, it was just honest exhaustion. 

“Still,” I said, “We have to consider there’s a possibility that we are the lead solo riders. What if,” I continued, now getting to my real idea, “you weren’t simply the first woman to finish this race solo this year — as well as the first woman ever — but were the first solo racer overall?”

“No,” The Hammer said. “You should go first. That way you win overall, and I’m still first woman.”

I knew she’d say that, so had my response ready. “You’ve got to do it. Doing this ride solo was your idea; my job has been to be domestique. And the domestique doesn’t finish ahead of the leader.”

“Besides,” I said, “You finishing first makes a better story in the blog.”

Yeah, that’s right. I used the blog card.

“Fine,” she said. 

And thus, for the first time ever, I triumphed in an argument with The Hammer. 

Surprise!

As we began the last climb — up REd Hills Parkway — I looked at my Garmin 510. It was 11:50am. We had been out for 27:50. Twenty seven hours and fifty minutes.

“I cannot believe how close you came to predicting our finishing time,” I said. “We’re going to finish within half an hour of your prediction, even with everything that’s gone wrong. That’s amazing.”

“I think we’ll finish at 12:15,” The Hammer said. 

We were climbing so slowly. Tired out. I was trying to get a sense of whether I felt elation or excitement. Nope. Just tired. Just ready to go to bed and take a nap.”

No, wait. There it was. Pride. I was proud of what we had done. My wife and I had ridden for twenty eight hours. 423 miles. Together (most of the time). How many couples can say that?

My introspection was broken by the Hammer saying, “Oh please oh please oh please give us a left turn.”

I didn’t understand. Sure, we were approaching a traffic signal, but I had just assumed we’d be going straight through and continuing our climb up and over Red Hills Parkway. We weren’t even halfway up it.

But there it was: a course marking, showing us to turn left. 

“I don’t get it,” I said.

The Hammer, who knows St. George better than I do, told me, “We’re done climbing. This drops us right into downtown, a couple blocks from the finish line.”

“We’re there,” she said.

And she was right. A quick curvy descent (and if you’re not careful, a very treacherous one: another team’s racer blew the curve, flipped over the barrier and landed twenty feet below, breaking all kinds of bones), put us on Diagonal Street. Kenny and Heather pulled alongside of us, gave us a final cheer, and then shot ahead to meet us at the finish line.

We turned one final time toward a park, and there it was. 

I feathered my brakes, slowing so The Hammer would cross first, and then rolled in behind her.

We had done it.

Our final times were 27:59:29 (for The Hammer) and 27:59:42 (for me). 

We had beaten The Hammer’s predicted finish time…by just about half a minute.

Afterward

Zac and Blake were at the finish line, as were — of course — Kenny and Heather.

We were incredibly fortunate to have such patient family and friends take care of us.

We quickly found out that we were, in fact, the first solo finishers, making The Hammer the overall solo winner, and me the first man. Russell Mason would finish just under five hours later. Jake and Jason — the great guys we rode with at the beginning of the race — would not finish the race. I would love to know all three of their stories.

The race organizers interviewed The Hammer and me on-camera for a few minutes. Asked what I considered to be the most challenging aspect of the race, I answered, “Recurring hiccups.”

I am pretty sure they did not expect that answer.

We went to Heather and Kenny’s house, took the most welcome shower in the history of showers, then collapsed and slept on what I had always thought of as an OK bed…until that point. Now I knew that bed is magical.

We got up a couple hours later and went to the awards ceremony, held in the same park we had finished in. Our prizes? A decal we could put on our cars saying we had soloed the Salt to Saint, along with a set of new road tires for our bikes. And — you must believe I am not making this up — a case of Red Bull.

Which, I would like to add, remains unopened.

PS: For those of you who would like to see what a really long ride looks like on Strava, here you go.

PPS: I am actually writing and posting this while on a plane because I feel like I owe it to you to finish this story before disappearing. That said, I will be busy with some top-secret stuff as soon as I land, and won’t be posting tomorrow.

PPPS: I expect that some of you have questions. Ask in the comments and I’ll try to get to them tonight (Thursday) or on the flight home tomorrow (Friday).

• Part I: The Things that Hurt
• Part II: Meet Your Competitors
• Part III: Team Fatty Cannot Seem to Catch a Break
• Part IV: Support from a Unicorn
• Part V: Life as a Domestique
• Part VI: Everything Falls Apart
• Part VII: Changing and Chasing
• Part VIII: End of the Road
• Part IX: A Moment of Awkwardness
• Part X: How to Not Eat

We had been going downhill for an hour, and now we had a thousand or so feet of climbing. People were passing us. Constantly.

“Just remember,” I said, “that none of these people have been riding as long as we have. They have all had six or more hours of rest since the last time they rode. And in an hour or two, they’re done.“

“Plus,” The Hammer replied, “They’re still more or less in the same place as we are, this far into the race. We aren’t doing too bad.”

She was right. The Hammer had predicted that we’d do this race in 28 hours. So far, in spite of everything that had gone wrong, we were right on schedule. 

“I am beginning to believe that we are going to finish this thing,” I said.

“But I wish all these people who are passing us knew that we’re riding this thing solo,” The Hammer said.

I did too. So I started thinking about it. And then I came up with an ingenious plan, requiring nothing but a sharpie.

“We could have just written “SOLO” on our calves,” I said. Like this:

No, these are not my legs.

“And then,” I said, “As the night drags on and we’re feeling really bad, we could just add a letter.” Like this:

“And finally, after we’ve been riding all night and we’re just crawling along…like we are right now…we can add one final letter.” Like this:

And then I took a moment to marvel at my ingenuity. 

So now you know what kinds of things I think about when I’ve been up and riding for a day and a night. Isn’t the inside of my head an interesting place? 

It isn’t?

Try, Try Again

A big drop brought us to the Kanab transition, which was important for a few important reasons:

1. We were now well into our final hundred miles. “Only” eighty or so miles to go.
2. Daylight wasn’t far off. Within the next hour or so it would be light. Which was incredibly exciting for us.
3. Kenny and Heather would be taking over crewing duties from Blake and Zac.

In my head, I was really glad to see Kenny and Heather. I really was. As I greeted them, though, the part of me that listens to what I’m saying and how I’m saying it observed, “They just traveled to Kanab, Utah to drive behind you and get you food and otherwise babysit you for the next several hours, and you sound completely disinterested. Like a zombie.”

So I said, again, how glad I was they were here and how much I appreciated them.

And then I think I said it again. At which point The Hammer observed, “You’re happy they’re here. I think they got it.”

I confess. Lucidity was a scarce resource.

Luckily for Kenny, Heather, and The Hammer, I didn’t try to — once again — convince them that despite my appearance and slurred, mumbling voice I was happy to see them. Because I had Other Business to attend to.

By which I mean, I needed to poop.

By the time I came out of the outhouse in the parking lot, everyone was ready to go.

I, however, had not had any luck. “Oh well,” I thought. “Next time.”

Except just as I threw a leg over my bike — I’d be riding the Shiv for the next sixty miles or so — I decided I needed to try again. 

“Sorry everyone,” I said, and headed back to the outhouse. 

A while later I re-emerged, my perspective on the day and the ride much, much improved.

It’s the little things in life that matter.

Deedle Deedle Dumpling

I found The Hammer sitting in the crew car, in the driver’s seat. Her head resting against the steering wheel. Quite possibly asleep.

I roused her with the question, “Did I, sometime during the past twenty-four hours, accidentally eat a cork?”

(OK, from here on out I’m done with the poop talk. Honest.)

The Hammer got her helmet and gloves on, got on her bike, and we got going on the next leg, with Kenny and Heather following close behind.

“I can’t clip in,” The Hammer said. 

“With either foot?”

“No, just my left foot.”

And that, right there, is the curse of the Speedplay road pedal: ridiculously finicky spring-loaded cleats. One little piece of gravel can lodge in and make it impossible to clip in.

The Hammer kept working at it, though and — sometime shortly after we crossed the Arizona state line — she clipped in.

Unfortunately, when we arrived at the next transition area, she had forgotten about the difficulty getting her shoe clipped in, was unable to clip out, and fell over on her side, pinned under her bike.

Ordinarily, I would have been right there, helping her out of the pedal and making sure The Hammer was OK. I’d have been the ultimate solicitous husband.

This time, though, I just stood there, thinking to myself, “Why would she do that? What a stupid joke.”

We ate — one last turkey and swiss sandwich for me, after which I swore I would never eat turkey deli meat, swiss cheese, or bread ever again. Oddly, I held no grudge against the mayonnaise.

And then we were on the road again.

But this time, The Hammer could not clip in. No matter what. Just couldn’t.

So she rode that way — not clipped in on her left foot — for about 14 miles. After which she remembered: she had actually brought a second pair of road shoes. 

Like I said, lucidity was a scarce commodity.

The Hammer changed into a spare shoe — just the one, leaving her with a Specialized shoe on the right and a Shimano shoe on her left foot.

“Ebony, and Ivorreeeeeeee,” I sang, briefly breaking into “Tweeter and the Monkey Man,” which — twenty four hours into this ride — was still on auto repeat in my brain.

I will never again be able to listen to that song without thinking of this race.

Shutting Down

Morning came, and our spirits soared. Partly this was because — even if you haven’t slept, the returning sun somehow rejuvenates you. But mostly it was because we knew that morning meant that we’d be finishing the race soon. And then we could lie down and take a nap before coming back for the awards ceremony.

“Do you have any idea whether the other solo riders passed us sometime during the night?” I asked The Hammer.

“No, there’s no way to tell,” she replied. “We’ve been stopping for around ten minutes every hour for the past eight hours or so, though. I’d be surprised if they haven’t caught and passed us at some point during the night.”

I agreed, and I didn’t care. We were doing this to complete, not compete.

“I’m really proud of you,” I told The Hammer. “You’re going to do this. You’re going to be the first woman to ever finish this course solo. And you’re doing it right on the pace you had predicted. I think we’re going to finish right around noon.”

“Yeah, or maybe a little later,” The Hammer responded. “But we’ll finish in under 29 hours, which is within an hour of my prediction. That’s pretty good.”

We went through the Cedar Point transition, which meant a big eighteen-mile descent. 

Free miles! 

This late in the race, it almost seemed like cheating, to suddenly be flying, low in the aero bars, just coasting.

I stared at the line.

My heart rate dropped.

I found it incredibly difficult to keep my eyes open.

I kept drifting onto the rumble strips, which would briefly make me jerk to alertness. But it wouldn’t last long, and I’d start fading.

And then, finally, ripping along downhill at thirty miles per hour, it happened.

I fell asleep.

• Part I: The Things that Hurt
• Part II: Meet Your Competitors
• Part III: Team Fatty Cannot Seem to Catch a Break
• Part IV: Support from a Unicorn
• Part V: Life as a Domestique
• Part VI: Everything Falls Apart
• Part VII: Changing and Chasing
• Part VIII: End of the Road
• Part IX: A Moment of Awkwardness

I want to tell an accurate, honest story here. I want to describe what it’s really like to ride your road bike for 423 miles, nonstop, with your wife. Paradoxically (I think), though, part of being honest and accurate with my storytelling means that I have to confess that there is no way I can be accurate about a big chunk of the nighttime hours of the race. They blend together, muddled up in my mind. I’ve lost track of what cities we went through, or in what order, or where the climbs and descents happened.

My clearest recollection is staring at the white line, aware that The Hammer is close enough behind that I can see the wash of her light directly ahead of me.

I remember being grateful for that fact, because my neck was too sore, too stiff, to turn around and check whether we were still together.

I remember losing all interest in speed, distance, and time. Those were all numbers that I figured would be relevant again when it got light.

I remember that we were almost always going uphill. Just barely uphill, but uphill.

I remember thinking about RAAM — the Race Across America. I thought about how the idea of it, once intriguing, was now completely abhorrent to me. Not because I thought I couldn’t do it. Just the opposite: I got a pretty good sense that maybe I have exactly the right gifts for this kind of race, both mental and physical. But I didn’t want to. I couldn’t, in fact, picture how anyone would want to ride the RAAM. A week-plus of this? No thanks. 

Also, I spent several minutes considering what a stupid acronym “RAAM” is.

But more than anything else, I remember how I learned to hate food.

New Rule

When we were planning for this race, The Hammer and I had agreed: we’d never stop except to pee or change clothing. We’d do all our eating, all our drinking, while riding our bikes.

And to our credit, we had stuck with that plan for a big chunk of the race. At least half of it, I’d say. 

But as we crossed the line into Saturday, The Hammer suggested that it was too hard to eat every half hour now; we should try to eat every hour, instead. And also, we should stop while we ate, just for a few minutes.

That was fine with me. That was an easy decision, in fact. 

It was, however, much harder to decide what to eat.

What to Eat?

I love Honey Stinger energy chews. Love them. I could eat three packets of them, right this second. But I had been eating nothing but them for the past seven hours or so — meaning I had eaten around fourteen packets. 

I was ready for a change.

The problem was, nothing sounded good. Nothing at all. It wasn’t so much that everything sounded bad, either. It was just that my mind was so scrambled that I couldn’t do what I normally do when it’s time to eat. And what do I normally do when it’s time to eat? Why, I make a call to the special place in my brain where I can ask myself, “What sounds good to eat right now?” and expect an immediate list to come to mind, cross-tabbed by closeness-to-hand, ease of preparation, and best taste. A matrix of deliciousness, if you will.

Now, however, just when I needed it most, instead of a list of things I’d like to eat I was getting a 404 – Not Found message.

“How about a turkey and swiss cheese sandwich on a dinner roll?” Blake asked, digging through the ice chest.

Was he kidding? Was that really an option? I had no idea.

“That would be fine,” I said. “With plenty of extra mayo, please, because I’m pretty sure that I am currently not making any saliva at all.”

(This may have been due to the fact that I had secretly stopped drinking anything while riding about four hours ago, about the time it had gotten dark. Nobody could see my bottles, though, and I wasn’t volunteering the information, because I knew I’d be scolded. Besides, every hour or so I was drinking a Red Bull, and that was enough liquid when it was cold and I wasn’t sweating [much], right? Right?)

The Hammer wanted one, too, but without the obscene amount of mayo.

This Behavior Must Stop

Blake made his mom’s sandwich, then made mine. This was how things had gone, the whole day: take care of The Hammer, then take care of Fatty. Ladies first, you know. Plus, the crew had been stacked with The Hammer’s side of the family. And so I had gotten used to waiting, and I was fine with it.

Except for one small detail.

Once The Hammer had finished eating, she would go. Regardless of whether I was finished eating, or not. Without even checking, really. Two or three times during the day, in fact, I had just had my first bite of whatever I was eating when The Hammer started riding away.

“I guess I’m done,” I’d say, handing back whatever I was eating and burning a match to catch up with The Hammer.

By now, however, I was out of “catch up with The Hammer” matches. And I needed to fuel up. 

So, as I took my first bite of my sandwich and The Hammer started rolling away, I yelled, “Just STOP for a second, will you?! Can I please eat, too?” 

The Hammer looked startled, possibly due to the fact that I used more sarcasm than was necessary. It’s also possible that I yelled louder than was necessary.

“But I always do this,” she said. “I don’t want to hold you up.”

“I know,” I said. “But I am done with chasing. For the rest of this race, I am all about a consistent, slow pace. And I need to eat. So don’t leave anymore until we’re both ready to go.”

“Has this been bothering you for a while?” The Hammer asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “For around the past seven hours or so.”

“Well why did you wait seven hours to say something?” she asked.

It was a good question. And very soon, I expect to have a fantastic answer occur to me.

And Now for Some Electronic Geekery

“SR-14″ is not a particularly glorious-sounding name for an important milestone in the race. But it was, in fact, quite possibly the single most important milestone of the entire race, as far as The Hammer and I were concerned. Because that transition area marked the end of our giant, never-ending (like, ninety miles!) false flat of a climb. 

For the next 22 miles, it was going to be nothing but downhill. Free miles! It promised to be the easiest, fastest segment of the day, though we had been warned that all this descending from a mountain pass in the dead of night would be brutally cold.

So as we ate our sandwiches — another turkey and cheese for each of us — we dressed extra-warmly, adding a jacket and heavy gloves to the layers we already wore. 

We also took the opportunity to swap out some of our electronics.

First, we swapped batteries on our NiteRider 1800 Pro Races — the first set of batteries had lasted an astonishing 6.5 hours and were still going, but we didn’t want to have to change batteries during the descent. Also, we mounted the big guns, lightwise, onto our handlebars: NiteRider Pro 3600 DIYs. Which meant we each had a total of 5400 lumens of light available to us, so that when we rode beside each other heading downhill (we were very intentionally not getting on the side of the road; we were being as big and obvious as we could), we cast off considerably more light than a car does.

Is it obvious that I’m kind of in love with NiteRider?

Next, we swapped out our Garmins. We had gotten 17+ hours our of our 510s, but had gotten the “low battery” warning, so we switched over to our old 500’s.

My Garmin 500 would not, by the way, survive the descent. Somewhere along the way — the catch that attaches to the mount worn away from years of use — it popped out of the mount. I never noticed ’til the next transition, by which time my 510 was fully recharged anyway.

So if by chance you come across a Garmin 500 laying on the road somewhere between SR-14 and Kanab in Utah, uh, please feel free to keep it. Because it won’t stay on your mount anyway.

Maladies

The Hammer and I started on our big, long-anticipated descent. The one we were so excited about. The one we had been talking about.

And it sucked.

I was hurting in a big way. Or should I say “ways.” Because there were three things simultaneously going on.

First, I had heartburn. Bad. Searing, painful heartburn. This would be my companion for about ten minutes every time I ate for the rest of the race. I suspect this was due to the enormous amount of Red Bull I had been drinking. Probably it is not advisable to drink sixteen Red Bulls over the course of a day. I expect that Red Bull would probably concur.

Second, I was getting verrrrrry drowsy. Something that hadn’t occurred to me during the constant climbing for the past several hours was that the effort of climbing kept my heart rate up, which in turn kept me awake.

Now I was coasting. Hardly moving at all, really. And I felt a deep and pressing need to fall asleep. But I didn’t, because of the third problem, which was…

Third, Hiccups. Hiccups became my bane. Yes, they kept me awake, but other than that they were driving me completely nuts. And it wasn’t just an isolated case of hiccups that went away after a few minutes. Starting around 3:00am and for the rest of the race, I would get hiccups every time I ate something. 

I was miserable. Much more miserable than this list would suggest.

And also, I needed to poop.

• Part I: The Things that Hurt
• Part II: Meet Your Competitors
• Part III: Team Fatty Cannot Seem to Catch a Break
• Part IV: Support from a Unicorn
• Part V: Life as a Domestique
• Part VI: Everything Falls Apart
• Part VII: Changing and Chasing

I probably owe you an apology. See, in yesterday’s post, I ended with this:

I was a third of the way into a 423-mile ride and had somehow managed to find myself alone, in a headwind, prone to flats, with no tubes, and no food. 

And I just didn’t have it in me to chase anymore.

In fact, I didn’t feel like pedaling at all.

That’s pretty dramatic. It sounds, in fact, as if I were in really serious trouble. Like I was contemplating throwing in the towel. And at the moment, I really, truly, and for reals felt that way. 

With that kind of build-up, you’d kind of expect that I was in for hours of lonely, bonked riding. 

Hopefully, then, it won’t be too severe a letdown when I reveal that fifteen minutes after I fixed the flat and got riding, I saw Scott and Kerry, parked in a pull-out area on the side of the road. 

And there, with them, was The Hammer. 

“I was sick of riding in the wind alone,” she said. “And I was hungry. So I waited for you.”

“And,” she said, “I needed to pee.”

“I missed you too,” I replied. “And I am done with the whole ‘Go on ahead’ thing.”

We got back on our Shivs for this relatively flat section and began riding, together, again.

A New Food Plan

“I can’t eat the pizza rolls and cinnamon rolls and turnovers and stuff like that anymore,” I confessed over my shoulder. I felt bad saying it, because I knew The Hammer had put a ton of work into baking all of this as our main food source for the race. 

“I can’t either,” said The Hammer. “A little while ago I spat one out.”

“Me too!”

It was a beautiful moment of bonding.

But it was also a dilemma. I decided that I personally was just going to stick to my favorite go-to energy food in the world: Honey Stinger Organic Chews (The Caffeinated Cherry Cola flavor is currently my favorite). 

“Every half hour,” she said, “We eat something. Together. At the same time. No matter what.”

And that was a moment of bonding, too. Although perhaps not as beautiful.

Honestly, at this very moment, I cannot remember what The Hammer was eating every half hour (and I can’t go ask her, because she’s still in bed). But I do remember that we made a pact that from that point on, we would eat together, every half hour. 

And so — without fail — every half hour, when my Garmin 510 beeped (I always have it set to alert me every half hour to eat), I’d call out, “time to eat!” and we’d stuff something into our mouths, while making sure the other person did, too. 

When neither of you want to do something, mutual accountability works great.

Until later, when it didn’t.

Bring on the Night

It was good to be riding together again, especially because we were on what I recall as the absolute worst section of the race: Ephraim to Manti.

No, it wasn’t that the road was bad: it was chipseal of varying quality, just like most of the rest of the race. And no, it wasn’t the headwind, though that was pretty punishing.

It was the traffic. 

We hit that section of the race pretty much at the end of the workday on a Friday, and there was a truck pulling a motorhome or boat or trailer full of ATVs going by us pretty much every three seconds. All of them heading toward whatever they were doing for the weekend, and about half of them feeling like it was their responsibility to honk their annoyance at our existence.

Add to that one of the harshest, most unforgiving rumblestrips I’ve ever ridden on, and it was a miserable hour of riding.

But we got through. And once we were through Manti, the traffic — and our nerves — settled down. 

We ticked off the hours and the miles, watching our shadows get longer, and the sun work its way down.

At 6:45 — the race rules specified we needed to have lights and reflective vests from 7pm to 7am — we pulled over to set up lights. We were using identical NiteRider light setups: the NiteRider Pro 1800 Race. These are my favorite lights ever. They mount onto your helmet easily, are light enough to wear all night without weighing your head down (very important!), and — even on the low setting — give off an incredibly bright and even wash of light. And on the low setting (which is what we used for the whole night), a battery charge gives you a full six hours of light…a fact we would be confirming that night.

For taillights, we were using the NiteRider Stinger taillights. Besides being super bright, they’re possibly the easiest taillights in the world to mount. You just stretch the band around the seat post and attach it to the peg on the other side. 

And yes, that band stretches far enough to go around the Shiv’s aero seatpost.

Then we put Amphipod reflective vests over our jerseys, and we were ready to go.

Status Update

Racers were required to stop at the Richfield transition station, partly to make sure our SPOTs were working, partly to make sure everyone had working lights, and partly to see if the racers themselves were OK.

The Richfield transition station was also important for another reason: it meant we had gone 200 miles. And it wasn’t even (completely) dark yet.

Oh, and we had one more reason: to find out where we stood. As casually as I could, I asked the race official, “So, um, how many other solo riders have come through?”

“You’re the first.”

“We’re the first?”

“Yep.”

Well, that was cause for celebration. And a few extra minutes of rest.

“Could I get another Coke?” I asked Kerry, as we unapologetically loitered at the transition station for a few minutes.

“Uh, sorry. You’re out.”

“We’re out? Of Coke? Already?” I asked.

“You’ve kinda been drinking a lot of it,” Kerry said. And it was true. I hadn’t been keeping track; it just seemed like there was so much when we had loaded the truck that morning. I had sort of been drinking it as if there were no way we’d ever run out.

“So we still have lots of Red Bull, right?”

“Oh yeah, you’re fine for Red Bull.”

And with that, I commenced to set a new world record (unofficial) for most Red Bull consumed in a 28-hour period. 

End of the Road. Trail. Whatever.

Night was coming on for real as we left Richfield, and by the time we got to the next transition — Sevier — it was completely dark. And with the dark came the sensation that we weren’t going anywhere. Sure, we were pedaling, and sure we could see the road going by, but we could no longer see big landmarks coming and going. 

We weren’t riding to anywhere, anymore. We were just riding through the dark.

It was a nice night — we pulled on arm warmers, but didn’t need any other extra clothing for hours. We said goodbye to Scott and Kerry, who’d be trading the truck over to Blake and Zac for the next shift of crewing for us.

We, meanwhile, would be on our own for a little bit, since we were being directed on to a bike path. “Tell Zac and Blake to look for us once we get back on the road!” The Hammer called, and we set off.

Now, riding a time trial bike on a bike path, at night, is a weird experience. Unlike roads — which are generally designed to be as straight as possible — it seems to be a desirable feature of bike paths to have them wind and curve and undulate.

We tried riding for a mile or so in our aero bars, then gave up and sat up, riding side-by-side, very confident that no cyclists would be coming at us from the other direction.

To our right, we could see the highway. We wondered when we would be directed back on. We hoped that Blake and Zac wouldn’t be too far ahead of us — or too far behind. Either way could make it tricky for them to locate us again.

We kept riding for another couple miles, talking about how freaky of a section this was, and how slow riding a bike path was. 

And then the bike path ended. Just stopped. 

The Hammer and I looked at each other.

“So,” I said. “Where now?”

Which is where we’ll pick up on Monday. 

PS: Yes, I said “Monday,” because The Hammer and I are headed out to Santa Rosa for Levi’s GranFondo tomorrow morning; I’ll be unlikely to be have time to write tomorrow and Friday. 

• Part I: The Things that Hurt
• Part II: Meet Your Competitors
• Part III: Team Fatty Cannot Seem to Catch a Break
• Part IV: Support from a Unicorn
• Part V: Life as a Domestique
• Part VI: Everything Falls Apart

I was on the side of the road with another flat.

I was no more than 130 miles into this 423-mile monster and had another flat. How many tubes had I gone through now? Four? Yeah, I think four. Which meant that I had only two more tubes with 80mm stems left. At the rate we were burning through tubes, that wouldn’t be enough. 

Never, in my twenty-ish years of riding, have I gotten flats so often. 

I had recently moved away from tubeless road tires — too hard to fix in the field. Now I was regretting that change.

At least this time I was pretty sure I knew why I had gotten the flat. When I had given this bike to Scott an hour ago (or was it more? Or was it less? Time had become slippery), I hadn’t told him to look for the cause of the flat. 

“Well,” I thought to myself, “I guess I’d better find it now.”

I moved off the road as best as I could — there was very little shoulder, and I didn’t want to put my bike in the weeds, risking picking up the cause of what would undoubtedly be my next flat. I took the rear wheel off, popped the bead off the rim, and pulled out the tube.

Now the treasure hunt could begin.

I took the glove off my right and and felt all along the inside of the tire, feeling for a snag, hoping it wasn’t something worse. You know, like an especially sharp piece of glass.

(I’m not the only one who fears that someday, while checking the inside of a tire, he’s going to g slice a finger wide open on a piece of glass, right? I am? Oh.)

Anyways. I don’t feel anything on the first go ’round. Nor the second. The tire feels fine. I go around a third time. A fourth. I decide I’m going to go around verrrrry carefully, one more time, and if I don’t find it, I’ll give up, put another tube in, and hope for the best.

And there it is. So barely there it’s hardly even there. But it’s there. A teeny tiny sliver of a thorn. Somehow it worked its way through the tire and now just the barest tip of it was poking through. It’d take a while to go through a tube, but — evidently — it would eventually get through.

I try to use my fingernails to tweeze it. I wished for longer fingernails. “Why do I keep my fingernails so short?” I wondered to myself. “They’re an incredibly useful tool and I just cut them off. Stupid.”

I try my teeth. The taste is…unpleasant. I go back to my fingernails, this time pushing the thorn back out through the outside of the tire. 

Annnnnnnd…there’s enough there to grab. I pinch it, pull it out, and exult. I have demonstrated my superiority and resilience. I shall not be halted — at least, not more than twice, for what was now probably a cumulative twenty minutes — by something as piddling as a thorn.

I Must Speak Up

As I put the tube in, Kerry and Scott drove up to me. They were coming back from crewing for The Hammer for a bit. Telling her that I was really close and would catch up to her shortly.

Ha.

“You’ve got another flat?” Scott asked.

“Yeah,” I said, fully intending to not be petulant or accusatory by asking whether he had checked for what had caused my previous flat.

“Scott, did you find out what caused the previous flat?” I asked. So much for the non-petulant, non-accusatory resolution.

“No, I didn’t even check. Sorry!” Scott said.

“Kerry, could you run and get my floor pump and another 80mm-stemmed tube?” I asked. 

Kerry returned with the pump, and some news. “I don’t think there are any more 80mm-stemmed tubes.”

“Oh.” I knew I had brought six. We hadn’t gone through more than four tubes, one of which wasn’t even a long-stemmed one. But maybe my math was wrong. Or maybe when I had bought all those tubes, I hadn’t checked carefully enough to ensure the stems were the right length.

“Call Blake when you get back in the car, OK? And tell him to be sure to buy some more 80mm-stemmed tubes on his way over here to crew for us tonight,” I said. “And meanwhile, we’ll hope for no more flats for a while.”

As I got the new — and, evidently, final — tube into place and the bead back on the rim, Kerry took my bike and flipped it over, upside down, onto its handlebar and seat.

I am pretty sure I gasped, but managed to not say anything. 

Scott then took the tire from me and put it into place on the bike. Except he did it in such a way that the chain didn’t actually go around the cassette. Which I suppose would be OK, if I didn’t need to pedal.

“Guys, I’ll take it from here, OK?” I said, as I turned the bike right-side up (the bar and saddle were scuffed but otherwise fine) and threaded the wheel into the frame correctly. 

I pumped the tire up to 100psi, gave them back the frame pump, and told them to go on ahead and catch The Hammer. “Tell her I’ll catch her as soon as I can,” I said.

Against The Wind

With this latest (very slow) repair, combined with the distance she already had on me, I figured The Hammer must be fifteen minutes ahead of me. 

That’s a lot of catching up to do. 

“Time to chase,” I thought, and started going at my absolute limit again.

But the headwind had picked up. It was strong now. “The Hammer will be hating riding through this alone,” I thought.

And I had been riding for 130 miles, the most recent twenty of which I had already been going hard.

And in short, I didn’t have a ton of chasing left in me. I knew, in fact, that if I wanted to be able to keep riding through the rest of the day, all through the night, and into the next day, I couldn’t just keep burning matches like this.

But I needed to catch The Hammer. So I kept going, harder than I knew was wise. Harder than I knew I’d be able to sustain.

“If this race continues this way,” I thought to myself, “there is no way I am going to be able to finish it.”

A Farewell to Pizza Rolls

When you’re riding really hard — not just riding, but racing – you need to fuel your body constantly. And so — of course — your body decides at that time that food just sounds awful, and that it is going to trigger your gag reflex if you do so much as think about food. 

It’s a delightful little cycling paradox, really.

Still, up to this point I had been pretty darned good about eating. I had been unwrapping one of the things The Hammer had made during the days before the race and eaten, about every half hour or so.

At the beginning of the day, they had been fantastic. I had loved the taste and variety of what we had available. 

But now, around 140 miles into the ride, well, my body was rebelling a little bit. I was having a tough time getting enthused about putting anything into my mouth. I knew I had to eat. With around 300 miles to go, not eating was not an option. 

But I wasn’t enjoying it.

Exercising self-discipline, I unwrapped one of the foil wrappers and — without checking what it was — stuffed it into my mouth. It was one of the pizza rolls. My favorite.

Except right now. 

I started gagging, the reflex gaining steam and promising to escalate soon into full-on retching. 

I spat it out. And I knew that I had eaten my last pizza roll, blueberry turnover, and every other baked good for the trip.

Which was too bad, because that was all I had in my jersey pocket. And the crew was up ahead with The Hammer.

Wherever she was. 

I was a third of the way into a 423-mile ride and had somehow managed to find myself alone, in a headwind, prone to flats, with no tubes, and no food. 

And I just didn’t have it in me to chase anymore.

In fact, I didn’t feel like pedaling at all.