06.5.2012 | 12:54 pm
A Note From Fatty: I love the way Clayton has brought important personal meaning to this (usually) ridiculous event. Be sure to read this story.
I live in Tallahassee, Florida, and started cycling with some type of seriousness in 2009 after struggling with knee issues from running and several discussions with a bike-obsessed friend.
Around the same time, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. A few months later, my aunt was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. About a year later, my best friend from grad school was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Needless to say, this was a trying time for my extended family, and I started trying to find ways that I could bring some good to the situation. I couldn’t do much for any of them directly since I now live over 1,000 miles from home and was feeling a bit useless with their day-to-day struggles. That’s when an opportune internet search brought me to fatcyclist.com and life has been a bit better ever since.
This year was my third 100 Miles of Nowhere, but the first time I’ve written a report of my experience. My first year I rode a 2-mile loop around a park as many times as I could stand, and last year I did the classic 100MON on my trainer in the living room. As the majority of my riding is of the “nowhere” variety (on my trainer before the sun comes up), this year I wanted to do something a bit more fun for this event.
There is a popular “rails to trails” path on the south side of Tallahassee that leads from the city to the small coastal fishing town of St. Marks appropriately called the St. Marks Trail. This 16-17 mile path is very flat, and is nearly completely straight all the way to the end. There are plenty of restrooms, water stops, and no cars outside of the 3 road crossings.
Three out and back loops would give me around 100 miles. It is a boring ride, but perfect for this year’s 100MON.
I started the ride early in order to beat as much of the unbelievable Florida heat as I could, and set out from the trailhead at a moderately fast — but not uncomfortable — pace.
A few miles down the path I began to realize why I absolutely love this event. Especially early in the morning, the path is very quiet and a rider is left with only their thoughts for extended periods as the road has no turns and no elevation changes and doesn’t require much concentration to keep riding.
I started to think about my mom, my aunt, and my friend. I thought about the last couple of years for a short while, but mostly I thought about all of the things that make each of them wonderful and important in my life. I relived a bit of the laughter, smiles, tears, birthdays, weddings, beers, barbeques, holidays, and so many more of the good and bad times with all of them. All of these wonderful memories flooded my mind for the entire ride, and I thought about how much of me is made up of the beautiful people I know and love.
The actual riding was unexciting and uneventful, but this was one the best rides I’ve had in a long time. Thank you Fatty for one of the best gifts I could ever ask for…5 or so hours with some of my favorite people (all of whom are currently in remission and doing well). Also, thank you for helping me realize that there is always something I can do to help those in need, no matter how far from home.
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06.5.2012 | 8:00 am
A Note from Fatty: A lot of the credit for the popularity of the 100 Miles of Nowhere rightfully belongs to me, because I invented it. And don’t you go and forget that fact, buster. However, A near-equally-generous portion of this credit goes to Noodle, who — three years ago — posted an incredibly well-executed video about her 100 Miles of Nowhere experience.
If you haven’t watched it yet, you should. Right now.
Well, Noodle’s back this year, with what I’d like to call an even more harrowing 100 Miles of Nowhere experience.
It seems only fitting that the parade of 100 Miles of Nowhere stories begin with this one (reprinted with permission).
100 Miles of Nowhere – Vehemence of the Suckage Edition
I’ve been told I’ve crossed a line. Matador said it. I heard it. And then I watched it sail by my ‘how will I interpret this’ radar toward the ‘just ignore it’ trash receptacle.
Sadly, I pick shit out of trash bins if they still look shiny, so it took barely a nano-smidge to realize the Matador meant the line between sanity and insanity. That while riding100 MIles on Rollers was something that could be overlooked, riding 45 times up Thomas Grade was not.
Gone too far.
Too. Damn. Far.
Speaking of radars, there was a blip of ‘shit-idiotic-bad-idea’ green on mine long before I saddled up to ride. I knew it was a bad idea. For some reason, I’d talked myself into it and I don’t know if anyone noticed, but I’m stubborn. If stubborn means oblivious to dumb ideas.
I felt bad when I got out of bed at 4.30am to get myself corrected and drive to Morgan Hill. I felt tired and grumpy as I pulled Precious out of the car to start, later than I intended and with not a whole lot of preparation for this task. And in the first hour of climbing Thomas Grade, I had my doubts that I would even last 2 stupid hours.
There was no underestimating the ‘sheer vehemence of the suckage’ on this ride.
But let’s back up. Here’s a little putty in the wall crack of this story.
I rode 100 Miles of Nowhere on rollers several years ago for this event. It was my first ever century, and certainly not one I’ll soon forget. This time, I wanted to raise the fat bar to something kinda dumb.
It should be epic to the point of ridiculous, thought I. It needs to be nuttier than a nut bar. So what’s the nuttiest thing I can think of? Where’s the smallest loop of nowhere senselessness I can imagine?
Thomas Grade.
It was the very first thing I thought of. Just POP, and there it was, floating in the front of my planet-sized brain.
Weeks went by. I considered other things. Discounted Thomas Grade as a truly stupid idea. 1 mile of climbing up a grade that is either 8% or 8.7% depending on the source. A smidge over 400 feet climbing in one mile. A fast descent for a mile with no real recovery. That would be too painful. It was just an idiotic idea. Crazy. Dumb. Something a Rock with Wheels would think of.
But the thing about a planet-sized brain is to remember that some planets are rich and fruitful and oh, boy, let’s colonize that thing! And then other planets are simply dense. Or to put it another way… rich with natural resources!
So Thomas Grade kept pushing its way to the front of the idea queue. Just hovering there. And then I had no time to think of other ideas—just too busy at work. And on Thursday, I decided. Screw it. I’m gonna do it on Saturday. A week before the official event. But I just wanted it done. Just get it over with. And if it didn’t work out, I’d have a buffer week to find a new route and do it for real.
I told no one.
I didn’t even share the plan with Precious (though he must’ve wondered why I was being fussy about getting his gear skipping checked out).
I never like to think too far ahead about pain. So as much as I knew this 100 Miles of Nowhere was going to be terrible. Hell. Pain on a hillside. I also knew that if I told no-one what was going on, to fail at it would be a lone thing. Something I could keep to myself.
And then I actually failed.
I won’t go into the gory details, I think the video captures most of it, but I have never thought on a ride before that I would not finish. That I would not be able to overcome pain and tiredness and just get it done. With five loops to go—a mere 10 miles—I didn’t know how I was going to complete this dumb idea. It was dark. I was done, in the mind. Just done. Cooked. I shot a piece of video saying I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I look wrecked. Distraught. And then I say something like “Oh, let’s just get it done” and off I go.
Five loops.
Two loops down and it’s dark as a black hole as I begin the third loop. Just two to go after. I can do this. I can do it.
The light starts flashing about a third of the way up. I think. I assess. This is a dark climb, I think. I can probably work my way from switchback to switchback using the lights of houses, because there aren’t a lot of streetlights. But the descent. That worries me. On the previous loop, I noticed the street lights. Very sketchy distances between, and it’s a fast fast descent. I figure my ascents are probably averaging out around 13 minutes, but my descents… we’re talking 40 seconds. Imagine flying down that descent and having the light fail? Imagine? And me, with my history of letting the ground rush up to hug my face and head until I drift off into the sleepy land of Concussionville.
I pulled the pin. Turned around mid-grade and rode back to the car with a light flashing near death and a relief in my heart. I didn’t care that I was short of the 100 miles. Did. Not. Care. 4 miles short. 96.2 Miles of Nowhere.
Milkshake. That’s all I cared about. Where would I get a milkshake?
Could barely speak as I stood at the counter of McDonalds. The brain was saying vanilla shake and the mouth was saying ‘gaaahhgahh boooo blop’. I had to physically point to the size I wanted and managed to rasp out the word ‘vanilla’. I sat in the parking lot and sucked it through the straw with what remaining energy I had.
Reflection.
Yes. It was a dumb idea. But that’s the spirit of the event, right? That’s the whole point. It has to be a nowhere. For nothing. Pointless. And correct me if I’m wrong but that, my friends, was pointless. Eleven hours and 53 minutes of pointless. 45 times up a 1 mile, 8% grade of pointless. 100 Miles of Nowhere pointless.
I’ll leave it at that. Good luck to everyone who dares ride to nowhere this weekend! May your mind be strong and your tolerance for butt numbness be significant.
It doesn’t look like the Strava embeds aren’t working right now, so here’s direct link to Part 1 before Garmin died and Part 2 where Strava app picked up.
Pretty graphs! (Though I wish they were in one file)
Comments (37)
06.4.2012 | 10:40 am
A Note from Fatty: Thank you to all the folks who sent in guest posts, covering for me while I’ve been away for the past couple weeks!
There are times where I wish there were more than one of me. Since I am such an extraordinarily interesting and handsome person, I can imagine I’m not the only one who thinks this. In fact, I’m a little bit baffled that scientists haven’t contacted me, asking if I’d be willing to give them a clump of hair (this would actually be a problem) or let them swab the inside of my cheek or something, so they could clone me.
Because — in addition to the general increase of handsomeness in the universe — if there were more of me, I (we) might be able to write about everything I (we) have to write about. I want to write about the LiveStrong fundraiser I’m doing, for example, where you could win the Ibis bicycle of your choice, built up with top-notch Shimano components. Or a trip out to ride with me (or one of my clones). As is, I’m going to have to wait for a couple days to talk more about that (But you should still go donate right now).
Meanwhile, another one of me would be editing and posting the stories that are beginning to pour in about last weekend’s 100 Miles of Nowhere (and if you haven’t written your story, it’s not yet too late to send it in).
And another one of me would be writing the story about my own 100 Miles of Nowhere effort (hint: it involved considerable mileage, climbing, and suffering).
One of me would probably be assigned to start writing fake news and addle-brained analysis. Because I have a few things to say about a few things.
One of me would be working on the two books I want to get written this year. And — oh yes — I suppose one of me should probably be doing my day job, too.
The thing is though — and believe me, I feel as acutely as you probably do the injustice of this fact — there is only one of me. And the thing I can’t get out of my head right now is the trip I just got back from, touring Zambia with World Bicycle Relief.
So that’s what I’m going to write about today.
Background, Caveats, and Whatnot
For those of you who are new to this blog (or are over 40 and therefore no longer have a functioning short term memory), last July, Johan Bruyneel and I kicked off a big ol’ project, which we called “Grand Slam for Zambia.” The idea was to raise enough money for World Bicycle Relief to buy 1000 (that’s where the “Grand” in the project name came from) bikes for kids in Zambia.
We succeeded. Hugely.
As part of this project, some of my family and I got to visit Zambia, to see what kind of difference a bike makes to a person in Zambia.
And the experience has changed me.
No, not in a “I’m going to put on a sad face and be really serious and wear sackcloth and never have any fun anymore” way.
No.
More of in a “Wow, I love how amazingly good people can be to each other when they try, and I want to be a part of this” kind of way.
So I’ve got a lot to say, and it’s going to take a lot of posts for me to say it all. So today’s post is just going to be a few quick pictures, videos, and stories, with the promise that there will be much more in the future, and that by the time I get through saying everything I have to say, you’ll either be sick of it or will be pretty stoked to join me in Grand Slam for Zambia 2: This Time It’s Personal. (Coming soon to a blog near you.)
A Few Things I Learned
So, while I’ll go into detail on my trip later, here are some of the big moments and lessons I picked up on this trip.
Lesson 1: World Bicycle Relief (WBR) helps more than kids. There are actually three big spokes to the wheel of WBR’s awesomeness. In addition to providing bikes to kids so they can get to and stay in school, WBR provides bikes to caregivers — volunteers who take care of the sick peopole in their communities. This is a group of The Swimmer and me with a few of these caregivers:
The lady with the pink scarf told us about how she’s given a woman in labor a ride to the hospital on the back of her bike, and then got a call to go help another of the people she watches over. A bike from WBR has made it possible for her to take care of more people. When you give good people good tools, they can do great things.
Lesson 2: My son has a wild side. My 16-yo son came along on this trip. He’s generally a pretty reserved kid, so I had concerns about how he’d do meeting and interacting with a lot of strangers over the course of a couple weeks. So it was pretty awesome when, during one of the evenings where we were watching a local group of performers, he was invited up to join for a dance. I figured he’d decline and maybe even resist actively if he had to. Instead, he jumped up and threw himself into it, wholeheartedly.
The Hammer and the Swimmer rocked out, too:
It was awesome.
Lesson 3: Little things mean a lot. The Hammer, The Swimmer, my son and I didn’t need a lot of luggage for this trip, and so we filled the empty space in our suitcases with gifts for the people we’d be visiting, donated by the many awesome Friends of Fatty:
- Action Wipes: 400 of them: When you live in a place without running water (as most of the people we visited did), these were an incredibly welcome — and amazing to our new friends! — gift.
- Twin Six T-Shirts: My friends at Twin Six gave me 40 shirts to hand out to kids and adults as I see fit. I’m pretty sure that for a lot of these kids, it was the first brand-new clothing item they had ever owned.
In this picture, the mom is lying down on the ground, clapping — her way of showing extreme gratitude.
- Soccer Balls donated by the Rotary Club and a coworker: Before I left, I had learned that Zambian kids are crazy for soccer, but most had never had a real soccer ball. I sent out a tweet asking for recommendations on getting some soccer balls cheap. Lots of people gave me some interesting leads. But Rod Martin — of the local Rotary Club, which puts on the awesome Utah Tour de Donut — and a coworker of The Hammer’s did more than give me the email address of Wilson: they just showed up at our doorstep, each with half a dozen balls and a pump for each ball. Which meant we have quite a few pictures like this:
I bet that kid hasn’t let go of that soccer ball yet.
Lesson 4: The bikes we gave away mean more than we thought. On one of the days we were there, we did a big bike-giving ceremony at a local school, where we gave out the last 80 of the 1152 bikes the Grand Slam for Zambia had bought.
It was a big ceremony, complete with these amazing kids singing numerous songs:
And then I got up and made a speech:
I consider this my best speech ever, because it’s less than two minutes long, including pauses for translations.
But what was amazing was how important these bikes were, not just to the kids who were getting them, but to their whole families.
Here, The Hammer’s presenting a bike to a girl in the school:
It’s very common, when they receive these bikes, to leave the packaging on, hoping to keep the bikes new-looking for as long as possible:
And then it was my turn to give a bike away:
The girl in this photo was getting the bike, but the dad (on the right) shook my hand for about two minutes, thanking me over and over. Because this bike is going to improve the whole family’s life — immediately and drastically, for the better.
I’ll go into detail how in a future post, but it’s not too hard to figure out when you think about their reality. How would a bike change your life if you lived six miles from school (or anywhere else), had no running water, and no form of transportation to move you or your family around?
Lesson 5: There’s a lot more to do. And I’m looking forward to working with you to do it.
Expect a detailed telling of my whole trip, a little at a time, during this summer.
And be grateful that everyone was so stunned by my dancing that nobody thought to take a photo.
Comments (38)
06.2.2012 | 1:43 am
I started riding for money.
We became a one-car family for a time. “I’ll just bike to work,” I said, “when it’s convenient.” I got a ride whenever possible. Sometimes I biked to work, and got a ride home. Or I caught a ride to work, but took my bike with me, and biked home. Sometimes I left my bike on campus. Sometimes I left it at home.
When I did bike, I liked to calculate how much gas money I was saving on that trip. Of course, when we were a little more financially stable, we’d buy a car.
I continued riding for health.
I had major abdominal surgery and got scared about my health. Would I recover from surgery? I’d heard that some people never did. As soon as I was able, I started doing stomach crunches. Soon I could do one sit-up a night. Instead of biking when I had to, I biked every trip I could.
I was confused about how I was supposed to bike. Should I be on the sidewalk or the street? I read everything I could find about it.
I found the League of American Bicyclists. I took Traffic Skills 101. I joined the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation, and the League. I became a League Certified Instructor. I got a new bike. I lost 30 pounds.
I could do 100 sit-ups.
A friend thought I rode because I’m “green” (environmentally conscious). “You’re not broke and you’re not a drunk,” she explained, “so I assumed you were green.” I guess she couldn’t think of any other reason I’d choose to bike! I like trees and I think we should be more careful of our earth. But that’s not why I bike. It’s a bonus that makes me feel smug and self-righteous.
It turned out that all along, I had been riding for safety. I thought I was riding to save money, and because it was healthy. I discovered the real reason when my 15 yr old daughter on her bike was hit by a truck, right in front of me. She recovered fully within a couple months. It took me a little longer. The funny thing was, after the wreck, we were both ok with getting on a bike, but we were nervous getting in a car.
I knew why. Several years ago, before I started riding, my little 9 yr old cousin was killed in a car wreck. I hated to put our then-7 yr old daughter in a car after that. But what choice did we have? When I started biking, I discovered a choice. What a relief to be free of the deadly car! Learning car and bike wreck statistics and the League’s recommended best practices gave me even more control over our safety.
I guess I go by contraries. Everyone else out there is afraid to bike to work because they think it is so dangerous. I bike to work because I think driving is too dangerous!
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06.1.2012 | 1:56 am
I just got back from my arthritis doctor for my six month check up.
We had been discussing knee replacement surgery on one or both of my knees, not a happy visit. At fifty-two, knee replacement is not a good thing being that they don’t last as long as I would. Fun news.
Well I was surfing tv channels looking for something to get me out of the growing depression. I landed on the Tour de France and Phil Ligget was talking about how amazing it was that Lance Armstrong was not only racing in, but leading the race!
Well I watched the last two days and was captivated by the fact that Lance was able to beat cancer and win the TDF. Then it hit me. If he could do that I could try to ride to help my knees.
Let me state that at this point I was well over 320lbs. I was so discouraged the last time I got on the scales at the doctors office that when I decided to start riding I didn’t weigh myself.
My first attempt at riding was on a mtn bike around our one acre back yard. I made two laps. Two only because I thought one was wimpy, I wanted to die after one.
That was two years and seventy five pounds ago. Since then I have joined a cycling club here, East Alabama Cycling Club, I ride at least five days a week averaging fifty plus miles a week. I also have been without knee pain for over a year and my Doctor said that I have put off surgery for the future.
I know that this is not a unique story, but it is one that I hope will encourage some one to either start or keep going.
Just one more turn of the pedal to reach your goal!
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