06.20.2011 | 11:51 am
A Note from Fatty About the Superfly 100: Remember I was giving away a Superfly 100? But then I never mentioned who it would be going to?
There’s a story behind that.
The winner of the Superfly is Greg, of Utah — a guy I have never met. Still, I was excited to have the winner be a fellow Utahu (we call ourselves Utahues, although “Utahlooians” is also acceptable). I figured I could meet up with him after he got his bike and we could go for a ride on our matching bikes. Neato.
Except for Greg didn’t answer his email. Not the first time. Not the second time.
In desperation, I did a Google search on Greg’s full name, and found there was a person by that name who is an active tweeter. I went to that Twitter account, found out it’s a guy who loves mountain biking, and asked him to get ahold of me.
The problem is, it was the wrong guy. Yes, an identical name (and not an especially common last name), loves biking…but lives in Australia.
I began to despair.
Then, last Friday, I was out riding with a group of guys and was telling of my frustration. I mentioned the winner’s full name, and one of the riders said, “Wait. That guy’s my brother-in-law.”
Wow. Small world. Or small state, anyway. Except that Utah’s quite big. Oh well, it was just a figure of speech anyway.
So I got Greg’s phone and contact info and — finally — on Saturday, we reached each other. We talked a bunch, I found out that my email had been caught by the Greg’s spam filter (you have no idea how hard it is to tell someone they’ve won a prize via email without it being caught by a spam filter).
So here’s what Greg had to say in an email he sent to me last night, along with an awesome photo of him and his kids.
Wow! I never thought I would actually win one of the bikes. I am thrilled, as I have had bike envy for the Superfly 100 since I first saw it at the Leadville 100 last summer.
Thanks to you and Trek for the opportunity given to all of us and I look forward to many miles of riding knowing that this bike represents a commitment by many to beat this disease called cancer that has or will affect us all.
It sounds very cliche but to me it’s really “not about the bike.” In March of 2006 my wife Sharon was diagnosed with an Anaplastic Astrocytoma (Brain Cancer). This was just three months after the birth of our second son Cody. For the next 20 months our lives were a whirlwind of Hospital, Surgeries, Chemo, Radiation and clinical trials. In November of 2007 cancer took her from us but it never beat her. Our boys Wyatt and Cody were almost two and almost four at the time. Sharon was 31.
While my wife was fighting her battle my mother was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma (Bone Marrow Cancer) and succumbed to her disease late January of 2007. She was 73.
I know that my stories are no different from many of the people who read and have found support through your blog. These are the reasons we contribute what we can. Thanks again to all those who have provided incentives to keep it fun and to Elden for using his talents to keep us focused.
I have included a picture taken today on “Fathers day,” the day after finding out that I had won! The tie and crown were made and accessorized by my boys, now five and seven. Note that the crown says “king for the day.” That pretty much sums it up.
Thanks,
Greg
Greg and I agreed we definitely need to go on a ride once his bike is built.
Do What You’re Doing Anyway, Change a Life (For Free)
You remember how, as a kid (or maybe as an adult), you’d go door-to-door trying to get people to sign up to sponsor you for a walk-a-thon? Or ride-a-thon? Or rock-a-thon?
You know, where you’d get people to sponsor you to the tune of a certain amount per mile or hour, so that the longer / further you went, the more they donated?
Well, consider this.
What if the cause you were doing a ride-a-thon for were really awesome: one that changes lives for poor kids in Africa by giving them bikes. You know, like World Bicycle Relief.
And what if, instead of you having to go door-to-door to find a sponsor, that sponsor was already in place and ready to pay out if you’re willing to do the riding? (Or running. Or a bunch of other sports stuff that maybe turns your crank.) You know, like SRAM.
And what if, instead of you having to do all this riding or running or walking or yoga-ing on a certain day, you raised money for World Bicycle Relief every day, just by doing the ride / run / walk / yoga you were going to do anyway?
That would be kind of awesome, wouldn’t it? Yes, indeed. It would in fact be awesome.
And that’s what we’re going to do. Together. Starting right now.
Meet +3 Network
+3 Network is a social network site that connects sponsors who want to do the right thing with worthwhile causes with people — like us — who like to stay active, and would also like to make our rides count for something. (Learn more about them on their “About” page)
And they’ve been working with me to create a special “Team Fatty” group, where we can track our rides / runs / walks / whatevers. And whenever any of us uploads a workout, SRAM donates money to World Bicycle Relief, the organization that makes a huge impact in Zambian children’s lives by providing them with bicycles — and hence, a way to get to and finish school.
I love the idea of that: making a difference in a person’s life with a bike.
And just in case you’re getting the “sounds too good to be true” klaxons going off in your head (I did when I first talked with them about this), let me be really clear:
You don’t pay anything. You don’t give up a credit card number. You just keep track of your exercise, and SRAM rewards you for your awesomeness by making a donation to World Bicycle Relief.
Pretty cool.
Hey, how about I walk you through how you sign up?
How to Get Signed Up
Here’s an extremely exciting piece of trivia from my past: I started my career as a technical writer. Mostly, I wrote macro programming documentation and tutorials for WordPerfect.
And now I’m going to use all that skill and experience in writing clear and friendly steps by guiding you through signing up with +3 Network and joining the Team Fatty group.
It’ll be awesome. Ish.
- Get started by heading to the +3 Network Signup page, and entering your name, email and password info. Then click the “Choose Your Cause and Sponsor” button.
- For your cause, choose World Bicycle Relief, Funded by SRAM.
- Click Done. (It’s toward the top-right of the page)
- Check the email account you entered when registering, and click the link provided, to finish getting you registered.
Join Team Fatty
Once you’re registered, you need to join Team Fatty, so you can help us rule the world and impress everyone with our might and power and stuff.
- Go to the +3 Network home page and sign in with the username and password you entered earlier.
- Click the Groups tab in the big orange toolbar. Don’t be freaked out that this takes you to a page saying “We couldn’t find any groups matching your search.”
- In the “Find Groups” input field, type team fatty and click Go.
- Scroll down to Team Fatty and click the Join Group button.
Start Recording / Uploading Your Workouts
Once you’ve signed up, it’s pretty easy to start recording your rides / runs / other stuff. Here’s what you do.
- Go to the +3 Network home page and sign in with the username and password you entered earlier. Find the “Did you make it count today” box in the top-right area of the page.
- If you’ve got a Garmin GPS (supported devices listed on the +3 Network FAQ page), like the Garmin Edge 500 I love) that you’ve been recording your rides on, make sure you’ve got it plugged into a USB port, then click the “Upload GPS Activity” button.
If you aren’t using a GPS, click the “Hand Enter Activity” button.
- If you’re using a GPS, you’ll need to select the device. If it isn’t auto-detected, you may need to download the Garmin Communicator Plugin first.
- Once you’ve selected your GPS, you should see a list of activities recorded. You just need to specify what kind of sport you were doing (road biking, mountain biking, running, etc.), and give it a name, then click Upload Activity.
If you’re hand-entering an activity, set the sport, activity name, date, start time, total time, and distance (if distance applies). Note: You don’t earn as much for hand-entered activities as you do for GPS activities, because hand-entered activities are easier to fudge.
- Repeat step 4 for as many activities as you’ve done since you last uploaded stuff.
I generally upload stuff once every week or so — you don’t have to do it the same day you did the activity, unless that’s your way.
Then, check it out: you’ve just earned a buncha money for World Bicycle Relief. Here’s some stuff The Hammer uploaded this morning, for example:
“Kudos,” by the way, is sort of the currency of +3 Networks. You earn different rates of “kudos” for different activities (a mile of mountain biking earns you more kudos than a mile of road biking, for example. A mile of running earns you still more.) And then the sponsor donates a certain amount of money per “kudo” earned. SRAM is a generous sponsor, paying out $0.015 per kudo earned.
Which means that your basic training ride or run is likely to earn a dollar or more for World Bicycle Relief. Your big events earn even more. The Hammer’s RAGNAR experience last weekend, for example, earned about 8.52 for World Bicycle Relief. Her part in the Rockwell Relay earned $8.56.
By themselves, those may not seem like huge numbers. But I’d like you to keep the following in mind:
- You’re not by yourself. You’re one member of Team Fatty. And while none of us, alone, make a big difference, we’ve shown over and over that together we make a huge impact.
- You’re doing the exercise anyway. Remember, this program is gravy. You’re doing the workouts anyway. It doesn’t cost you anything to upload and get credit for the work you’re doing.
And frankly, I’ve started getting excited about this, because the goals I can set are really practical. One bike for a kid in Zambia costs $120. I figure that, with +3 Network’s program, I can earn that much every other month.
That’s six bikes a year. Not bad at all.
And if 100 of us do this — not exactly a crazy dream, I don’t think — I bet we can raise enough to buy 500 bikes a year.
That’s a lot of bikes, and a lot of awesomeness, at exactly no cost to you.
So. Get started. Join up with Team Fatty. Let’s track our rides and runs and stuff, and make those rides do some good.
PS: You can check out who’s joined Team Fatty on +3 Network, as well as how much we’ve raised, by going to http://www.plus3network.com/group/Team-Fatty.
PPS: If you don’t have a Garmin GPS, but you do have an iPhone, you can use the free +3 Network iPhone app to track your workouts and then upload them directly, which is pretty cool, too! I’ve only experimented with this app once, but it worked fine. iPhone-ers, give it a try and let me know what you think.
Comments (104)
06.17.2011 | 11:47 am
Think of it as a blog collaboration of sorts: The Hammer is joining RabidRunner in running as 2/6 of an “Ultra” team in the Wasatch Back version of RAGNAR. Which means that this will be the second week in a row in which The Hammer is doing an endurance relay event.
That, partially, is why she is The Hammer.
I, on the other hand, am not fast enough to be on their team (seriously, that’s why I’m not on it), and am currently trying to decide whether to take my kids to see The Green Lantern or Thor tonight. I welcome your thoughts on this matter.
Anyway, wish The Hammer and her team — Named “Crack the C.O.D,” which sounds like they for some reason want to break open a package that was labeled “Cash On Delivery,” but actually is a direct challenge to another team (Crack o’ Dawners) — good luck. I’m looking forward to hearing the story.
Also, I’m looking forward to sleeping in a bed tonight.
Today, I have a few things to talk about. Or more to the point, I am not going to talk about them, but will instead reveal that I plan to talk about them next week.
Upcoming Stuff Item #1: LiveStrong Challenge
Next week, I’ll be talking about Davis LiveStrong Challenge plans. Also, I will be actually starting to make Davis LiveStrong Challenge plans.
Where did the time go?
Upcoming Stuff Item #2: Get Out Your Garmins
Next week I’m going to reveal a way Team Fatty can do something awesome for World Bicycle Relief, without spending any (or donating, even) money at all.
But you’re gonna need to start tracking your rides / runs / other exercise stuff.
If you’ve got a Garmin, get used to using it on every run / ride.
Upcoming Stuff Item #3: More 100 Miles of Nowhere Reports
I’ve still got a huge backlog of awesome 100 Miles of Nowhere stories that have been sent in. I plan to start publishing these next week. The timing’s good, because I’m in crunch mode at work right now and could use some help with writing this blog.
Upcoming Stuff Item #3: A Little Bit More About My Superfly 100
I’ve had a chance to ride my new Superfly 100 a few times now and have gotten the fit right. I want to spend some time rhapsodizing about this incredible frame, as well as the genius space technology that is the new Shimano XTR. Holy smokes, it’s good stuff.
PS: Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’m turning 45. If you’d like to buy me a present, I’d really like a donation at my LiveStrong Challenge Page. That would be a very nice present indeed.
Comments (35)
06.17.2011 | 11:44 am
Think of it as a blog collaboration of sorts: The Hammer is joining RabidRunner in running as 2/6 of an “Ultra” team in the Wasatch Back version of RAGNAR. Which means that this will be the second week in a row in which The Hammer is doing an endurance relay event.
That, partially, is why she is The Hammer.
I, on the other hand, am not fast enough to be on their team (seriously, that’s why I’m not on it), and am currently trying to decide whether to take my kids to see The Green Lantern or Thor tonight. I welcome your thoughts on this matter.
Anyway, wish The Hammer and her team — Named “Crack the C.O.D,” which sounds like they for some reason want to break open a package that was labeled “Cash On Delivery,” but actually is a direct challenge to another team (Crack o’ Dawners) — good luck. I’m looking forward to hearing the story.
Also, I’m looking forward to sleeping in a bed tonight.
Today, I have a few things to talk about. Or more to the point, I am not going to talk about them, but will instead reveal that I plan to talk about them next week.
Upcoming Stuff Item #1: LiveStrong Challenge
Next week, I’ll be talking about Davis LiveStrong Challenge plans. Also, I will be actually starting to make Davis LiveStrong Challenge plans.
Where did the time go?
Upcoming Stuff Item #2: Get Out Your Garmins
Next week I’m going to reveal a way Team Fatty can do something awesome for World Bicycle Relief, without spending any (or donating, even) money at all.
But you’re gonna need to start tracking your rides / runs / other exercise stuff.
If you’ve got a Garmin, get used to using it on every run / ride.
Upcoming Stuff Item #3: More 100 Miles of Nowhere Reports
I’ve still got a huge backlog of awesome 100 Miles of Nowhere stories that have been sent in. I plan to start publishing these next week. The timing’s good, because I’m in crunch mode at work right now and could use some help with writing this blog.
Upcoming Stuff Item #3: A Little Bit More About My Superfly 100
I’ve had a chance to ride my new Superfly 100 a few times now and have gotten the fit right. I want to spend some time rhapsodizing about this incredible frame, as well as the genius space technology that is the new Shimano XTR. Holy smokes, it’s good stuff.
Comments (5)
06.16.2011 | 7:35 am
A Note from Fatty: This is Part V of a long series about the 2011 Moab to St. George: Rockwell Relay race. Here’s what you’ll find in each installment:
- Part I: A little about the race, team philosophy, pre-race excitement, and the first two legs of the race covered.
- Part II: The Hammer rips up her first leg of the race, The IT Guy gives Heather motivation to continue by using a novel technique.
- Part III: The night laps begin. I turn off course, nearly hit a deer, and nevertheless love riding this race.
- Part IV: Night laps extract their toll on the team; The Hammer works with Jerry to both their benefit; I show off my Superman jammies; Kenny does a hard climbing lap on a singlespeed.
- Part V: We finish our final legs, going from cold to hot in record time. We collect our prizes and catch up on sleep. We announce our intentions to defend our title next year.
Hard Climb, Big Descent
Originally, my final leg was going to be nothing but a giant downhill rollercoaster. Honestly, I was a little bit disappointed; that’s not exactly a heroic way to do a third of a big epic race.
Now, however, my final leg of the race was a little bit of a mystery to me, because it was on an alternate route — the originally planned course for this leg of the race was still snowed in.
So, instead of just a pure-descending leg, I’d have some climbing. I just didn’t know how much.
I asked the guy at the Exchange. “I don’t know, maybe a quarter of it’s climbing now.”
OK, I can work with that.
I took off, the morning air cold. It was still winter (or early spring) on Cedar Breaks Mountain, with well over a two feet of snow on the ground.
With a 30 mile leg, a “quarter” of the distance being uphill should be 7.5 miles, I reasoned. I’d plan on 9 miles, just to be safe.
And it was hard climbing.
Still, it was beautiful, and the combination of daylight and the exertion of riding my bike cleared the fog in my head.
For the first time ever, I wasn’t looking forward to a race being over. I was enjoying the Rockwell Relay that much.
I knew a racer had left about 12 minutes before I did, so I rode as hard as I could, thinking that with a superhuman effort, maybe I could catch him during the climb.
The eighth mile of climbing came and went. No end to the climbing.
Then, around mile nine, my team passed me, right as what looked like the summit came into view. “It’s all downhill from there!” yelled Heather.
I was so glad to hear that.
Unfortunately, Heather was wrong — seduced into believing the first of the false summits was really the summit.
Mile 10 came and went. Then mile 11. Then 12. And 13. And more false summits than I bothered counting.
Then, as I hit mile 14, the road turned down. And I do mean down. In the next 13 miles or so, I descended more than 5000 feet. Cruising at 40 – 50mph.
Watching the scenery change from cold, high mountain to sandstone desert before my eyes, all in about fifteen minutes.
Astounding.
“I have got to come and try to climb this road someday,” I thought to myself.
And then I was in Cedar City. The Hammer was on her bike, suited up, waiting for me at a corner to make sure I didn’t miss yet another turn.
I handed her the slap-bracelet; I was done with my racing part of the race. I had gotten back about 6 of the twelve minutes we needed to catch the next team, but it wasn’t enough.
For the final hundred miles or so, Kenny and I would be crew to the women.
Who, once again, would get to do the uncomfortable legs of the race.
Because the desert had heated up.
And the wind had started blowing.
The Final Two Legs
The last two legs of the race — raced by The Hammer and Heather — can be described using bullet points:
- Hot
- Windy
- No passing
- No being passed
In fact, by the time Team Fatty got to the final four legs of the race, we were never passed, nor ever passed anyone, again. Our place in the race was sealed.
However, there were a few (very few) exciting events that happened during this hot and windy final hundred miles or so.
- We got phone service again, which allowed me to post this photo:
- I bought a milkshake, which I tried to hand off to The Hammer during her leg. She was not interested in having a milkshake at the moment, however.
- Once The Hammer had finished her leg of the race, she became intensely interested in a Mountain Dew and some nachos. Can you see why I love this woman?
- Heather missed a turn, and Kenny borrowed the IT Guy’s truck to go run her down (not literally) and set her on the correct path again. So I was not the only one to miss a turn, which made me feel better. (Although, since I was responsible for missing the other 3 turns or exchange points during the race, it didn’t make me feel a lot better.)
The Finish
As Heather finished up her final leg, Kenny, The Hammer, and I drove to the finish line, suited up, and rode out to meet Heather, so we could all cross the finish line together.
Then Heather went and pipped us at the finish line.
Which of course left the rest of us to finish as best we could:
And then came our awesome group photo at the finish line:
Yeah, I’m looking a little bleary. I wonder why?
Afterwards
We found out that we had taken tenth place overall, and first place out of seven coed teams (all age groups). It had taken us 29:53 to ride this 520-ish mile race, as opposed to the 27:32 the overall winning team (Bruteforce) had taken.
Instead of finishers’ medals, The Rockwell Relay gave everyone something different. Finishers’ rings:
We also found out that Team Lobotomy — which The IT Guy was on — would be crossing the finish line in about an hour and a half, so we went and checked into our hotel, showered, then came back to congratulate The IT Guy and his team:
And get what may be the most awesome mother / son photo ever:
Then we went back and took a nap until the awards ceremony. I have never, by the way, had such a hard time waking up after an hour’s-worth of sleep.
Awards
You don’t come to races like this expecting prizes. Even if you win, you don’t really expect the prize to be anything of significance.
You’re racing because you want to race.
And so when, as winners of the Coed division, we each got to pick out a cool watch from the Rockwell collection they had on hand, we were seriously stoked. Here’s Kenny and me, picking out our watches from the Fabulous Case of Prizes:
Check out what I got:
Obviously, these guys put on an amazingly cool event and take care of their racers.
Win Something We Won
After that, there was a raffle. Now generally, I do very badly at raffles. I just don’t win stuff. At all. Ever.
However, The Hammer did win something. One of the biggest prizes they gave away, actually: a Team Entry for The Rockwell Relay “Ladies Pamperfest Challenge:” an unusual race, described on the event site as follows:
Enjoy a soothing massage, mini-manicure, chocolate fountain, or even some shopping (neat girl stuff!) at the relay exchange points as you travel through the beautiful back roads from Snowbasin Ski Resort to Provo. And yes, the pampering is FREE! Plus you’ll get a great T-shirt (the kind you’ll actually wear), finishers ring, window decal and other cool stuff.
The Ladies Pamperfest is July 11. Teams can be two or four ladies, traveling a total of 163 miles. It sounds like a fun event / race (depending on how you ride it).
The problem is, The Hammer can’t do this event. We’re going to be in Davis for the LiveStrong Challenge that weekend.
So we’re going to give this prize away. Let’s keep the rules for this giveaway simple, OK? Here’s what you’ve got to do to win this prize (a value of up to $320):
- Have a team put together. Remember, this is an all-women team, and can be either a two- or four-person team.
- Be committed to doing this event. I don’t want to give this to someone who isn’t going to use it.
- Be committed to writing a fun race writeup, along with photos to give to me after the event.
- Be the first to email me with the subject line “Pamperfest,” saying you want the prize. If I reply to you, you were the first, and you won. If I don’t reply to you, you weren’t the first and you didn’t win.
Easy enough?
The Next Day
I woke up at 7:30am the next day (about two hours later than usual), and then sat in bed, reading, surfing the web and generally not feeling like there was any hurry for me to get up.
The Hammer, meanwhile, slept ’til 9:40am. I have never seen her sleep ’til past 7:30 before. Obviously, we had some catching up on sleep to do.
Summing Up
The next morning (Monday), I weighed myself. I was up eight pounds. Seriously. Which leads me to conclude: Big epic races make you fat.
But we’ll be back next year. Definitely. Hey, we’ve got a title to defend.
Comments (32)
06.15.2011 | 8:18 am
A Note from Fatty: This is Part IV of a long series about the 2011 Moab to St. George: Rockwell Relay race. Here’s what you’ll find in each installment:
- Part I: A little about the race, team philosophy, pre-race excitement, and the first two legs of the race covered.
- Part II: The Hammer rips up her first leg of the race, The IT Guy gives Heather motivation to continue by using a novel technique.
- Part III: The night laps begin. I turn off course, nearly hit a deer, and nevertheless love riding this race.
- Part IV: Night laps extract their toll on the team; The Hammer works with Jerry to both their benefit; I show off my Superman jammies; Kenny does a hard climbing lap on a singlespeed.
- Part V: We finish our final legs, going from cold to hot in record time. We collect our prizes and catch up on sleep. We announce our intentions to defend our title next year.
Bring On The Night
It was about 11:00pm when I finished the Boulder Mountain Pass leg of the race and handed the slap-bracelet to The Hammer, so she could begin her night leg — 57 miles of riding, through the darkest part of night.
The temperature had dropped to freezing or near freezing. Once again, it was the women who would take on the most uncomfortable race legs.
Chivalry is dead, I guess. If it were ever alive, I mean.
Jerry, a cyclist from Team Give, started out from the Exchange point at the same time as The Hammer, and they immediately agreed to work together through the leg.
I think I might have made a bad impression on Jerry the first time our van pulled up alongside them. At the time, The Hammer was pulling, so I yelled out at Jerry (using what is known among my children as “Dad’s Angry Voice”), “Hey, you! No passengers! Take your turn pulling!”
Of course I was joking; I had seen him taking a pull mere moments ago.
The problem was, nobody else could tell I was kidding.
The Hammer turned and looked at me with a “What are you saying?!” look. Heather, who was driving, turned and looked at me in stunned disbelief.
Jerry assured me that he had really been taking his turns pulling. And that he had recently started reading my blog and even liked it. And that, honestly, he’d take a pull again in just a minute.
Kenny didn’t say anything.
Realizing that I had done a much more convincing job of sounding like an angry, confrontational dude than I would have ever thought I was capable, I promised Jerry that I had just seen him taking a pull and that I was just being silly.
Then I made a mental note to myself to drop “confrontational comedy” from my quiver of allegedly hilarious party conversational techniques.
The Hammer and Jerry worked together for a vast majority of their cold night lap. This worked out ideally for both teams, with Jerry’s support vehicle swinging by them every couple of miles, and then our van swinging by on alternate miles.
It was cool to see the natural and easy way folks can take work together.
For the rest of the race, any time The Hammer saw Jerry, she’d go give him a hug. And apologize for my behavior.
Evolution of Support
By now we had been racing for sixteen hours or more, and we were starting to feel like old hands at the support game. No longer did we actually get out of the car to support our rider. Instead, we’d pull alongside, ask what the rider needed, and then either pull over or drop behind to dig out whatever the rider needed. Then we’d just pull back alongside and do a through-the-window handoff.
Part of this was for efficiency’s sake. A much larger part, however, was due to the fact that it was cold outside; those of us who were riding didn’t want to leave the comfort of the warm van.
The second part of the evolution of our support strategy can be simply summed up as: Honey Stinger Waffles. Sure, we had gels and bars and everything, but once everyone had tasted the Waffles, that was pretty much all they wanted. “Water and Waffle” became the most common thing a rider was likely to say.
So huge kudos to the Honey Stinger guys. As near as I can tell, they’ve got a huge hit on their hands. I know the four of us on Team Fatty were big fans during this race.
The Goofy Hours
As it got to be around 1:30pm, we began observing strange behavior amongst ourselves. For example, when The Hammer and Jerry caught another rider and had him join their paceline, The Hammer looked over and yelled out to us, “Hey, look! I’ve got myself some domestiques!”
We giggled for about twenty minutes over this. I wonder if The Hammer’s domestiques thought it was as funny as we did.
As for me, I decided it was late enough that I wanted to wear my jammies. Superman jammies, no less.
That’s me doing a Superman pose. Hard to tell, I know.
So…Tired…Mustn’t…Sleep
The Hammer finished her leg of the race and Heather started leg 8 beginning at 2:36am– the coldest leg, in the most awful time of the night (day?) to ride, as anyone who has ever done a 24-hour event will agree.
I was driving. Kenny was crewing. The Hammer was trying to catch a little sleep.
I adopted a new driving technique, trying to cope with the sleepiness I was battling:
- Drive 5 minutes.
- Park.
- Fall asleep for a few seconds (minutes?).
- Wake up when Kenny told me Heather had gone by.
- Pass Heather and get her whatever she needed (Water. Waffle.”).
- Repeat forever and ever and ever and ever.
It was around this time that I lost the ability to do even basic math. I’d look at the odometer, ask Kenny to look at the Race Bible and seee how many miles the leg was supposed to be, and then try to do the math to figure out how far Heather had left to ride.
But I’d just churn and churn. Two-digit subtraction baffled me. I couldn’t figure it out.
Another Miss
Heather did an awesome job with her second leg of the race, keeping all other teams at bay.
Unfortunately, when she arrived at the Exchange to hand the slap-bracelet off to Kenny, her crew (i.e., us) was nowhere to be found.
This is because an RV had parked in front of the Exchange sign, obscuring it. So when we left Heather to go ahead and get Kenny ready for the exchange, we drove right past the exchange point, and kept on going…right out of town.
After searching out in the outskirts of Panguitch for five or ten minutes, we came to the conclusion we had somehow missed the sign and came back.
By then, of course, the rider Kenny would have been starting six minutes in front of had gotten a good start on him.
And Heather was sitting in another team’s RV, warming up and wondering why we had abandoned her.
Kenny hopped out of the van and was gone at 5:00am, riding his single speed up the steepest, longest climb of the race: Panguitch to Cedar Breaks Mountain.
We had a contingency plan: if the vertical was too much to deal with on his single, he’d swap out on to my bike. It’d be an easy change since he uses the same kind of pedals I do; just raise the saddle about an inch.
It wouldn’t matter much where the seat was anyway, since he’d be doing pretty much nothing but standing climbing, regardless of what bike he was on.
We never put that plan into effect, though. Kenny’s a proud man. He didn’t want to have to concede that, in fact, a geared bike might make sense in some circumstances.
As the sun came up, we saw that somehow during the night, we had transitioned from sandstone desert to high alpine forests and meadows. When we got to the next exchange point, near the top of Cedar Breaks Mountain, we waited for Kenny. Me ready to ride my final leg of the race. Everyone else bundling up as best as they could.
Kenny finished his final leg of the race, conceding hardly any time at all to the racer in front of him, and handed off the slap-bracelet to me for the last time.
He was cooked.
As anyone who does this kind of race should be.
Continue to Part V (the final part, finally!)
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