Back to Big Savage in Search of Solace

A version of this article appeared in American Randonneur Magazine (Winter 2017)

It was a straight-up revenge mission, or maybe a search for redemption.  Exactly two years before, after years of ultracycling and randonneuring – always on the lookout for the mountainous routes that brought with them panoramic vistas and exhilarating downward plunges to reward honest effort – a friend and I had taken a crack at the new, daunting frontier known as the “Super Randonneur 600k.”  The course was Big Savage SR600k, a route of Bill Beck’s device featuring the sawtooth grades of western Maryland, the verdant Lost River State Park in West Virginia, and Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.  It was the best the Mid-Atlantic had to offer, but we’d have to earn it: 42,000 feet of climbing in 375 miles told the story. Or so we thought.

The risk of looking for a challenge is that one might find it.  In retrospect, I wasn’t remotely prepared: a nasty fall earlier in the year had sidelined me for two months, after which I’d spent far more time planning my wedding than logging miles.  Thus, my 2015 crack at Big Savagehad essentially been a bachelor’s party only a randonneur could love, complete with self-inflicted debacles and no small sense of relief at surviving the ordeal.  It was the toughest 43 hours of my life; indeed, at the first control -- 60 miles and 8,000 feet of climbing in -- I’d found myself staring into the middle distance, dazedly trying to ingest a Frito and wondering where my life had taken a wrong turn.  The remaining 315 miles were little better.  Ultimately, it was only my riding companion’s persuasive powers and refusal to indulge my self-pity that convinced me to attempt the second half of the ride instead of aborting the mission.  My blog post afterward honestly recounted my view that, if one were thinking of attempting an SR600k, the best plan was to lie down until the sensation passed.

And yet, I couldn’t quite let it go.  Surely things would have been different if I’d prepared appropriately.  Possibly. So, while outwardly vowing never again to toe that masochist line, I thumb-tacked a mental note next to Big Savagethat read: “Not done here.”  

By September 2017, two years later, I felt ready to even the score.  In 2016, I’d cruised through the Lynn Kristiansen Memorial SR600kon Skyline Drive with no undue drama, although tropical storm remnants ensured that it was a thoroughly soggy adventure. Then,  in the spring of 2017, I’d joined the roles of Cyclos Montagnards R60 honorees.  With my wife overseas for a week, the scene was ripe for revenge served Savage. 

Life, however, has a way of resisting even the best-laid plans.  Two weeks out from the scheduled attempt, my father went into coronary arrest and septic shock.  Odds were against his survival.  I spent the next ten days in the florescent glare of an ICU ward, doing little but sitting, awaiting test results, and conversing with palliative care staff before collapsing each night more tired than if I’d run a marathon.  Bike ride?  Who cared?

Improbably, after more than a week of unconsciousness, my father woke up and began what would be a long and uncertain process of recovery.  The situation having stabilized at least somewhat, I returned to D.C. three days before I’d signed up to attempt Big Savage.  It was tough to imagine worse preparation for such an endeavor, and I debated whether to be conventionally sensible and focus on putting my life back in order. Equally, though, I thought that nothing would be better than losing myself in the mountains and sunshine and letting my mind wander with the winds.  Call it a celebration of life and triumphing over adversity: if my father could defeat septic shock, I could fight a battle in my own way.  I resolved to give it hell, exhausted or not.

Mentally, I started the ride with an audacious goal: to ride Big Savage straight through. I’d timed my ride start to fit with such a plan, and I hadn’t made a hotel reservation at the halfway mark in the hope that it would be easier not to stop that way.   Thus, heart full, eyes clear, and self-delusion abundant, I easily conquered the first hundred yards of the ride before launching myself up the first climb – a three-mile, thousand-foot spike known as Sideling Hill, the bane of weary RAAM riders dreaming of Annapolis.  

Three hours into the ride, I’d traveled barely thirty miles.  The first sixty miles traveling west from Hancock, MD, boast an elevation resembling the results of a particularly incriminating polygraph test: climb for three or four miles, plunge down the backside, and season to taste.  Despite my attempts to remain enthusiastic, my legs weren’t responding.  My heart and mind remained in a hospital a thousand miles away, and each time my phone rang I feared the worst.  Endurance challenges are profoundly mental, and I felt my resolve fading as the grades steepened.

Two thoughts drove me onward.  First, I’ve found that there are few troubles that a day in the sunshine won’t improve; whatever my emotional state, the saddle was the place to work through it.  Second, the fact is that the first sixty miles of Big Savagemay be the toughest of any randonneuring route in the United States.  It’s a remarkably difficult stretch regardless of circumstances, beginning with thousand-foot spikes and culminating in a punishing 2,500-foot ascent of the eponymous Big Savage Mountain.   I reasoned that the goal was just to stay in the game and continue moving forward, and that life would look better from the summit.  A bag of Bugles had my name on it.

And so it proved.  The course meandered along the Big Savage ridgeline, twisting through scenes that contrasted centuries, crimson barns and antique tractors presaging a regiment of wind turbines spanning distant peaks.  The roads were in perfect repair, but some ancient houses were little more than scaffolds of timber dejectedly yielding to fate.  The deer divined no threat in my whirring wheels, nor did the massive black bear that regarded me skeptically from atop a railroad embankment.  A bald eagle carried its victim out of my path on the plummeting descent down Big Savage.  Only too soon, I arrived at the top of the “Westernport Wall,” a regionally famous hill in Westernport, MD, whose grade exceeds 30%, and which is paved with bricks immortalizing the riders who have conquered it during the annual Savageman Triathlon.  

From Westernport, it was an easy spin through small-town Appalachia to Keyser, West Virginia, scene of the sadly departed Stray Cat Café, a previous culinary highlight of the route, then a turn southbound on the 40-mile rolling stretch toward Moorefield.  The cycling gods signaled their favor in the form of 20 miles of brand new, glassy-smooth tarmac, and an expansive valley stretched for miles to the east before the ridgeline I knew I’d have to summit eventually. Just before Moorefield came the deceptively brief but severely steep 1.2-mile Patterson Creek Mountain climb, which is easy to miss in the elevation profile only due to the monsters on either side of it.  Its 8% average grade testifies to the lie of averages, and around each of its twists one meets the depressing reality: “Not yet.”  

But all things must end, and from the summit, a breakneck descent carried me into Moorefield and the control at Fox’s Pizza. Calories, sodium, and air conditioning were all that this savaged randonneur could ask, even if my mere presence put Fox’s at risk of flunking a health inspection.  

Fox’s location is a mixed blessing: it’s just what you need and when you need it, but it comes immediately before the biggest beast of the course, the climb up South Branch Mountain.  Eat too much and you risk giving some of it back in short order – five miles at an 8% average grade is grim in the best of times, and the last half-mile’s 14% grade qualifies as obscene.  The only blessing is a guardrail that provides a convenient seat from which to contemplate the nature of despair and the potential availability of mountain bike gearing. 

 

The eventual summit proved that hard work pays dividends, offering infinite views of the rugged West Virginia countryside and the encouraging realization that it was all downhill from there.  I quickly entered Lost River State Park, a mid-Atlantic cycling mecca of wild landscapes where one’s far more likely to encounter a bear than a cell signal.  At its heart lies one of the best controls in the randonneuring world, the Lost River Grill, an oasis of booth seats, great cooking, and pie slices as big as the cog I wished I’d had on South Branch Mountain.  The wait staff are so familiar with cyclists and their peculiar needs that I’ve had them preemptively swipe my empty water bottles from the table and bring them back full of my beverage of choice.  

The only downside of Lost River Grill is that it’s nearly impossible to leave, especially when one’s facing twilight and the knowledge that more climbs await.  By this time I’d abandoned any notion of riding straight through; indeed, I was sufficiently shattered that I’d tentatively decided to call it quits at the overnight control 30 miles away.  My legs had been leaden all day, and as much as I tried to prevent it, my thoughts were with my father instead of the road ahead.  And, with the nature of an out-and-back course, it’s only too evident what topographic monsters lurk on the return journey.

But what a final 30 miles!  The climbs through Mill and Wolf Gaps are arguably the sweetest riding in the mid-Atlantic, all sparkling tarmac snaking through the George Washington National Forest.  At night it’s a starry wonderland, the sounds of crickets, spokes, and rushing waters combining into a sonnet for the intrepid rider.  On the far side lay the bed into which I collapsed without setting an alarm, content that I’d had a soul-cleansing day in the saddle and needn’t push my luck with another the next morning if I didn’t feel compelled.  

Ten hours later, I stumbled out of bed confident I’d qualified for membership in the Rip van Winkle society of SR600k riders, looked out the window, and contemplated my choice: a 60-mile leisurely spin back to the car, or a 188-mile assault on the return leg of Big Savage.  While I enjoyed a leisurely hotel breakfast, I received encouraging news about my father’s health and immediately felt an emotional cloud lift.  I realizing I’d be a fool not to celebrate by spending as much time as I could beneath the sun and amidst the trees.  Bring on the reverse route!

The return to Hancock was as joyous as the first leg had been arduous.  Climbing back through Wolf Gap, a bobcat flashed across the road not ten feet in front of me, as exotic a sighting as one will find on a bicycle.   A quick slice of pie at the Lost River Grill fueled me over the much gentler side of South Branch Mountain.  So, too, the Patterson Creek Mountain spike and return climb up Big Savage Mountain seemed friendlier with the knowledge that I wouldn’t have to see them again the next day.  The final 30 miles, with their thousand-foot climbs and descents, were as tough as I remembered their being two years earlier, but no journey worth retelling would end on a whimper.  The Big Savage SR600k admits defeat only after a suitably mighty roar. 

More than most, randonneurs grasp in their souls that reward is proportionate to effort, and in that respect, the SR600ks are crown jewels.  With their new 60-hour time limit, they are within reach of anyone with the audacity for the attempt and the planning to make the dream happen.  The Big Savage SR600kis not for the faint-hearted, but it earns that highest of accolades: it’s utterly unforgettable.

Final time: 41h, 12m

Strava file for Day 1:

Strava file for Day 2:

Fighting Big Flat: 2017 D.C. Randonneurs Frederick 300k ride report

The Frederick 300k (188 miles) is an institution on the D.C. Randonneurs' rotation, having first been ridden back around the turn of the century, near as I can tell.  It was my very first 300k back in 2012, and I vividly remember fighting 95-degree heat throughout the afternoon and wafting in on fumes in just under 14 hours.  Back then I was definitely of the mindset that a 300k might as well be a ride across Siberia -- I was posting periodic Facebook updates to let people know I was still alive, and my bike was weighed down with about 15 pounds of energy bars, most of which went uneaten.  It took me a couple of years to realize that, as rides get longer, the only thing that really changes is clothing. 

Another thing I remember about that ride is having my first encounter with a climb called "Big Flat." The first word is accurate; the second, less so.  But I'd only had the one crack at it, and I wanted a second.

One great thing about the D.C. region is that, depending on which way you go, the character of the rides changes fundamentally.  Head east toward the shore, and you'll never find anything flatter, with windswept beaches and wildlife preserves.  To the southwest is Virginia, where nothing is flat -- there are more rollers than a Broadway production of Hairspray.  To the west are mountains of varying degrees of seriousness.  Finally, to the northwest and north, in Maryland, there's a little bit of everything, and that's what this ride had to offer -- three solid climbs broken up with some Amish country and cornfields.

The goal was straightforward: finish under 12 hours, and thus complete the third of four requirements for R60 qualification.  To do that, I'd need to shave nearly two hours off of my 2012 attempt, when Max and I finished in 13:56.  Egads!  Fortunately, the weather called for a perfect range of 50 degrees at the start to 78 mid-day, so if it was going to happen, today was the day.  

Ride start, pretty in pink!  Photo credit: Ed F.

Of course, I'm a moron -- that's the first rule.  When faced with a ride more than an hour from home starting at 5:00 a.m., many sane people stay at a local hotel at the start/finish and make sure to get to bed early.  My version of this was going to a nice dinner with Amy in D.C. on Friday evening, then to after-dinner cocktails, and then to after-cocktails dessert with another cocktail, such that I got to sleep at about 12:30 after drinking all evening and woke up a little more than 2 hours later for a 190-mile ride.  Part of the story is that I'm stubbornly short-sighted, but the slightly longer version is that I recognize doing these rides knocks out a big chunk of the weekend that I'd otherwise be available to socialize.  I'm exhausted and useless when I get home, so it seems unfair to block off Friday night as well as Saturday and Saturday night -- cycling's not the only thing in life.  Of course, there's a healthy dollop of self-loathing when that alarm goes off in the middle of the night, and I'm not getting any younger.  I'm sure I'm sacrificing some performance with this tragic habit, but I like to think it adds a "degree of difficulty" score, like Olympic diving.  

Also, there's something vaguely weird about getting in an elevator at 3:00 a.m., fully bedecked in spandex, and nearly running headlong into someone smelling of booze who's getting home after an evening of revelry.  Worlds colliding.

The ride itself began at the Days Inn in Frederick, MD, as made famous by absolutely nothing.  On the plus side, it has a Waffle House attached to it.  We rolled out parade-style through the deserted streets of Frederick, which is always enjoyable in one of those "different ways of seeing the same thing" ways that cycling sometimes presents.  It's certainly better than returning through the same streets on Saturday evening, a pleasure we'd have later.  

I was the only rider with a time-based agenda, so I began to press the pace after an hour or so, when we reached the beautiful 5-mile climb up Foxville-Deerfield in the Catoctin Mountain Park.  It's one of the best climbs in the mid-Atlantic: peaceful, great pavement, a gradual slope through the forest, and a river rushing along next to you.  Soon after beginning the ascent, I found myself alone with Eric Willams, one of the stronger riders in the group, and someone who rides probably twice the miles that I do.  He climbs like a goat, and the two of us made great time to the summit -- I climbed it in 21:41, compared to my 29:07 in 2012.  A promising start!

More promising for me than Eric, though.  The poor guy had decided that, despite a ride start temperature in the high 40s, he'd head out with a short-sleeve jersey and no gloves.  A descent that was wonderful for me probably brought him no end of misery.  Oh well -- as he said, he knows better.  This is pretty much the first time I can remember on a bicycle when I wasn't the cautionary tale.

As the two of us plowed north toward Pennsylvania, Eric realized that cycling could be enjoyable rather than an exercise in self-flagellation, and accordingly drifted off the back, where he eventually joined up with a chase group of riders who had a thoroughly reasonable day.  I pressed on, trying my best to make it home in time for a wine tasting that Amy was hosting at our place that evening.

Next up was the featured attraction: Big Flat.  Below is the elevation profile for this ride: pick out the least flat part of it, and you've found it.  To be helpful, I've highlighted it.

It's not the toughest climb out there, but it's solid work, climbing about 1300 feet over nearly 7 miles. In 2012, I'd trudged my way up it in 46:35, but I guess I've gotten stronger: this year it was 34:42, good for 8th overall on Strava.  (I'm sure I'll be getting that pro contract any day now.)  It was a tough effort, but I consoled myself with the notion that it was almost literally all downhill from the summit.

I'll say this: the Michaux State Forest was a gorgeous place in full bloom, with bursts of whites, purples, reds, and yellows speckling the dark green backdrop.  Probably the perfect place to film an ad for Claritin, actually.

After the epic, swooping 9-mile descent into Shippensburg, PA, the mountains receded and Amish country beckoned.  Buggies, farmland, and sketchy roads unfolds for dozens of miles on end, and the sun came out to teach us a lesson.  Many people love these roads, but I found myself in that awkward mental position of having ridden a hard 80 miles and remembering that there's still more than a century to go.  Fortunately, the second half of the ride was relatively flat, so I anticipated making good time.  Maybe a sub-11:00 finish was in the cards?

To make a long story short, it wasn't.  And, come to think of it, the story wasn't that long: we were riding a huge clockwise loop beginning on the southernmost point, which meant that the last 80 miles or so were heading south and then southwest, directly into one of the most diabolical headwinds I can remember.  I was working my butt off just to go 17 mph.  Usually loop courses at least afford the dignity of benefitting and suffering from the same winds, but not in this case -- they picked up throughout the day, so it was just plowing ahead and hoping for respite that wasn't forthcoming.  At some point I decided that the goal was sub-12:00, and it wasn't worth wrecking myself for an attempt at a sub-11:00 finish that wasn't in the cards that day.  I just wanted a nap.

Ultimately, I rolled back into Frederick a little after 4:00 pm, having done what I needed to.  And, in fairness, I'd done well: my 2012 moving time was 11:55, and I'd taken 2 hours off of the bike, for a finishing time of about 13:55.  This year, I was moving for 10:36, and I was off the bike for only 35 minutes, for a final time of 11:10.  That's progress.  Enjoy the video!

Next up is the flèche, a 24-hour group ride that promises lots of eating.  I plan to P.R. at least one ice cream sundae.  

Mike Hall Memorial 600k: Ignoring Limits

Sometimes awful things pile up and there's no way forward except to go smash something.  After three months of the hardest training I'd ever done, a calamitous throat infection knocked me out of the 24-hour race at Sebring.  I'd never felt stronger, but instead of clicking off hot laps, I was intubated and bludgeoned with every high-powered intravenous antibiotic they could find.  Things turned out "well," if by well one means losing weight I couldn't afford and struggling to complete a 1-hour easy spin.

Fortunately, after a substantial training adjustment in which I dropped the high-watt intervals in favor of extended sweet-spot sets, I started coming around after a few weeks.  In mid March, I DNF'd a 200k brevet when my routing went horribly awry, but I still felt good.  I decided to test things by leaping straight into a 600k (375-mile) brevet out of Lumberton, North Carolina, on April 1.  It was a flattish and unremarkable course apart from 30 miles of riding along the beach, but I figured it would be a good chance to test out a new saddle and hopefully check off a big box on one of my 2017 projects, i.e., a Randonneurs Mondiaux R60 designation.  

Apart from the Charly Miller Society, which requires that a rider finish the quadrennial Paris-Brest-Paris 1200k in under 56 hours and 40 minutes, the R60 is probably the toughest honor to achieve in the randonneuring world.  It requires that one complete a Super Randonneur series (200k, 300k, 400k, and 600k), each in under 60% of the allotted time.  That makes the requirements as follows:

200k (125 miles) -- 8:06

300k (188 miles) -- 12:00

400k (250 miles) -- 16:12

600k (375 miles) -- 24:00

I'd finished a couple of 200ks well under the required time, which left the longer rides to attempt in the remainder of 2017.  My personal best on a 600k brevet was 25:40 or so, so I'd have to go faster, but on the other hand, my previous 600s had been on considerably hillier terrain and an older bike.  In 24-hour races, which are on fully-supported loops, I'd knocked out 600k in under 19 hours, but randonnees tend to be slow -- routing, controls, and the rest of it just tend to add up.  I hoped for 22 hours and thought it possible.

Unfortunately, only two days before the ride, the cycling world received the devastating news that Mike Hall had been hit and killed by a car while racing the Indian Pacific Wheel Race across Australia.  Mike was a legend in the ultracycling world at the young age of 35: he held multiple records including fastest on a bicycle around the world and course record holder in the 4,300-mile, self-supported Trans America race.  He was one of the featured riders in Inspired to Ride, a Trans America documentary well worth anyone's attention.

How completely sickening.  We're now forced to add his name to those of Jure Robic (6x RAAM winner), Bob Breedlove, Claudio Clarindo, Anders Tesgaard, Matthew O'Neill, Lynn Kristianson, and many others avid ultracyclists who've been killed by cars in recent years while doing what they love.  For me, this is one of the top reasons I do so much of my riding indoors: I love to be outside on two wheels, but the more one does it, the more likely it is that the odds will get even.  Thus, I choose my battles carefully.  In Mike's case, from all accounts, it sounds like some of the roads the racers traversed were anything but safe, and that there were a number of uncomfortably close calls before the fatal incident.  It's utterly gutting to lose anyone that way, but particularly such an inspiration.  

In all, it wasn't a great mindset to take into a 600k solo ride on unknown road, but then again, maybe it was.  There's something to be said for the knowledge that we're privileged to be able to attempt these feats at all, and it's a gift we should celebrate.  

And so it was that I reported for duty at 6:00 a.m. in the parking lot behind a Super 8 hotel in Lumberton, North Carolina, looking pretty out of place.  Especially on longer events like 600ks, randonneurs tend to favor traditional setups with plenty of cargo capacity, but I looked more like a Martian, complete with disc wheel, Zipp 808 deep-rim front wheel, and aero helmet.  Perhaps overkill, but I figured that, if I wanted to go fast, there's no reason to leave the go-fast gear at home.  

To hit my goal of 22 hours, I'd have to average 17 miles an hour, which isn't generally a problem in terms of moving speed, but it also includes all of the stops and snafus along the way.  I'd probably have to average more than 19 mph while moving in order to do it, which isn't trivial over the span of nearly an entire day.  My best 24-hour race time is 20.5 mph, but that was fully supported, draft-legal, on a looped course where it was impossible to get lost, and on fully tapered legs.  Here, none of those things was true.  (It technically was draft-legal, I suppose, but as there was no one to draft off of, it was an academic point.)

One of the things that made me slightly nervous was that I'd be riding on a new saddle, the Selle Anatomica C Series.  I'd ridden on the traditional S-A leather saddles for years, but they're heavy as bricks and the leather needs to be re-tensioned periodically, and the carbon version promised to address both issues.  It's a beautiful thing, although, as a crowd-funder, I'd had to wait about two years to get it.

So, off we went!  With a 6:00 a.m. rollout, I hoped to be done between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. on Sunday morning and sitting comfortably in a booth at Denny's across the street.  We'd have to see.

For once in my randonneuring life, things went remarkably smoothly.  Tony Goodnight's route was a joy to follow, with turns only every 10 miles or so in many places, and relatively few control points that forced one to stop.  But that came with challenges: with highs pushing 80 degrees and scheduled stops only every 60-70 miles, it was important to keep on top of the nutrition and hydration.  For me, it was a mental struggle between the desire to stop as infrequently as possible and the knowledge that the whole thing could go down the drain if I didn't eat and drink constantly.  I resolved that dilemma by ignoring my desire to stop more often, and never even slowing down between controls -- go big or go home.  The result was that, on a few occasions, I went 4+ hours between stops, which had me pretty much parched and ravenous by the time the next stop rolled around.

I've learned a couple of things about randonneuring nutrition over the years.  First, if you're in trouble on a hot day, there's little better than massive ice cream sandwiches -- cold, caloric, and satisfying.  Second, if you need a blood-sugar rush, those huge Rice Krispy Treat bars are about as close to rocket fuel as you can find.  Third, Bugles!  Enough said.  Rules to live by.

One of the big challenges in a ride this long is finding something to hold the mental focus.  Sometimes the zen silence is enough to set the mind wandering, but I've found that, as one fatigues and things start to get sore, the zen dissipates into something closer to self-resentment.  So, music is key some of the time, but podcasts and audiobooks also are great.  On this occasion, I made my way through S-Town the new release from the makers of Serial, a fair chunk of the latest John Grisham book, a couple of episodes of Freakonomcs, and some Judge John Hodgman.  And lo, the hours did pass.

The course itself was nothing to write home about -- flattish, quite windy (constant 15-20 mph), and largely along country roads lined by pine trees.  At one point we crossed the Intracoastal Waterway before riding 15 miles along the barrier islands to Atlantic Beach, and then back again.  The roads were the highest of highs and lowest of lows, mostly great but with the occasional stretch that would have insulted a cheese grater.  

It was largely a mental game.  With the wind at the back, rolling at 22 mph felt effortless, but the price was a couple of stretches of 20+ miles into headwinds that felt like a sick joke.  My power meter was on the fritz, registering zeroes randomly when I was pushing darn hard, but I gave up trying to fix it after awhile.

In terms of moving speed, things went amazingly well for the first half:

100 miles -- 4:53

200k -- 5:59

300k -- 9:25

Each of those was a personal best for me on a brevet by a considerable margin.  By halfway, I was on pace for a sub-19 hour finish, but I was self-aware enough to know that such extrapolation is dangerous.  Riding at night tends to be slow, and with fatigue being what it is, stops tend to get longer and the average speed tends to drift south.

There's a mathematical issue I've noticed on these events that never ceases to throw me for a loop.  (Many people doubtless know this already -- I'm willing to embrace the fact that it's my issue.)  The issue is this.  Given my spectacular speed over the first half, I'd dared to adjust my target down from 22 hours to 20 hours.  10 hours in, my average speed was about 20 mph.  I knew that a 20-hour finish required an overall average speed of 18.6 mph, so I reasoned as follows: since I've gone 20 mph for the first half, I can go 17.2 mph for the second half to achieve an average of 18.6!  (17.2 + 20)/2 = 18.6!

Except the math doesn't work.  After riding for 10 hours at 20 mph, I'd gone 200 miles, which meant I had 175 miles to go in the second 10 hours.   175/10 = 17.5 mph, not 17.2.  Sigh.  Not that the 0.3 mph delta was huge, but when things are falling apart at the end of a ride, things like that matter.

After a 9:25 first 300k, a sub-20-hour finish required a 10:35 second 300k.  That's an hour slower, but it was still way faster than my 300k personal best heading into this ride, and much of it would be riding at night.  To make matters worse, I encountered a road closure with a massive traffic jam due to an accident with fatalities, and I got turned around a couple of times where the route crossed over itself.  And, of course, there was the challenge I encountered at mile 300, where I completed an 80-mile stretch completely empty of water, calories, and hope.  That prompted an extended break in the welcoming embrace of an Exxon station.

Ultimately, though, I've rarely felt this strong.  I finished in 19:38, fully six hours faster than my previous best at the distance.  After my 9:25 opening 300k, my second 300k had clicked off in 10:13!   Thus, my best and second-best 300ks were ridden back-to-back, which has to say something positive about my training.

I'll confess I'm pretty over-the-moon about this outcome.  As far as I can tell, it's the third-fastest official 600k brevet ever ridden in the United States -- the first is a 19:30 and the second a 19:34, so I was just a handful of minutes away.  Part of me thinks that, given that I was stopped for about 1:50 over the course of the ride, I surely could have gone 10 minutes faster, but I had no idea I was so close to the record, and frankly, who knows.  As a statistical matter, this graph puts things into perspective:

This shows the official 600k completion times in the United States from 1999-2011, and the chart begins at 20 hours, with the median up in the mid-30s.


I'm also happy to report that the Selle Anatomica Carbon Series saddle worked perfectly -- I think it's a keeper.  It's noticeably harder than the leather hammock that the traditional S-A offers, but it never was uncomfortable.  This may be because of the Mummy Tape I apply to my sitbones before all long rides, but whatever the case, it was nice to finish a 600k and be able to sit down comfortably.

So, mission accomplished!  I felt strong virtually the entire way, and I truly loved finishing before 2:00 a.m. and thus avoiding the witching hours that come later in the morning.  It's been a very long time since I've been at a Denny's at 3:00 a.m., but such was my reward.  Next up, trying to get my legs working again and recalibrate myself toward an upcoming 300k, where I'll try to put the next brick in the R60 wall.

Solo Super-6: Lynn Kristianson Memorial (Skyline) SR600k

Skyline Drive's legendary -- a national park often rated as one of the top 10 cycling routes in the United States -- and for those of us in the D.C. area, pilgrimages are frequent.  It traces the ridgeline from Front Royal south to its terminus into the Blue Ridge Parkway 105 miles later.  To the west lies the Shenandoah Valley, with its alpaca farms, meandering rivers, and verdant country lanes all juxtaposed against the sawtooth ridges of West Virginia.

The Virginia piedmont, with its rolling hills, unfolds to the east.

And so it goes, vista titration for over 100 miles of road with nary a flat foot to be found -- cruising on perfect pavement where cars are few and face a 35-mph speed limit.  A paradise for climbers!  And then it turns into the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is more of the same.

Skyline Drive elevation profile.

Over Memorial Day weekend, I set out to tackle Gary Dean's Super Randonneur 600k, i.e., the Lynn Kristianson Memorial SR600k, featuring those roads.  A SR600k is, as it suggests, 600 kilometers long (375 miles), and it follows most of the usual rules of a brevet; the main difference is that, as a "permanent," riders arrange to ride it at a time of their choosing, rather than at the time the club puts it on the calendar.  But there are 600k permanents that aren't SR600s; to be an SR600k, it must have more than 10,000 meters of climbing over the course of the route -- that's almost 33,000 feet.  Another way of thinking about it is that it's a 10k road race straight up into the sky.  Another is that it must have at least 4,000 feet more climbing than the peak of Mt. Everest is above sea level.  Put simply, they are designed to be challenging, but they reward effort double-fold with scenery and adventure.

Woof!

I'd ridden one SR600k before -- last September's Big Savage SR600k -- and it was pretty much the hardest thing I'd ever done in the endurance world.  Part of my misery was doubtless that I was unprepared for it in every way, having gotten virtually no sleep in the previous days due to work obligations and not having done a ride over 200k since my bad wreck four months beforehand.   I wasn't making that mistake this time: I'd been putting in the miles constantly for six months, and I'd been climbing like a maniac in preparation.  On the other hand, due to an unfortunate injury to my would-have-been riding companion, I'd be riding this one solo.  Sad panda.

Taking a look at the map, the ride starts in the NE corner at Front Royal, cruises south the length of Skyline and then onto the Blue Ridge Parkway, where it continues south to Buena Vista.  It then descends west into Buena Vista, loops back to the east, and then climbs back up to the ridgeline all the way back north to Rapine, where you descend to the west once again for the overnight stop.  One challenge with this arrangement is that the overnight stop comes at mile 227, well past the halfway point, and almost inevitably well after dark.  It makes for an exceedingly long and hilly first day, but at least the route is easy to follow!

7-Eleven breakfast for the win!

I chose to begin my ride at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, a stupidly early time, but my thinking was that, with an aggressive pace, I had a decent chance to finish the first day's ride by 9:00 p.m. or so, which would keep nighttime riding to a minimum.  Sure, I'd be climbing in the dark for the first hour, but that's pretty much just a gentle climb up to the ridgeline, so it's as easy before dawn as it would be any other time.  I had the road completely to myself for the first few hours, and I was treated to dawn breaking to the east in all its glory.  As interested as I was in making good times, I had to stop for some photos.

Red sky at night, randonneur's delight; Red sky at morning, Rando take warning.

Things went without a hitch for the first several hours.  In fact, despite my relatively heavy load, I set some Strava personal records in the early part of the southbound leg.

Peaceful as you like.

Proof of passage: I had to take photos of my bike at certain locations.

In fact, the first adversity of any sort I encountered was that I arrived at the Big Meadow Wayside about 15 minutes before it opened, so I made friends with a guy and his 10-year-old son, the latter of whom would entertain us by noting that a bicycle is like a robot that doesn't need electricity, and then laughing hysterically.  I conceded the point.

Big Meadow Wayside.  On the other side of this building, there's a meadow whose size I can't remember. 

After that, it was back on the road south toward vistas anew.

And some of these, too.

Taken over my shoulder as I rolled past.

You could spot the bears in advance because there would be a traffic jam of cars stopped all over the road as people raptly watched the poor critters lumbering around, eating grass and looking nonplussed.

It was in this area that I made my first mistake.  I hit the control at Loft Mountain Wayside, at mile 79.5, at about 9:45 a.m.   I put a couple of candy bars in my pocket, filled my three bottles, and rolled out without issue, thinking that my next refueling stop was at Humpback Rocks at Mile 111 (just over 30 miles away).  When I got to Humpback Rocks a couple of hours later, ready to restock, I found that they had literally nothing except water -- not even the sort of snack food one comes to expect.

I was out of everything, and looking at the cue sheet, the next stop was in Buena Vista at Mile 156 -- 45 miles away.  On Skyline, that could easily be a three-hour stretch.  I got some water and rolled out, hoping for the best.  It would wind up being about 77 miles between refueling stops.  Note to future riders: don't count on Humpback Rocks for much of anything.  For the next few hours, I'd be riding on pan y agua, sin pan.

Heaven looks like this.

Just as I stocked up on water, mother nature decided to encourage me by contributing to the effort.  A tendril of Tropical Storm Bonnie had reached out to touch someone, and I felt... touched.  A rain somewhere between steady and soaking settled in for the afternoon.  It wasn't terribly cold in the grand scheme, probably in the high 60s, but I had a couple of things going against me.  First, I was wearing a wool jersey and wool undershirt, which, while warm enough in general, quickly came to weigh about as much as my bike.  Second, although it wasn't too cold, Skyline is the sort of place where descents take 15 minutes, and when you're soaked to the gills, that's plenty of time to get the chills.  Finally, I was teetering precariously on the edge of Bonkville due to my not having had calories for three hours. I finally wafted into Buena Vista, shivering and as indignant as a cat in a washing machine, and parked myself at the Burger King, where I ordered two meals and a large coffee.

A couple of thoughts on this.  First, when you're soaked and shivering, sometimes it's worth it to spend some time hanging out under the hot-air hand dryers in the men's room; a warm, dry cap can be particularly welcome.  Second, not all fellow patrons will look favorably on this behavior.  Third, Burger King now has something called "chicken fries," which are chicken strips in the size and shape of French fries.  They are truly terrible.  Also, they are amazing, and I can't recommend them highly enough.  If, as I did, you pair them with two order of normal fries and a fried chicken breast sandwich, it's actually possible to form a protective layer of fat and cholesterol that will insulate you for miles.  For dessert, I highly recommend a king-sized roll of Sweet Tarts.

Thus sated to the point of waddling, I rolled out for the final 50 miles or so.  I was moving along well, and it seemed I'd have a long overnight rest to enjoy if I could make it there.  The miles immediately after Buena Vista are some of the more forgiving on the route; they aren't flat, but they're largely meandering through side roads in the valley.  Eventually, though, it was time to head back up to the ridgeline for the journey north to Raphine.

"Here come the hills, a-gain..."

Jammin' over the James (River).

The penultimate control for the day came at the James River Wayside.  They had a water fountain, so I wandered over to fill up a bottle and wound up doing a Wile-E-Coyote-like flailing, dancing, and ultimately-flipping-a**-over-teakettle comedy routine on wet flagstones right next to the water fountain.  It's moments like these that earn me so many groupies.  They also explain why, occasionally, riding solo ain't so bad: fewer cameras around.

The climb back up to the ridgeline was an 1800-foot grind, although it was tranquil enough.  I was chasing daylight but on pace to get to Raphine by 8:30 pm.

Sadly, it was not to be.  As soon as I regained altitude, the rain started dumping again, and it felt like, no matter how far I went, I was seeing no sign of the turnoff for Raphine.  Eventually I figured out why: in the rain and descending darkness, I'd gone miles past it, and of course, those miles were straight uphill.  Wet and irritated, I turned around and headed back, but by then, it was dark and the tropical storm was in full effect.  Worse, to get from the ridgeline down to Raphine, I had to descend the notorious Vesuvius climb (named for the tiny town at its base).  It's several miles long, with grades that regularly exceed 15%, and on a potholed country road under dense tree cover.  It's also exceedingly technical, with switchbacks and terrible sight lines.   With pitch darkness and wet roads that seemed to suck up the lights from my headlight and helmet, it was one of the more terrifying times I've had on a bike, picking my way down the mountain at about 5 mph, dodging potholes full of water and trying to figure out where the edge of the road became a precipitous drop into the woods. Yuck.

In all, the detour and conditions cost me nearly an hour; I reached Raphine at about 9:30 p.m. and had a Wendy's banquet before mucking my way down the road to the hotel.  There, after a decadently long shower, I spent about an hour desperately trying to figure out how to get my clothes dry.  I laid some of them out over the A/C vent; other items, like my shorts, were hung in the direct blast of the hair dryer.  If you've never smelled "cooked day-old chamois," I assure you that you're better off for the ignorance.  Eventually I decided that the remaining items were just going to have to air dry; I hung them and hoped for the best, noting with some dismay that my theoretically waterproof shell was doing its best sponge impression.

With a 4:00 a.m. wakeup, I'd gotten 4+ hours of sleep, which ain't half bad in this sort of endeavor.  My clothes were no longer dripping, and the storm had passed overnight.  Frankly, I'd have been comfortable starting earlier, but given the sketchy weather and the fact that the first control (the market at Wintergreen Resort) didn't open until 7:30, I figured there wasn't much point in rolling out before 5:00.  So I had a leisurely breakfast at Dunkin Donuts, filled the bottles and pockets, and headed back toward Vesuvius -- the hard way this time.

Vesuvius -- not ideal first thing in the morning when you've ridden 230 hilly miles the day before.  But there it was, 3 miles, 1500 feet of elevation gain, and an average grade of 9% (and upward of 15% in places).  I'd climbed it twice before, and each time it just seemed to keep going, and to keep getting steeper, at every turn.  This time, I managed to get up it at a steady rate despite being weighed down by 3 full water bottles and all other manner of cargo.  No speed records for sure, but that's ok.

Having regained the ridgeline, there was a straightforward 15-mile stretch to the north before the biggest challenge of the day: the route dropped down the ridgeline to the east, where it found the base of the Wintergreen Resort, and duly told us that the next control was at the top.  Sweet!  I knew Wintergreen, and it's just a beast.

2.3 miles at 9% average -- like a continuation of Vesuvius.  Thing is, the full Wintergreen climb starts in the valley and climbs fully a mile past the market, where we'd stop -- it's 7 miles of unadulterated beastliness.  Our portion was just a sample, though it wasn't exactly straightforward.  I managed to set a personal-record time up it despite being far from fresh -- woot!

It turned out that I'd gone a little faster than I predicted; the market wasn't open until 7:30, and I wasn't in the mood to wait around for 20 minutes, so I took off and trusted that I could get by in the cool morning temperatures.  

But first, one more challenge: from the base of the Wintergreen resort back up to the ridgeline is a mile, and it is absurdly steep.

A solid mile at 12-15% grade.  Yeesh.  Got it done; didn't fall over.  Minimum requirements met.

Having reached the ridgeline once more, I headed north: 125 miles to victory!  And a beautiful morning it was.

At times, I was far above the low-lying clouds filling the valleys, and it looked like distant hilltops were ships flowing on a sea of mist.

The remainder of the day was, dare I say it, gorgeous and straightforward.  I mean, look at this road:

It doesn't get better.  Somehow, despite the objective difficulty of the ride, I felt stronger as the day progressed and home got closer.  I even blew away a couple of my all-time personal best times on climbs toward the northern part of Skyline.  For example:

A 3-minute personal-best time on a 3-mile climb, and it came past mile 350 of a 2-day ride with 35,000 feet of climbing.  Crazy!  But fun.

The literal beauty of Skyline Drive has been well-covered, but there's also a figurative beauty in that the route is like a giant savings account.  When you start in Front Royal and head south, the first thing  you do is climb straight up, and you keep climbing, up to a total of about 3,500 feet.  When you're heading home, your effort is returned: most of the last 20 miles, and all of the last 5 miles, is a screaming descent.  It was the perfect epilogue to the adventure.

35 hours and 33 minutes later.

Man, what a ride.  The only downside came about 2 hours from the end, when I started getting a twinge in my right Achilles tendon.  I thought I had just tweaked it somehow, but it kept getting worse, and I could barely push the pedal on the half-mile ride from the 7-Eleven back to my car.  I was limping for days afterward, but I think I have it under control.   It's a weird injury for a cyclist (more common for a runner), but I think it was just overuse given that I'd climbed more than 60k feet in the previous 14 days, much of it up grades of 15% or steeper.  I'd tentatively planned to ride a tough 600k brevet with the D.C. Randonneurs the following weekend, but that just wasn't in the cards if there was any chance of making the injury worse or getting stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Final thoughts?  This ride was tough physically but pretty easy mentally.  With the exception of Vesuvius and Wintergreen, the climbs weren't too hard, even though there were many of them and they did stretch on for miles at a time.  The pavement is great, which makes a huge difference, and the descents are largely joyful, relaxing affairs.  The scenery is hard to beat, even if it does risk repetitiveness at times.  And there's something to be said for having a cue sheet that amounts to "go straight for 150 miles."  The interior of Alaska was the last time I've seen anything comparable.

In terms of comparisons between this SR600k and the Big Savage, I think the latter is clearly harder.  My GPS put that one at 37k feet of climbing to this one's 35k feet.  RideWithGPS puts them both at 37k feet.  But whatever the case, I think the main difference is that, no matter how tired you get, you can pretty much just crank up a 5-6% grade, which is mostly what this route demands.  Once things get up above 10% -- which Big Savage does all day long -- it becomes considerably tougher.  The descents on Big Savage are also more demanding -- more technical and rutted.  My only hesitation in this comparison is that my fitness for this ride was vastly better, and the temperatures were more moderate.  Those things matter tremendously.  Even so, on the whole, I'd award this ride the "King of the Vistas" prize, and Big Savage the "King of the Mountains."

Next up for me is the National 24-Hour Challenge in Michigan on June 18, and then the 520-mile Race Across Oregon on July 16.

Ride Review: Devil's Wicked Stepmother 414k Permanent

Being somewhat of a wimp when it comes to riding in cold weather, I've traditionally hung out on my Computrainer until the trees are in bloom.  But, when I saw that early March would serve up a midweek day of 80 degrees and sunshine, I had to go big.  As Val Kilmer memorably put it, "it's a moral imperative."

The question was, what route to ride?  It's hard to get excited about routes leaving from D.C.; while pleasant enough, they're ridden so often that it feels more like a workout than an adventure.  The most appealing rides were in the Shenandoah Valley, but that was far enough away that I wanted to make the drive worth it.  Finally, with this year's focus on a couple of truly mountainous events, I wanted to climb.  Searching the RUSA permanents, the answer quickly became clear:  Crista Borras's 414k permanent known as "Devil's Wicked Stepmother."  With nearly 18,000 feet of climbing over 258 miles, it's a route that would be challenging at any time of year, much less in March.  But, the way I saw it, I could keep the pedals turning and finish eventually.  I guessed I might be able to finish it in around 18 hours, but who knew?  Only one person had ridden it previously, and given that I didn't recognize his name, I figured it might have prompted him to retire from cycling.

After an indecently early wake-up and drive from D.C., I rolled out from Strasburg, Virginia at 4:00 a.m.  One disadvantage to long rides early in the season is that the nights are long -- the first 2+ hours were ridden in the dark.  Riding west toward Moorefield, West Virginia, the climbing began almost immediately with a 1500-foot grinder.  But it was hard to keep my spirits down: the road surfaces were terrific, the sky was full of stars, and traffic was minimal (although what vehicles there were tended to be massive gasoline tankers, which were not much fun).  Unfortunately, although the overnight lows had been predicted to hover around 50, my GPS unit and various billboards showed that the actual temperature was in the high 30s for several hours, which was an entirely different ballgame -- my decision not to wear knee warmers was a misstep.  It's a lesson I seem to need to relearn periodically: weather forecasts do not apply in the mountains.

The first control, a Sheetz in Moorefield at mile 53, took longer to reach than I hoped it would; riding in the mountains at night is no recipe for speed.  After wolfing down a breakfast burrito the size of my head, I turned south toward Monterey, Virginia, some 90 miles away.  This section, through Lost River, WV, is God's Country for any cyclist ambitious enough to take it on: endless vistas, mountain rivers, cliff faces, wildlife, and not a car to be seen for dozens of miles at a time.  It's my favorite place to ride in the mid-Atlantic.

There's nothing quite like cruising with a rock face to one side and rapids to the other, and that was the scene for hours on end.  It's roads like this that cause me to be sad when people talk about cycling on the trails around D.C. -- to me, that just ain't what it's about.  Miles 53-90, to the Brandywine control, were as good as it gets.

The toughest part of this adventure was miles 90-143, i.e., from Brandywine to Monterey.  There are virtually no services in this stretch; there is literally no cell service, and West Virginia's ambivalent attitude toward paving roads is on full display -- there was loose pea gravel over much of the surface, and certain stretches were exercises in mitigating damage.  Making matters tougher, the temperatures rose quickly, as did the elevation reading: this stretch is essentially 50 miles of false flat, into a strong headwind, punctuated by a series of 1,000-foot climbs.  It is excruciatingly slow-going at times.  Luckily, there was a country store at mile 120 or so, which allowed me to refill my bottles before continuing the southward slog.

Unfortunately, while I was stopped at the store, I noticed something alarming: apparently the rough pavement of the previous 30 miles had dislodged my flat kit, which was nowhere to be seen.  Not good: I was 120 miles from my car, 135 miles from the end of the ride, in the middle of nowhere, with no cell service to speak of.  If I'd have flatted, it could have been truly ugly -- without tire levers, I'd have been hard pressed even to get the tire off of the rim.  That's one clear benefit of riding in a group -- the ability to help each other out -- but I had no choice but to press on in the hope of finding a small-town bike shop at some point. 

The scenery did its best to cheer me up, but in truth, I was pretty nervous about the situation.

Fortunately, no news was good news on the tire front, and after seemingly climbing forever into a diabolical headwind, I rolled into Monterey on fumes.  My goal had been to stay in the saddle and make steady progress, but I needed to cool off and fuel up -- to that point, the ride had been much more difficult than I'd expected, and my 18-hour guesstimate was looking profoundly implausible.  Given my tire situation, I'd hoped that Virginia's pavement would surpass West Virginia's.

Delightfully, from Monterey, the route turned east and headed into the George Washington National Forest, i.e., The Best Cycling on Earth.  There was a toll to be paid in the form of two gut-punch climbs out of Monterey replete with switchbacks that would have been at home in the Alps, but the views from the summits were incomparable, and that immutable cycling truth paid big dividends: what goes up must come down.  The descents were just heavenly, complete with the sun speckling through trees and a gentle tailwind. 

The saving grace of this route is that, if you can hang on through mile 165, the last century will take care of itself: the Shenandoah Valley guides one home along immaculate roads, and the gravitational pull of the finish line ensures that one stays motivated.  I never did pass through a town with a bike shop, but my worries were for naught.  To the extent there was a downside, it was only insofar as darkness fell hours before I finished, an inevitable by-product of the season.

The ride finishes at a Denny's, the last refuge of cyclists wearing coral arm sleeves and, um, heavily tattood skinheads.  As I sat waiting for my late-night omelette, I was amazed to see that my 18-hour guess had been off by... 2 minutes.  Maybe I'm getting the hang of this after all.

Viewing the ride as a whole, I have to say that I think the D.C. Randonneurs are missing a step by failing to include it on the calendar at some point -- it is simply too good to lie dormant on the RUSA website for years on end.  The only downside to it is that, yes, it is difficult.  But it's surely no more difficult than the Mother of All 300ks, which has nearly as much climbing in a shorter span, and the scenery is well worth it.  Congrats to Crista on putting together something special.