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. 

Dancing in Coral Shoes: 24 Hours of Sebring, 2016 Edition

Valentine's Day weekend of 2016 marked my third annual trip to Bike Sebring, one of the best attended and most competitive ultracycling races on the calendar.  (My 2014 report can be found here.)

Any 24-hour race is difficult by definition, but this one poses a unique challenge: the peak training months are December and January, which is the holiday season and one where it's tough to put in huge outdoor miles.  Compounding that difficulty has been my tough work schedule this winter, which didn't allow me to ride longer than 6 hours at a time, and the fact that my fitness was in a deep hole at the beginning of November following a long injury layoff, wedding, and honeymoon.  Essentially, I was trying to lose weight, build base miles, and get faster, all at once.  Not an easy task.

And then there's the competition -- at the top end, it's tough.  Sebring is often used as a destination race for those neck-deep in training for RAAM in June.  For a healthy portion of those individuals, RAAM training is literally their full-time job.  It's not that they get paid for it -- quite the opposite, there's no prize money and it's notably expensive -- but they've arranged their affairs in such a way that the main focus of every day is building bike fitness.  For a host of reasons, that's not the world I live in.  A better sense of my schedule that, in the first two weeks of January, my life consisted of 10 depositions, 2 arguments in the D.C. Circuit, trying to keep my new wife from reconsidering that whole "I do" decision, and maybe a little cycling.

So, with a hat tip to Teddy Roosevelt, I did what I could, with what I had, where I was.  I did zero outdoor rides after mid-November, but I hit the Computrainer 5-6 times a week for a variety of endurance rides and interval sessions.  I also did plyometric workouts 3x/week, which I've found to be particularly effective and time-efficient full-body cross-training.

In all, I was basically preparing for a marathon by training to run a fast 10k.  It's better than nothing, but far from ideal.

Despite the training challenges, by the time the race rolled around, I felt pretty optimistic: my power numbers were where I wanted them and I was healthy; I just hoped I could hold it together for the whole 24 hours.  In 2014 I went 441 miles, and I followed it up with 475 miles in 2015.  The course record for my new age group was 483 miles, which I thought was in the realm of the possible.

NEW IDEAS

When it comes to bike setup, I'm an inveterate tinkerer -- each race I do things a little differently in an effort to go a bit faster and stay on the bike longer.  It doesn't always work out, but at least it keeps things interesting.  This year, my approach focused on aerodynamics.  I bought an affordable disc wheel from Flo Cycling, found a behind-the-saddle hydration system that would mount to wide Selle Anatomica rails, and put a between-the-aerobat bottle mount on the front.  The idea was to get the bottles up out of the wind while allowing me to go for at least a couple of hours between refueling stops.  Given that the course was flat, I wasn't concerned about weight.  My final tweak was to tape my Cardo BK-1 (now Terrano X) communication system to my aero helmet -- it's meant to strap to vents, but I didn't have any of those.  Given the moderate predicted temperatures, I wasn't worried about overheating.

As an added "I just gotta be me" touch, I found some dandy coral shoe covers and arm sleeves that would make me visible for my crew.  Yes, they're Rapha.  (Shush.  I sleep just fine at night.)

I am extremely fancy.

AT 'EM

The race at Sebring starts with 3 quick laps around the racetrack (a total of 11 miles or so), and then a 90-mile lap through the orange groves of central Florida.  In both 2014 and 2015, I'd been blown out the back of the pack in the first mile.  The trick is that there are several races starting at once, including a draft-legal 100-miler and 12-hour.  The guys at the front of those races ride blisteringly fast in a pace line, and the fastest 24-hour racers go nearly as quickly.  The result was that, in the last couple of years, I was already 30 minutes behind after the first century.   This year, I decided to try to hold the pace a bit better.  Surprisingly, I was able to keep in touch with the lead pack on the track while keeping my wattage in a reasonable range.  Maybe my aerodynamic tweaks helped more than I'd anticipated.

To Frostproof and Beyond!  Well, to Frostproof, anyway.

As we set out into the countryside, things were going well -- alarmingly so.  I was in a small lead non-drafting group consisting of Marko Baloh (Slovenian, course record holder, multiple world record holder, multiple RAAM finisher, training for RAAM 2016, and different species of cyclist), Erik Newsholme (440 miles last year and training for RAAM 2016), and Fabio Silvestri (highly experienced Brazilian rider training for RAAM 2016).  Notice a trend here?  Tough crowd.

Briefly leading the 12-hour train, which we leapfrogged periodically.

The four of us stayed in touching distance through the turnaround at mile 55 (at nearly 24 mph), at which point I started getting a little concerned.   My concern was named Marko -- he was still there.  I'm not insecure about my riding ability, but I am not in his class based on the several times we've competed, and last year he was 15' ahead of me by that point.  My power was reasonable, if maybe 5-10 watts above target, but I was relaxed, eating well, and didn't feel as if I was pushing things.  I'd have preferred if he pulled away, thus restoring the order of the universe and confirming that I wasn't riding stupidly, but one can never tell: maybe he was sick or training through the race.  I decided the mere fact that he was there wasn't reason enough for me to slow down -- that would basically be adopting an inferiority complex as a race strategy -- so I went with it.  Eventually he pulled away a bit and Fabio went with him, although they were in sight for the most part.  Erik took a little additional time refueling at the turnaround, but I suspected he wasn't far behind.

I will say this: despite my lack of mileage, I'd rarely felt so strong on a bike.  It was flow state to the horizon.  In 2014 and 2015, I rolled through the century mark in 4 hours and 42 minutes (21.3 mph).  This year, despite feeling like I was trying less hard, I rolled through in what was, for me, a scalding 4:14 (23.6 mph).  Where had an extra 2.3 mph come from?  God knows.

Unfortunately, things got a little more challenging at this point, because my power meter died.  I'd noticed in the days beforehand that it was eating batteries, and I put in a new one the morning before the race, but it crapped out 5 hours in.  (The battery life is rated at 200 hours.)  So, I was faced with riding the final 19 hours on perceived exertion.  I'm not an "addicted to a power meter" guy, but it serves the critical purpose of telling you objectively when you're pushing a little too hard, an important thing to know in a race that lasts all day and all night.  So, I just kinda eyeballed it, trying to push forward deliberately without stopping longer than absolutely necessary.

The 11-mile daytime loops are, historically, my strongest portion of this event.  They reward disciplined riding and provide a little variety: hills to climb, winds to combat, nutrition handoffs to manage, and so forth.

Getting a little loopy.

Nothing about the loops is hard, but they wear on you, and this year the temperatures crept up to nearly 80 degrees -- very pleasant, really, but also warmer than I've ridden in for quite awhile.  For the first time ever at this event, I can say that no one passed me over the course of my 13 loops.  (Indeed, last year, I only managed 12 loops before getting routed onto the track.)  I didn't think I was pushing too hard, but without a power reading, I was only guessing.

Buzzing right along!

By the time I reached the track again at around 5:45 pm, my only conclusion was that I was having the ride of my life.  I was winning the race among humans (second behind Marko), and I was 20 miles ahead of where I'd been at that time in 2015's 475-mile effort.  Here are the splits:

                                               2015           2016  
Long loop (101 miles)       4:46:54       4:17:35
Daytime 1 (11 miles)            32:56          31:27
Daytime 2 (11 miles)            32:05          31:21
Daytime 3 (11 miles)            32:36          31:46
Daytime 4 (11 miles)            32:23          30:52
Daytime 5 (11 miles)            32:25          32:32
Daytime 6 (11 miles)            32:05          32:49
Daytime 7 (11 miles)            32:51          34:08
Daytime 8 (11 miles)            32:19          32:06
Daytime 9 (11 miles)            33:19          31:04
Daytime 10 (11 miles)          33:12          32:07
Daytime 11 (11 miles)          33:48          32:49
Daytime 12 (11 miles)          33:56          33:32
Daytime 13 (11 miles)                             32:55

I don't have power numbers to confirm, but these loops look pretty good to me -- about 75% were faster than they'd been in 2015, but not outrageously so; it's tough to compare loop-for-loop because I stopped to refuel at slightly different points, but the bottom line was, I think I executed about as well as I could have hoped to.  I was going consistently faster than in 2015, but my splits weren't falling apart in any significant way, as they would if I'd overcooked the first century and first few daytime loops.  All I had to do was have an average overnight ride by my historical standards and I'd be in the 500-mile club.

The Sebring raceway is 3.7 miles long, and it's the flattest place it is humanly possible to ride a bicycle.  After the hills on the daytime loop, that flatness seems completely inviting, but it is deceptive.  With such a flat course, there's no time to stop pedaling without paying a penalty, no opportunity to shift your weight, and mentally, it can be profoundly taxing.  It's dark for 13+ hours in Sebring in February (compared with maybe 9 hours in a summer event), and you're going in loops for that entire time with nothing at all to look at.  What's worse, each year I've struggled mightily to stay warm -- there's something about the damp Florida air that soaks into my bones no matter what I wear.  (I'm told the crews feel the same way, which is of minor comfort, although I wish they didn't have to experience it.)

Anyway, I set off like a man on a mission, and for the first several hours -- until 1:00 a.m. or so -- I executed just as I'd hoped to.  My splits held reasonably solid:

Loop   Split    Elapsed time
1         10:09   11:27:05 
2         10:06   11:37:11  
3         10:57   11:48:07  
4         12:58   12:01:05  
5         10:29   12:11:33  
6         10:21   12:21:54                                                     
7         11:03   12:32:57  
8         10:22   12:43:18  
9         11:03   12:54:20  
10       10:15   13:04:35  
11       10:13   13:14:47                                                      
12       10:16   13:25:03  
13       12:59   13:38:01  
14       10:41   13:48:42  
15       14:45   14:03:26  
16       10:15   14:13:40                                                      
17       10:11   14:23:51  
18       10:08   14:33:58  
19       10:08   14:44:05  
20       10:11   14:54:16  
21       10:13   15:04:28                             
22       10:19   15:14:47  
23       10:12   15:24:59  
24       10:30   15:35:28  
25       10:56   15:46:23  
26       16:29   16:02:52                           
27       11:28   16:14:20  
28       11:22   16:25:41  
29       10:54   16:36:35  
30       10:53   16:47:27  
31       11:05   16:58:31                                                   
32       11:07   17:09:37  
33       12:51   17:22:28  
34       11:10   17:33:37  
35       11:03   17:44:39  
36       11:18   17:55:56                             
37       11:55   18:07:50  
38       11:27   18:19:17  
39       11:37   18:30:53  

Sure, by 1:00 a.m. my pace was about 10% slower than it had been at 5:45 p.m., but that's to be expected. The problem was, at that point, things started trending downhill quickly. I was still clinging to second place by my teeth, but Erik was blowing by me ridiculously quickly, and I was struggling to keep pace with folks I'd been passing all day long.  It was highly demoralizing.

My thoughts turned to the cardinal rule of long distance cycling: whatever you think the problem is, the actual problem is probably nutritional -- specifically, not enough calories.  My mother, loyal crew member that she is, heated up some chicken broth with carbohydrate power in it, which had saved me in the past in similar situations, and then she encouraged me to have some hot chocolate too, which I did.  Unfortunately, over the next hour, I wound up on the side of the road twice, horribly sick.  I just wasn't absorbing any of it, and the longer I went without getting calories, the harder it became to push the pedals, which made it increasingly difficult to stay warm.  It's a pernicious cycle that's critical to arrest. 

The bottom line is, I just couldn't get the ship turned around.  From 1:00 onward, my splits fell apart entirely:

Loop   Split    Elapsed time
40       12:12   18:43:05  
41       15:35   18:58:39                                                      
42       12:10   19:10:49   
43       16:54   19:27:43  
44       11:23   19:39:05  
45       12:22   19:51:26  
46       16:46   20:08:12                                                     
47       12:55   20:21:07  
48       15:18   20:36:24  
49       13:55   20:50:18  
50       13:17   21:03:35  
51       13:52   21:17:27                                                
52       13:50   21:31:16 

It's normal to slow down somewhat toward the end of one of these events, but from compared to hours 12-18 (when I was already long into the day), hours 19-21.5 were about 30% slower and heading in the wrong direction.  I tried every trick I knew, including standing in the saddle for extended periods, but I just had nothing left to give.  Couldn't keep food or liquid down, couldn't warm up.  Just ugly.   

Just after 4:00 a.m., while contemplating next steps, I suddenly found myself rolling across the grass. Odd -- that hadn't happened on previous laps.  Turns out I had just failed to notice that the road turned, and off I went, cruising to who-knows-where.  I managed to find the course again, but I realized that things were going from bad to worse.  I stopped and sat down in the crew area for a couple of minutes to try to solve the puzzle, but doing so just made me colder, so I eventually went to sit in my parents' car for a couple of minutes to heat up.  Those minutes stretched on, and I decided I'd had enough for this year.  It was all I could do to get my bike without shivering uncontrollably.

In the end, I went 449 miles, good for third place among men.  (Sarah Cooper, who is rapidly becoming a legend, also beat me soundly, overturning a 30' deficit heading onto the track to finish with a 479-mile course record).  Erik Newsholme went 491, up from 440 last year, and Marko... well, what can you say.  He destroyed everyone last year with 521, and this year he went 533.  Frightening.

CONCLUSIONS

I have mixed feelings about this year's performance.  It's difficult not to view it as an opportunity lost -- I've never ridden so well for so long, and it's frustrating not to translate 18 hours of terrific work into 24 hours of final results.  Having said that, as of the beginning of November, I was as out of shape as I've been in a long time; I'd just had an effective 6-month layoff following a terrible bike wreck and recovery, engagement, wedding, and honeymoon.  And, since November, work and other commitments only permitted me a handful of training rides of 5 or 6 hours.  When work hasn't been burying me, my priority has been to spend time with my wife rather than on the bike.  

In light of everything, I think the only reasonable way to view my performance is to be delighted that I put together an exceedingly strong 18-hour race.  Indeed, this year I beat my 2014 ride by 8 miles even though I rode for 1.5 hours less.  The strength will come eventually; it's February and I'm not racing RAAM.  All three riders who beat me will be toe'ing the line in Oceanside in June (Cooper is racing Race Across the West this year, although RAAM seems inevitable for her), so they're just in different places.  The competitor in me finds it a little difficult to accept that my life just doesn't allow me to train the way some of these guys do -- I have to cut corners in ways that sometimes don't work out -- but life is about striking a balance and that's what I'm trying to do.  

Many congratulations to Marko, Erik, and Sarah on huge performances, and also to the D.C. folks who had personal-best days or gave ultracycling a try for the first time.  I hope there's more to come!

"Big Savage" Super 600k ride report

Sometimes I was the balloon on the left, but mostly I was that other one.

2015 has been a heck of a year, in the best and worst of ways.  It started out in spectacular fashion: after a hard winter on the trainer, I cranked out 475 miles at the 24-hour race at Bike Sebring, setting a new age group course record in the process.  Although that total would have won the race in 2012-2014, this year it was good enough only for fourth overall, behind these characters.

Scott Lukart, Marko Balloh, and Anders Tesgaard.  Photo credit to Marko

(Note: as it turns out, this picture is deeply poignant.  Since it was taken in February, disaster has befallen two of the three men in it.  Scott, on the left, lost a battle with depression and is no longer with us.  He was one of the strongest ultracyclists alive.  Anders, on the right, was hit by a car toward the end of Race Across America, and has been in a coma for nearly three months.  Sometimes it is hard to make sense of how cruel life can be.)

Still, I couldn't have been happier with the result day.  I carried that optimism into my second race of the year, the 24-hour Texas Ultra Spirit, which I was leading by 30 minutes or so after 5 hours, only to have a truly catastrophic crash when I hit a wet metal grate bridge at 30 miles per hour around midnight.  I wound up with severe lacerations on my left leg and both arms; worst of all, my left elbow was shattered, and the muscle had to be re-wired to the bone.  After a 4-hour surgery and several days in the hospital, I was released to go home, where a second surgery awaited me.

Cycling is great!  *High five*

And thus ended my racing season, basically, as early as April.  I wouldn't be back on my bike until mid June.

But, just as things looked bleak, they turned dramatically for the better: I got engaged!

Yeah, my mom didn't believe it, either.

Amidst the celebrations, the breakneck-speed planning for an October wedding, and working an extremely demanding job, training just wasn't happening.  I toed the line for a relatively flat 400k brevet in late June, and made it 80 miles before concluding that I didn't have another 170 in me.  Not only was I not up to it physically, but I didn't have the mental drive to keep on pushing.  It wasn't good.

Since then, I've been on Project: Rebuild.  It's been ugly, but it's coming along.  I've dropped 10 pounds or so and been more consistent with the riding, including ticking off a relatively hilly 200k without undue drama.

But all of this left me with a dilemma: I couldn't imagine letting the year go by without doing an epic ride of some sort.  In 2013, it was Alaska's Big Wild Ride 1200k.  Last year, it was the Central California Coast 1200k and Silver State 508.  The crash had derailed my plans for Race Across Oregon in July, and wedding planning had kept me out of racing shape, but surely I could find something that would make for a good story.

To my rescue rode D.C. Randonneur Bill Beck, who earlier in 2015 had created and certified the Big Savage Super Randonnee 604k.  A "Super Randonnee" (or "SR") 600k is a relatively new type of ride that follows most of the rules for brevets -- including controls, and so forth -- but with a couple of additional twists.  First, there is no outside support allowed, including at controls.  (So, no loved ones meeting you with tissues to dry your tears.)  Second, and more important, the amount of climbing involved is disturbing.  Normal 600k rides are anything but flat, but SR-600s are designed to test your will to live, even if they do give you some extra time to ponder your bad decision.  Here is the elevation profile for the Big Savage Super Randonnee:

Warning: Zooming in may cause nausea.

In short, this 375-mile behemoth had 38,600 feet of climbing, or over 100 feet per mile.  To put it in perspective, that's as much climbing per mile as the legendary Savageman triathlon, which is known for having the toughest 56-mile bike course in the country -- it's just that this ride was 7 times as long.  Indeed, the similarity to Savageman is not coincidental: the Big Savage 600k traverses some of the same territory, through the perilously steep hills of western Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia.

It somehow worked out that, despite wedding planning and so forth, I had a 3-day weekend free over Labor Day, so I circled it on the calendar and roped in my longtime riding buddy Max, who was preparing to take on the Natchez Trace 440-miler in a month's time.

The Plan, with Obstacles

We determined to set out at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday morning from Hancock, Maryland.  (It's also possible to ride it the opposite way, starting from Woodstock, Virginia, but for reasons discussed later, I think we made a wise decision.)  We'd ride in a 187-mile counterclockwise arc to Woodstock, Virginia, where we'd get some sleep before reversing our path on Sunday morning.  It looked like a tough route, but we'd both ridden extremely mountainous stuff on plenty of occasions, and there was no pressing timetable here.  My biggest worry was that I hadn't ridden anything longer than 120 miles since early April -- I was going to have to rely on my years of experience with mountainous rides.

Unfortunately, I encountered a massive setback before our pedals traced a radian.  My job carries with it the periodic risk of having disasters land on my lap, and two of them did in the three days before we were supposed to to ride.  Indeed, Friday afternoon found me in federal court opposing an emergency motion to prevent the transfer of a massive hydroelectric dam to an Indian tribe -- something I'd known nothing about 24 hours beforehand.  In short, I worked 32 hours on Thursday and Friday, and got a combined 7 hours of sleep in the two nights before the ride.  The 2:15 a.m. wakeup on Saturday was unwelcome.  If I'd have been writing on a blank slate, I'd have decided against the ride, but I'd committed to being there and I wasn't inclined to let work wreck my only remaining big ride for the year.  So, I sucked it up and got out there.  Yippee ki yay, m_f_!

My Perspective

This writeup is meant at least in part for future riders considering this challenge.  Such riders understand that, when they read someone's assessment of difficulty, that assessment must be viewed relatively -- that is, "What is the rider's measure of difficulty?"  For them, I'll briefly state that I'm drawn to sadistic bike rides like chain grease to white chinos, and I'm reasonably good at them.  I've ridden the Mountains of Misery 200k (14,500' feet of climbing) on 7 occasions, with a best time of 7:49.  The two "normal" 600k brevets I've ridden have been solo efforts of 27 and 25 hours, respectively, and they've had about 20,000 feet of climbing each.  I averaged 455 miles in the three 24-hour races I contested in 2014.  I've ridden two 1200k with no drama, and competed successfully in the Silver State 508 in 2014.  Most recently, in April 2015, I rode a 24-hour flèche with 21,000 feet of climbing in 250 miles, and I rode to the start the day before, covering 210 miles with 12,000 feet of climbing.  This isn't to say that I'm the strongest rider out there, but only that, in general, I think of challenge as a positive thing, and I'm not prone to dramatic exaggeration.

Given that perspective, here's the bottom line: this ride crushed me like no athletic endeavor I've undertaken; if you're thinking of doing it, you should ask yourself why and demand a compelling answer.  I desperately looked for any way to abandon it on multiple occasions, and I probably would have if there had been an escape button to press.  Comparisons to other challenging road rides are largely unhelpful.  I'm proud that I finished it, but two days later, I'm still staring into space and coughing fitfully.  I honestly cannot recommend in good conscience that anyone sign up for this madness.  Of course, I fully understand that, for some riders out there, these warnings only make the challenge more attractive.  For them, I offer the following tale of pathos, with bits of advice intermixed.

Leg 1: Hancock, MD, to Grantsville, MD
Distance: 60 miles

We rolled out in balmy darkness and started climbing at about the 100-yard mark.  It had been raining in the early morning, and we quickly ascended into fog, with my head-mounted Exposure Joystick light emitting a cyclops beam into the great beyond.  The pavement was great and the roads utterly deserted -- I don't think a car passed us for the first 30 miles.  The challenge was that, in the fog and darkness, visibility was terrible: the lights just caused a blast of glare in front of us.  Descending was none too stellar, either.

Perhaps the worst aspect of the damp air was that we quickly became soaked to the gills with a combination of sweat and humidity, a pattern that would repeat itself pretty consistently over the next 42 hours.

In terms of terrain, the first the first 60 miles of this ride are deceptively difficult.  None of the grades is shockingly steep, but they Do.  Not.  End.  In fact, the first 60 miles have than 7,000 feet of climbing.  (Extrapolate that out to your typical 200k, and you're heading for 15k feet, which is more than Mountains of Misery.)

I was feeling reasonably all right, but we were making disturbingly slow progress.  After a quick refueling stop in Cumberland, it was up and over Big Savage.  From the north, the climb is less an obstacle, and more a way of life.  At the second control, I realized with some dismay that I was exhausted.  It was Fritos-n-Coke triage time, and we'd only just begun.

Leg 2: Grantsville, MD, to Keyser, WV
Distance: 28 miles

The second leg was one of the more forgiving ones -- riding along the Big Savage ridgeline, descending a bit, summiting again, and then plummeting down through Westernport, MD, and crossing the river in to West Virginia.  Only one thousand-foot climb in this stretch!  Indeed, anyone who's written the Diabolical Double at Garrett County Gran Fondo will recognize almost all of this.  

The tragedy here was a tragedy indeed: after climbing for so long, the descent was harrowing.  In fact, as we approached Westernport, the road changed to something like pea gravel, which is not good when you're descending a 15% grade with sharp turns.  And then we plummeted into Westernport itself, down a road that's almost unspeakably steep.  In the rain, I'm not sure it would be rideable.  By the time we reached the control, my hands were cramping.  

Happily, however, I was feeling better, and the sun was finally beginning to do its part to dry us out.

Leg 3: Keyser, WV, to Mooresville, WV
Distance: 41 miles

It doesn't look like much, does it?  In fact, it looked downright great after one leg of endless climbing and another of "hide the children" descending.  Finally, a chance to make some progress over some light rollers.

Well, yes and no.  The challenge was that, with our 5:00 start, we began this third leg at about 1:00 p.m. on a sunny summer afternoon, as the heat climbed toward 90 degrees.  There's only one climb, but the rollers were vicious, and my two bottles were not nearly enough.  As it turns out, there's a water spigot available at a church halfway through this leg, but because Max and I were using GPS guidance, we failed to note it the first time through.  In my opinion, this spigot is utterly mandatory.  Skip it at your peril.  

In all honesty, this stretch was not much fun: it was long, hot, exposed, and fairly uninteresting.  It was largely a process of sweating out every molecule of liquid in my body.  By the time we reached the Patterson Creek climb toward the end, I was utterly toast -- disoriented, cramping everywhere, and wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into.  That climb, for the record, punches up near 20% grade in sections, and there is no shade to be found.  For the first time in many years, I dismounted my bike halfway up a climb, bent over the bars, and waited for the world to stop spinning.  

Max waited an unduly long time at the top of the climb, and then we made our way down to Fox Pizza in Mooresville, West Virginia.  By the time we got there, my feet, calves, quads, hip flexors, and hands were cramping so badly I could barely hobble off my bike and crash in a booth.  Red Wizard needed food, badly.

If this is heaven, we're in trouble.

Now, let's be clear: Fox Pizza is terrible.  And, on top of its being terrible, I could barely eat because my system was shutting down.  So, we agreed to stay there until things got better -- that took an hour.  In that time, I drank fully a gallon of cold liquids and ate what I could.  I couldn't remember the last time I'd been cracked so badly, but there we were, at mile 129, with 62 miles left to go.  And we'd just finished the easy stretch.

Leg 4: Mooresville, WV, to Lost River, WV

Distance: 28 miles

The 28-mile segment to Lost River was a one-trick pony.  That trick was a 2,000-foot climb up South Branch Mountain, which I'd never heard of.  Bill Beck, the organizer, had rated it the toughest climb on the route, but I was feeling better, and I'd climbed some tough stuff in my day.  It was only one climb, so HTFU, right?

As it turned out... no.  Not even a little bit.  This climb utterly crushed me.  Neither one of us made it up without stopping, but for me, that wasn't the half of it.  I wound up walking my bike almost a mile up this thing, something I hadn't done in the history of my cycling career.  (So much for the squeaky clean new bike shoes.) Not that walking it up was straightforward, frankly.  I still had to stop periodically to double myself over against the railing while the world came back into focus.

Here's the bottom line: If you don't have a triple or the gearing equivalent, this climb will almost certainly break you.  It is easily as difficult as the final climb at Mountains of Misery, and your legs will be more tired when you get there.  If you're riding this route the other way, such that you hit this on Day 2, may God have mercy on your soul.

I've rarely been in as despondent a frame of mind as I was on South Branch Mountain -- cracked, cramping, exhausted, dehydrated, with 60 miles to ride before sleep, and then facing the prospect of doing it all again the next day.  If I'd had a "pick me up" button, I'd have pressed it, no question.  In fact, I told Max I had no idea how I could possibly ride the next day -- I'd already had one very bad outcome on a ride this year, and I couldn't face another.

We did finally make it to the top.  I don't want to talk about it.  This climb shouldn't exist, least of all on this ride.  The descent was ok, to the extent I could ride straight, which was to no extent.  I hit a few potholes. Yay.

If there was any silver lining, it was that, at mile 155, we reached the control at the Lost River Grill.  The place is a shelter from the cruel world outside, with comfortable booths, a terrific menu, a refrigerator case of pie slices, and endless coffee.  We stopped for dinner, and stayed there resolutely for a good long while.  Afterward, we'd head out in the dark for the final 33 miles to the overnight control in Woodstock -- a stretch that, naturally, contained two more climbs.

Leg 5: Lost River, WV, to Woodstock, VA

Distance: 32 miles

I feared the worst, but thankfully, the worst was behind us.  The two climbs, through Mill Gap and Wolf Gap,  were nothing compared to what had come before, and the 15-mile cruise between them was about as beautiful a nighttime ride as I'd ever seen: silky tarmac, stars in the sky, and no traffic to be found.  I figured I could just about get myself to Woodstock.  The descent down Wolf's Gap wasn't straightforward at night, but my Exposure Strada headlight did the trick, and Woodstock arrived after a celebratory spin along roads that almost could be termed humane.

As we rolled toward the overnight control, I tried to figure out how I was going to find a ride back to the start.  Saturday's 190 miles -- with 19,000 feet of climbing -- had been by far the hardest 300k I'd ever ridden.  I'd somehow managed it on patently inadequate training and vanishingly little sleep, but I saw very little chance of riding it the other way the next morning.  More to the point, I truly, deeply didn't want to.  Max convinced me to get some sleep and make the call the next morning, which I agreed to do.  I was in a dark place in every respect.

We reached Woodstock around 11:00 p.m., 18 hours after we'd rolled out.  Ridiculous.  I might not be a competent ultracyclist, but I was going to stay at a Holiday Inn Express that night.

Leg 6: Woodstock, VA, to Lost River, WV
Distance: 32 miles

After a decadent (by randonneur standards) 6+ hours of sleep and a raid on the continental breakfast, we rolled out.  I was feeling stronger after a solid sleep, and Max had none of my self-pity, so I figured I owed it to him to give it a go.  We were rewarded with what has to be one of the most perfect early morning rides I've ever experienced: crisp air, sunlight speckling the road through the canopy of trees, and a fresh layer of asphalt that made it almost like... floating.  It was exactly like that for these folks.

It was that kinda morning.

There are few prettier roads in the Mid Atlantic, and it almost made it seem like we'd made a wise decision in how to spend our weekend.

Leg 7: Lost River, WV, to Mooresville, WV
Distance: 28 miles

Back to Lost River Grill for second breakfast: dessert!  Max went for some apple pie, while I attacked a slice of red velvet cake.  My goal for the day was no more dehydration and no more bonking, and this was the first salvo in the glycogen war.

More like it.

The curse of this route was its out-and-back shape: if you have to climb 2,000 feet over a ridgeline on Day 1, you can be pretty sure what you're in for on Day 2.  And so it was that we had our second encounter with South Branch Mountain.  Fortune, though, was smiling on us: South Branch is quite asymmetric, and the approach from the southeast, while long, posed no undue hardship.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the descent: the grade that broke me, complete with switchbacks and gravel washed across the road, was the sort of thing you just hope to get down in one piece.  Max seemed undaunted, but descending at speed isn't my strength, and my memories of April's wreck were only too fresh.  I was glad to make it down intact, but the journey made me feel a little better about what had happened to me the day before.  I'd had no chance whatever, a dead cyclist walking.  Well played, South Branch Mountain.  You need a more memorable name.

Leg 8: Mooresville, WV, to Keyser, WV
Distance: 41 miles

We couldn't bear the thought of pizza for brunch, so we skipped Mooresville's Fox Pizza the second time through and instead set up shop at Food Giant.  We'd have given our kingdoms for a deli, but Food Giant isn't particularly good on the whole "food" front, so we made do as best we could with another round of potato chips.  Mooresville is a bit tragic.  I did force myself to drink a couple of bottles of water more than I wanted to, in light of the upcoming reverse pass down the desolate 40-mile stretch to Keyser.

Given our dismay at the grade up Patterson Creek the first time through and our failure to recollect any steep descent on the other side, we hoped it would be a replay of South Branch Mountain: a kinder, gentler Day 2.  In fact, though, Patterson Creek was every bit as steep from the south, and I drained one of my two bottles in the first 10 miles -- not auspicious.  Fortunately, we found the spigot at the church the second time through, which was a blessing (so to speak).

Meanwhile, the stretch to Keyser proved to be just as soul-sucking the second time through; if anything, this time it was hotter, with temps cresting over 90 degrees.  For an allegedly uneventful stretch, it is pretty damn nasty, and it's made worse by the fact that, in the steep downhills, the roads are rutted and pitted in such a way that you hope your wheels and fillings come through it.  Good riddance.

Happily, just when we'd had more than enough, we reached Keyser, home of the wonderful Stray Cat cafe -- a perfect place for a long lunch.

Leg 9: Keyser, WV, to Grantsville, MD
Distance: 28 miles

88 miles and 2 legs to go.  I knew 88 miles.  I understood 88 miles.  Hell, I'd ridden 88 miles before, and I figured I could do it again.  After all, next was just the climb up Big Savage Mountain -- nothing intimidating about that name.

Actually, I'd ridden the Big Savage climb probably 10 times before.  It's the first climb of the Savageman Triathlon, although it's a beast, it's never proved an undue obstacle.  I tentatively assigned it to the "will be tough, but no problem at the end of the day" bucket of "things to do before I can be done with this g-d d-mn ride."

I put it in that bucket because, as amply demonstrated on this blog, I'm a moron who never learns.  In retrospect, the climb up Big Savage was always the first one in every ride; before it had come a 10-mile descent, so I'd arrived ready to attack.  This time we hit it at... mile 294.  After 30,000 feet of climbing.  And I may as well have been asked to climb up the side of the nearest 150-story building.  Never has the name for a climb been so apt.

Looking at the elevation profile of this stage in retrospect, I understood why it seemed as though, around every corner, another shockingly inhumane grade awaited: in the 28-mile stage, about 25 miles of it is climbing.  We somehow made it through, but we were in distinctly poor cheer by the time we slumped into the Pilot control point with 60 miles to go.  Darkness was descending, and it seemed we were getting weaker with every passing mile.  Not good.  We resolved to make sure we were thoroughly fueled before rolling out -- we could do 60 miles come hell or high water, but we preferred neither.  One thought rattled around in my despondent mind: last time I'd been sitting at that control, at mile 60, I'd been exhausted due to the 60 miles before.  And, at that point, I'd only been 60 miles in.  What would those 60 miles do to us this time?

Leg 10: Grantsville, MD, to Hancock, MD
Distance: 60 miles

Big Savage rescued us.  After grinding along the ridge for a few miles, we got to experience the singular joy of a 10-mile descent when you're on your last legs.  Best of all, the descent was down a wide road with a great shoulder, and apart from the brief stretch through Frostburg, traffic was a non-issue.  Spectacular!

But it was not to last.  The stretch from Cumberland to Hancock is a stage in Race Across America, and it's the stage with the most climbing per mile of any stage in the country.   The elevation profile tells the story: it's a series of 1,000-foot-high saw teeth that lasts pretty much until the moment the ride ends.  It got to the point that I lost track of whether the climbing was done; each time, the answer turned out to be, "Well, yeah, except for this 3-mile climb."  I had all the joy of a cat in the rain, and when I rolled into the final control some 43 hours and 20 minutes after I'd left, I felt little joy or pride -- it was more the sensation that comes when someone stops hitting you with a hammer you asked him to wield.

Final thoughts

To restate what I noted at the beginning, I was not in shape for this ride.  I probably had no business doing it.  And, to make it worse, I was coming off nights of 3 and 3.5 hours of sleep, which is about the worst thing I could have done heading into this thing.  None of that was my fault, but it was my choice to do the ride anyway, because it was the one chance I had to do something epic this year.  In light of all that, it's unsurprising that this thing wrecked me.

But that's not all that's going on here.  I've talked to some people after the ride about how to express my thoughts about it.  They're complex.  On the one hand, Bill's done an impeccable job putting together a ride unlike anything else I've ever attempted.  By and large, it's a pretty one.  The roads have virtually no traffic, and the nighttime riding was some of the best I've ever had.  He set out to make a beast of a challenge, and he succeeded in every respect.

Having said that, in all candor, I think the Big Savage SR-600 is beyond the pale of reasonable challenges.  It is simply too difficult.  Having been through it, I can't think of a reason anyone should want to endure such a thing.  After every challenge ride I've done -- and I've done many -- the experience has faded into a fond glow, but that's not happening here.  Instead, I've spent the last several days coughing fitfully and feeling like I just want to sleep forever.  I guess on some level I'm proud I finished it, but I'm equally glad that I no longer have to keep riding up, up, and up, all in the desire to get home.

So, I guess I'd say this.  If you're thinking about doing this ride, ask yourself why, and make sure you have a compelling reason.  "It'll be a fun challenge" is not a good enough reason, because this ride is not "fun."  There will be many times that you're wondering what the hell you've done.  I think the only reason to do this ride is if, on some level, you won't be able to live with yourself if you don't give it a go.  If that's the case, then have at it, and godspeed.  I would say that unless you can cruise through a typical 600k in close to 30 hours, you may have trouble with the 50-hour cutoff.  (This one took me about 16 hours longer than my slowest previous 600k.)  

This is the hardest endurance event I've ever done -- forget Ironmans, marathons, 1200k, 24-hour races, Silver State 508, and the rest of it.  None of them matches this thing.  Having been through it, I feel like I've escaped its clutches more than triumphed over it.  There are no victors here, but for one: congratulations, Bill -- I've always taken pride in organizing the hardest damn rides I could find, but you win.

And now for some justice...

There are certain things that cyclists just learn to accept as going with the territory.  Foremost among these are that cars will occasionally do stupid things (or worse), that bikes get stolen, and that, when they get stolen, they are almost never seen again.  They're commodities easily stripped down and sold off for whatever nickel a thief can get.  But every now and then, karma is on your side.  For me, yesterday was one of those times.

Last fall, I spent months researching a new ultracycling bike that needed to fit certain unusual requirements, and what I ultimately settled on was a completely custom-specced 2015 Felt AR1 from Tri360.  The 2015 AR1 comes only as a frameset -- that is, you buy the frame separately and choose each additional component to build it up:

The AR1 frameset.

I ordered it in October, but I didn't actually have the bike in-hand until December, because I got virtually the first 2015 AR1 frame to arrive at the warehouse.  Once Tri360 was done assembling it for me, though, it was a thoroughly customized racing machine:

Full side view.

Wind profile with TriRig front brake.

Bontrager base bar and extensions with Zipp clips and pads. 

Selle Anatomica Titanico X saddle.

Custom Wheelbuilder Zipps with Chris King hubs and red nips.

TriRig Omega brake.  

Stages crank-arm power meter.

It was a delightfully fun project in many ways, but it took a lot of thought, and the result was that there simply was no other bike like it.  From the first ride in December, it fit perfectly and was as comfortable as my titanium road bike, which is a heck of a thing.

My first race on it, at 24 Hours of Sebring in February, went amazingly well.  I put together a 475-mile non-drafting effort to break the previous age group record.  That was 34 miles better than I'd managed in 2014 on my Trek Speed Concept with disc wheel, aero helmet, and 18 cm of drop.  In other words, I loved the bike.

In Sebring, rockin' the 808s.

Needless to say, when you have a bike that nice, you don't leave it just anywhere.  I live in a condo building in a nice part of town, and one of the main attractions for me was that my unit came with a secured storage area to which only I had access.  This wasn't a bike cage or anything that would attract attention.  Instead, it was what looked like a utility room on the third floor of the parking garage, inside a residents' gate that requires a clicker to open:

My storage room, in all its glory.

The bottom line is, there was no sign that there was anything of value in that room, and it was hardly an appealing target from what I could tell.  Unfortunately, the residents' gate had been malfunctioning over the last couple of weeks, so it was in "permanently open" mode for the time being, but even so, my storage unit hardly said "come and get me."

On Thursday morning, I'd gone down to the unit to get a couple of bars for my trainer ride.  (I can't keep them in my apartment or I'll put on 100 pounds by the time the snow thaws.)  Everything was copacetic.  I repeated the trip on Saturday morning, only to find that my storage unit was unlocked, which was pretty strange.  It's possible to unlock it in such a way that it stays unlocked, and I've done it in the past, but generally I just keep it on the auto lock setting when I'm going in and out.  I wouldn't have left it unlocked on Thursday.  But there it was.  Weird.

Inside the unit, I quickly noticed that one thing was missing: My new Felt.  Nothing else seemed out of place, and there was plenty else to steal, including a set of new Zipp 404s sitting right next to the bike (which was sporting 808s at the time).  Initially, I wasn't alarmed so much as perplexed: Had I dropped the bike off to be serviced?  I've been known to be a little ditzy, so that seemed possible.  I checked the back of my car, the apartment, and the storage area again, but it was gone, plain and simple.

The feeling of complete sickness took over.  I couldn't afford a replacement.  I hoped homeowner's insurance would help, but who knew.  In any case, it would take a long time to put together -- there were no AR1 frames available.

I filed a police report, providing them with pictures, serial number, and so forth.  They were prompt and courteous, and sent a detective to take pictures and pull footage from the security camera.  That camera, which was facing the gate, had recorded every second of the 48 hours in which the bike had disappeared.  I figured it would have to show something -- that was the only way out -- unless, of course, the bike went up the residents' elevator, which would be arguably more disturbing.  I suppose someone could have driven a car into the residents' area, loaded it up, and left again, but that would have required noting the security camera and generally a level of planning that I thought unlikely.

Knowing how the stolen bike game worked, after I filed the report, the first thing I did was check Craigslist, but there was nothing in the right galaxy.  So, doing whatever else I could think of, I let a couple of bike shops know, called around to the pawn shops, and posted details on Facebook.  I figured the only thing I had going for me was that my bike was about as distinctive as they get.

A couple of hours later -- around noon -- David King and Bo Ngo on FB alerted me to a Craigslist ad for a Felt AR that had just been posted.  I was initially excited, but when I saw the ad, it wasn't quite right:

The ad was for a Felt AR, but the picture was of a 2014 model with different wheels, different bars, and different cranks -- not mine.  

To be clear, the text of the ad highlighted it as almost definitely stolen -- all it said was "Felt AR Model Fully Loaded, Rarely Used, Great racing condition.  Moving, Need to make some space."  He was asking $2800.  Anyone who knows bikes understands that this is not how one would sell a $10k bike, which is what appeared in his ad.  Sadly, although it looked like someone's stolen bike, it wasn't mine.

The next step is what cracked the whole thing, and for that, I'm massively indebted to John Scanaliato, who did some research and found that the photo in the Craigslist ad had been lifted from an article in Peloton Magazine:

In other words, the bike pictured in the ad was NOT the actual bike being sold -- he hadn't posted a picture of the bike in his possession.  That immediately set off warning bells, and closer inspection revealed that the Craigslist ad had been posted from a building only two blocks from mine.  Bingo.  And the seller had provided his cell phone number.

I immediately sent the guy a text message, trying not to set off warning bells.  I said I lived in Capitol Hill -- which I don't -- and asked some Craiglisty questions about why he's selling and whether price was flexible.  But I didn't hear back immediately.

My biggest fear was that he wouldn't respond to the message, or that he'd sell the bike off before I could see it.  Seeing the location where the ad had been posted, I even walked up and down the block, hoping that the bike would be on a balcony or something, but no dice.  I then called the detective's office to give them the guy's cell number, hoping they could execute a warrant in short order.  That was a bit tricky, of course: "Here's an ad for a bike that isn't mine -- that's probable cause, right?" But I was able to convince them that, given the stolen photo, timing, and description of the bike, it had to be mine.

While I was giving them the information, I received two texts back from the guy, who was willing to meet up almost immediately.  Gulp.  I told the police what was going on, and in no uncertain terms, they warned me not to go meeting this guy alone in some remote place when the seller thought I'd be carrying a pile of cash.  I appreciated their concern, and obviously I wasn't stupid, but what I really wanted was police support during the meet-up.  This turned out to be harder than anyone would have wished, as the guys who did plain-clothes stings weren't working at the time, and the police really wanted me to push back the meeting until the next afternoon.  I tried -- "Hey man, I just remembered my girlfriend is dragging me to a party, but I really want the bike, so will you hold it til tomorrow at noon if I pay full price?"  But "his friend" really wanted to sell it immediately, and offered me a substantial discount to do the deal then.  I was really concerned that he'd unload the bike before the next day.

Upon hearing this, frankly, the detectives went above and beyond and pulled the operation together even in their short-staffed state.  Although the Craigslist ad had been posted from near my building, the guy wanted to meet up across town, closer to Union Station.  I sent the guy what surely must be one of the least sincere texts ever: "Haha, f*ck it, ok lets do it.  But can we meet in a public place?  I trust you but sometimes people on Craigslist can be sketchy."  He happily obliged by suggesting we meet in front of a very busy hotel.  The detectives picked me up in an unmarked car, and off we went.

We arrived a few minutes early and drove by a few times, hoping to get a glimpse of the guy with the bike, but no luck.  Things got a little tense when the seller kept asking if I was there yet, and I had to keep putting him off -- we wanted him to show first.  But he didn't.  Eventually I asked the guy what he was wearing -- "Gray hoodie" -- and went to stand right in front of the hotel, dressed like a Logan Circle preppy.   I let him know I was there, and joked that "its cold haha!"

A couple of minutes later, a guy approached wearing a gray hoodie and wheeling my bike in front of him.  There was zero doubt it was mine -- even the tires were still deflated, since my last ride had been at Sebring 3 weeks before.  It was not the bike in the picture, needless to say.  And the guy pushing it did not look like an avid cyclist.  Realizing immediately that the bike was mine, I knew the goal was just to play along, so I did the whole "Wow, that's awesome!" thing, started feeling the bars, asking why the tires were flat, asking how much it had been ridden, etc.  All the while, the guy was keeping a hand on the bike to make sure I didn't grab it and run off with it.  After about 30 seconds of this, out of my peripheral vision, I saw the police descending on the guy, who didn't realize a thing until they were 6 inches away.  Game over, dude.

 

It all went perfectly, and the bike was 100% fine, aside from the serial numbers, which the guy had tried to file off with partial success.  I will say, there is something unreal about seeing your bike being sold back to you in broad daylight.  Until then, it was all very abstract: my bike is missing, but there was no telling where it might be.  At that moment, everything became quite real.  This was the guy with my bike, trying to sell it to me in the middle of town.  Indeed, even someone who knew nothing about bikes would have been compelled to realize he was buying stolen property in that situation.

This is basically every cyclist's dream.  So often we're simply the victims of life, whether it be careless drivers, thieves, or what-have-you.  When a bike disappears, even the police admit that it is basically gone forever.  We're forced to feel helpless and to hope for the best, when what we really want is to help take the asshole down.  It never happens, but I got to live it, every second.  Justice was served.

On the ride back to the police station, the sergeant and I chatted and he explained that he loved to get out on his Madone a few times a week for 50 miles or so.  In my mind, that explained a lot -- I'm not sure if a non-cyclist would have made it happen the way he did.  I'm immensely grateful.

There's only one real issue to resolve.  In looking over my text messages later that night, I realized I'd missed one, where the guy had offered to sell me a helmet and some other accessories as well.  Sure enough, I went and looked around my storage area, and noticed that a new helmet, Northwave boots, and a couple of other things were gone.  I feel pretty good about my chances of getting them back at this point, but even if I don't, in the grand scheme, I have to count myself lucky.

As grateful as I am to the police, I recognize that this never would have been possible without the great work of the folks on FB and Twitter, not only for pointing me to the ad (which hadn't been posted when I first looked), but even more critically, for identifying the picture in the ad as a stock image.  Without that help, the bike would be gone, and the perp would be free.  On the whole, a great day for justice, and the DC bike community made it happen through quick and clever work.

One mystery remains: I don't know how the bike got out of my storage unit in the first place, or how it then got out of the building.  I am 90% certain that the guy who tried to sell me the bike is not the one who took it.  So, I am still pretty disconcerted.  But those are questions for another day.  In the meantime, it's sunny and warm, and I'm heading out for a ride.