My Big Wild Ride (Alaska 1200k), Part 3: The Great Beyond

Gutting it out through Denali after midnight on Night 3.

(This is Part 3 -- the final part -- of a triptych.  Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.)

FAST TRAIN TO FAIRBANKS

Seemingly as soon as I crawled into bed, Max was telling me it was time to get up.   It struck me that his directive must violate the Geneva Convention; I'd slept for a mere three hours after riding 270 miles and here he was, telling me to rise and suck it up at 2:00 in the morning.  Cutting in his favor were two inconvenient facts: (1) A malevolent entity possessing my body apparently had requested this; and (2) He also was up at 2:00, and he wasn't even riding.  That made whining difficult, not that I didn't give it a go.

Another thing: the alarm that I'd tried to set showed no interest in going off, then or anytime soon.  I'm not sure what I'd been up to the evening before, but it sure as heck didn't involve competence.

I reasoned that, if I could somehow just get myself dressed and onto the bike, the rest would work itself out.  With Max's help, I got my various gadgets and doodads unplugged and set up once more on the bike, and I downed a Luna Bar with a cup of coffee before stuffing my aching feet back into my shoes and staggering out to the parking lot.  With a deep sigh, I was on my way at exactly 2:30, right on plan.

My name is Tron.  James Tron.

Cruising through the sleepy streets of early-morning Delta Junction, I realized that what I'd been told was quite evident: the further north one goes, the earlier it gets light, and the lighter it is.  Whereas sunrise in Valdez hadn't been until 4:30 a.m. or so, in Delta Junction, even at 2:30 a.m., I almost could have gone without lights.  It was calm and peaceful.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

After fifteen minutes or so of light spinning, I felt surprisingly good -- the three hours of sleep had done a lot more to refresh me than I'd ever have imagined.  The morning's project was to make it to Fairbanks, which, about 100 miles away, represented both the northernmost point of the arch-shaped route and the halfway point of the journey.

As I rolled toward the day's first control point at Midway Lodge, the terrain changed noticeably.  No longer was the road picking its way through mountain passes, but instead it was cruising along lightly rolling taiga, with a forest of scrubby trees on all sides.  The view to the left, i.e., the south, was something to behold:

Ever seen a mountain touch the sky so literally?

Sunrise came about an hour into the ride, sometime just before 4:00 a.m.  And, as with the first day, it provided a show not to be missed.  In some cases it was simply haunting.

The sky's textures were like something from a sci-fi movie.

Morning rays highlighting a jagged peak.

As the world became brighter, the road -- which I'd now been on for nearly 300 miles -- offered a terrific roller-coaster of rollers.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

And the rising sun continued its effort to stop me in my tracks every couple of minutes.

Sunlight bursting through the morning gloom.

I'm not a religious man, but if I were...

Around 5:45 a.m. -- which, given the early light, felt more like breakfast time -- I arrived at Midway Lodge (mile 314), the day's first control.  It was 48 miles and about 3 hours into the day's ride, and though it was still cool out, I wanted to top off my bottles before the upcoming 50-mile leg to Fairbanks.  Unfortunately, the lodge was closed, and nothing but the mosquitoes was a-stirrin'.  I checked the phone number for the lodge on my cue sheet, but naturally there was no cell phone reception.  This was a bit of a conundrum as, beyond water, I also needed my control card to be signed.  So, after stalking around the place for a couple of minutes in a manner that would have been of great interest to any police officers looking to make a quota, I decided to take a picture of my bike at the control and roll on to brighter pastures.

I was cleanin' up on this ride!  *chuckle*

I figured Kevin wouldn't give me too tough of a time about not getting my card signed; after all, apparently there's only one road in central Alaska, so I hardly could have cut the course.  The water issue was of more concern.  Nothing was open this early, and I was staring at a century on tired legs with only two bottles of water.  The world seemed to apologize for my plight with a few more amazing descents where all I could do was grin stupidly.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

About 70 miles into the day, with 30 miles to go to Fairbanks, I more or less gave up on my hope for water and instead concentrated on making good time.  Fortunately, this part of the course made that very possible: the terrain flattened out and the scenery took mercy on my camera battery.  The mission was to bomb along the shoulder of a highway, and with smooth, clean pavement, it was straight out of the aerobar playbook.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

At mile 346, I came upon an incredible sight.

Isn't it amazing?

Actually, nothing about the mile marker itself was impressive; instead, it's what it represented: after starting on this road near mile 0, the cue sheet actually required us to take an exit.  We'd been on the same road for 346 miles.  Incredible.  Of course, after a zig and zag, two miles later we got right back on the road once more.

Right about this time, unfortunately, the going got rough.  We were still consigned to the same shoulder of the same road, but as Fairbanks approached the shoulder became strewn with rocks and debris.  For awhile, at least, there was to be no more magical mountain fantasyland.  Instead, it was a parade of Subaru-wielding commuters and shredded tires.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

As much of a minefield as the shoulder was, at least it kept me off of the increasingly busy road; we cyclists had it to ourselves.  Except:

Awesome.

Eventually, though, at about 9:30 a.m., I reached Fairbanks, the northernmost tip of the route and, at mile 370, approximately the halfway point as well.  It was a massive mental boost because, for the first time, the distance remaining was a known quantity: 600k.  I'd ridden that distance three weeks before, and though it had hurt, it was at least conceivable.  It's always dangerous to think too far ahead on rides this long because the reality is simply too crushing, but it was a huge comfort at least to be in known territory, and to be turning back south.  From this point, as the crow flies, each mile would take me closer to the finish line.

Another consideration began to percolate through my brain: after breakfast at the control in Fairbanks, I'd have only 110 miles or so to the second overnight control in Healy.  At this rate I'd reach it long before nighttime; should I sleep early?  For how long?  Or... possibly... could I ride straight through it?

Such weighty philosophical matters were best considered over breakfast.  Fortunately, Fairbanks had a wealth of fine dining opportunities.

I'll have the waffles, thanks.

The Fairbanks control (mile 370) was at a Safeway that, happily for our protagonist, had both a full-service cafe and a Starbucks.  I parked my bike in sight and colonized a table in the cafe, taking my shoes off to reveal one reason for my aching feet: my small toes looked like they were dislocated or badly broken.  Each was bent in half at an unnaturally acute angle and twisted away from my other toes so that it jutted out of the side of my foot like a spike.  I started to become somewhat concerned that finishing the ride might leave me unable to walk and perhaps in need of foot surgery, not the ideal recipe for someone racing an Ironman in September.

After submitting my breakfast order -- a sub, chips, cookie, Coke, and about eight espressos from Starbucks -- I headed to the restroom, where I encountered this curious warning:

Full disclosure!  (So to speak.)

Having finally refueled and filled my bottles, I put my shoes/torture devices back on and mounted the noble steed once more.  The jaunt out of Fairbanks, toward the Parks Highway, broke things up by taking us on a lovely morning spin along a bike path.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

HOOFING IT TO HEALY

110 miles to the overnight in Healy, after already having ridden 100!  My gallon of espresso had me buzzing along and feeling pretty invincible.  I'd been told that this section -- west of Fairbanks, and north of Denali -- was notoriously slow, with lots of grinding hills, but I felt ready for it.  In fact, I felt better than I had at the start of the ride.   Part of it was doubtless crossing the symbolic threshold at the halfway point, but I was also thrilled that I'd actually pulled off a night of 3 hours' sleep and emerged on the other side able to function.  I knew the euphoria wouldn't last, but call it a cyclist's high; it's incredible while it's with you.  Maybe I'd be strong enough to ride straight through Healy after all.

Leaving Fairbanks, the route picks up the Parks Highway, which it follows almost all the way back south to Anchorage.  It's a spectacular road; in the northernmost miles, it feels very much like Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia, with long, gradual climbs and open descents that foster disdain for brakes.

YOU CAN'T SPELL "RANDONNEUR" WITHOUT "A RUNNER"

About an hour past Fairbanks, just as I was settling into my mid-day groove, I noticed that I felt a bit bouncy.  Pep was one thing, but this was rather too much literal bouncing.  One thing that cycling generally does not involve is vertical movement relative to the pavement, and it's almost always a bad sign.  I pulled off to the side of the road and, sure enough, my rear tire had deflated to a fraction of its normal pressure.  This was a pretty big surprise.  Flats in general are common enough, but flats on the kind of tires I'd been riding -- a very wide tubeless model -- were virtually unheard of.  They even have sealant in them that effectively patches small punctures.  In a year and a half of riding tubeless tires, I'd had exactly zero flats.  So much for that streak!

I pulled out my tire levers, dropped them in the grass next to my tire, and went to work.  My first line of defense was a can of Hutchinson Fast Air, which is a mixture of compressed gas and latex sealant.  Ideally it would patch my hole permanently and inflate my tire in one fell swoop.  Unfortunately, when I started the flow, foam started leaking from a centimeter-long slit on the sidewall of the tire.  It looked like road debris had somehow jabbed a hole right in the side.

Le slit in le sidewall.

The foaming gradually diminished to the point that the hole might have sealed.  It was hard to tell.  After inspecting it for a minute and inflating the tire further with my hand pump, I decided to ride it a couple of miles to see whether it was holding pressure.

I hopped back on my bike somewhat gingerly and set off down the road, cruising down a lovely grade for a little under two miles, at which point I dismounted again for a tire quality check.  It failed miserably; the tire was deflating further by the moment.  That was annoying, but at least my course was clear: put a regular tube in the tire and be on my way.  I had two of them, so that was no problem.   I deflated my tire to zero pressure, removed it from the dropouts, reached for my tire levers, and...

Oh, crap.  No, no, no!  Argh!

My tire levers weren't there.  I double- and triple-checked, but no dice.  With a sinking feeling, I realized I didn't remember picking them up when I left my last repair attempt a couple of miles back up the hill I'd just descended.  That was just outstanding.  Seeing no other option, I pulled my bike off of the shoulder, took a deep breath, and set out on a 30-minute jog/aggressive hike up the hill back to my tire levers.  Oh, the humanity.  I quickly learned that jogging in cycling shoes is profitable for neither cyclist nor shoe.  At least I was wearing mountain bike shoes, but even so, it felt like running on concrete slabs stuck to my feet.  What made it all the worse was the knowledge that that, for every step I schlepped, I'd have to make the return trip as well.  This wasn't how I'd planned to spend my vacation!

After several false dawns when I thought I'd reached the right spot, I finally made it back to my pile of foaming sealant and the two 3" pieces of plastic that had caused so much grief.  (Thank goodness they were still there.)  In yet another instance that vindicates my standing policy of not covering myself in tattoos, I managed to convince an elderly man at a gas station to drive me back to my bike.  At that point, of course, I had to go about actually changing my tire, which I hadn't managed to do in the previous hour of ineptitude.

Doing what I should have done in the first place.

Because life works this way, just as I started in on my tire change for the second time, the photographers arrived in good cheer and remarked how they thought I'd be further along by then.  *Facepalm!*  But it was great to see friendly faces after riding alone for 10 hours so far that day, and they plied me with some sort of overly caffeinated energy drink to raise my spirits.

At least my hair stayed in place.

As I wrestled with my tire, annoyed with myself for losing an hour due to carelessness, I made a snap decision to do everything I could to ride straight through the second night.  On one hand, this made no sense at all: even though my tiredness likely had contributed to my spacing out and leaving my tire levers on the ground, I decided to retaliate against the setback by riding the final 488 miles without stopping.  In retrospect, this perhaps wasn't the most reasonable way to approach the issue.  On the other hand, nothing about this sport is reasonable, exactly; it's all about motivation, and at the moment I was pretty darn motivated and feeling strong, so I wanted to channel that state the best I could.

Having decided in my mind to ride straight through, I took the leap of sharing the plan with the photographers.  Of course, this ran the considerable risk of my talking a big game that I wouldn't be able to play, but I wanted them to know for their planning purposes; they had a lot of ground to cover, given the spread-out field of riders.  I also wanted as many people as possible to know because I thought it would help me actually pull it off.  I've found that riding long distances gets geometrically harder the closer one gets to the finish line, be it an overnight stop or the end of a ride.  Once I'm almost there, each mile seems to take twice as long as the one previous.  I didn't want that to happen; I didn't want to think of the second overnight control, in Healy, as anything more than a place to shower, grab a bite to eat, and prepare for the night ahead.  I reasoned that the more people knew of the plan, the more my mind would come to accept it as the way it is.  "Fake it 'til you make it," you might say.

At long last I rolled out again to take on the hills, buoyed by the knowledge that Denali loomed just around the corner.  Well, just around many, many corners.  Just past the photographers, Max and his parents caught up to me in their car, which they were driving along the route on a sightseeing/volunteering trip.  I told him of my plan to ride through, and he promised to meet me at the overnight controls to offer moral support and a seat to sleep on should the need arise.  With that, off I went!

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

The final 30 miles of the 54-mile segment to Nenana was just as billed: there were countless long climbs, some of them steeper than I'd have liked.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

But, at least on this course, what goes up must come down:

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

And the brilliant blue sky made for a cheerful afternoon.

Larger than life!

Each effort provided its own quick reward, and it was hard to get enough of these descents.  There were times when I could just pin my ears back, turn the music up, and blow down the backsides of mountains without a care in the world.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

On a couple of occasions, the photographers used their truck as a chase vehicle, blinkers and all, which allowed me to make use of the road in a way I'd have been hesitant to do otherwise.  Just before Nenana, there was a neat moment when, upon crossing a bridge, Max and I took video of one another:

My perspective (Max is on the left after the bridge):

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

Max's:

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

I finally reached the Nenana control at mile 424 in the early afternoon; it was hard to believe I'd already ridden 150 miles since waking up that morning.  I was also 50 miles into a personal distance record for a single ride.

Nenana!   The faster you say it, the more fun it is.

I was beginning to get a little tired; the afternoon was hot and dry, and slogging up long grades for hours had taken a bit of a toll.  I was also uncertain how I'd manage to keep riding given the worsening problems with my small toes being relocated against my wishes.  On the whole, though, I remained in good spirits; I had only 38 miles to go to Healy, where a warm shower and fresh pair of clothes awaited me.  The volunteers said that they thought the next group of riders was a couple of hours back and moving along well.

The 38 miles to Healy didn't sound like far, and in the grand scheme of the ride, it wasn't an arduous leg.  Having said that, compared to the otherworldly beauty throughout much of the ride, this stretch had nothing whatever going for it.  The region seemed to be between places but nowhere itself.  The road was infinitely long and straight, perfectly flat, fully exposed to the sun, and directly into a stiff headwind.  That wind had been out of the north the day before; it was now out of the south.  Welcome to cycling!

Riding alone, I had no one with whom to share the burden of fighting the wind, and any effort to get out of the saddle to change my weight distribution caused me to lose 5 mph immediately.

This terrain seemed more suited to alligators than bears.

There was nothing to look at aside from scrubby trees and the occasional ramshackle country house, and no one to talk to.  It felt like I was making no progress whatever, and it was pretty demoralizing.  My anticipation of the overnight control, where I could freshen up and talk to other humans, doubtless exacerbated my funk.  I mentally dubbed this region "The Doldrums."  I was trying to listen to an audiobook, but in my mental fatigue I was having trouble following it.  I'd suddenly realize I hadn't absorbed anything that had happened for ten minutes at a time.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

After what felt like -- and very well might have been -- hours of flogging myself along to no apparent end, some small mountains began to appear on the horizon, which suggested that at some point I might escape to greener pastures or hillier ones, or something.  I wasn't picky at that point; I'd have been up for hill repeats if it came to that, just please, no more flat baking in the headwind.

A hint of relief to come.

Even better!

Fittingly, my pick-me-up came in the form of a pickup truck that picked me up.  It turned out that there were road repairs underway on the ten-mile stretch leading into Healy.  Whereas on the east coast traffic would have been routed around the roadwork, in central Alaska, there's only one road available.  The construction crews solve this problem by lining dozens of cars up on each end, then having the cars follow a pilot car, or truck in this instance, slowly through the construction zone.  During daylight hours, while this system was in effect, cyclists were not allowed to ride through the construction, which was just dandy with me -- I got to ride in the bed of the pickup truck for ten miles or so!

While I waited for the pilot car, I struck up a conversation with a group of three motorcyclists at the head of the line of cars.  One of them immediately started quizzing me about the brand of my trunk bag and rack, and asked me how I liked my Seven.  It turned out he had one also, and had just ridden a double-century on it a month or two before.  You never can tell with people!

Traveling in style!

Once the truck started bobbing along, I leaned back against the cab with my bike on my lap and dozed off almost immediately, pleased that I'd managed to become the lead float in the world's worst parade.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

This whole experience probably didn't save me any time; the pilot car wasn't going any faster than I would have on my bike on decent pavement, and waiting for the pilot car took a few minutes.  But that bumpy ride on a steel bed felt like the most luxurious spa experience I'd ever had.  I was completely wasted.

HEAVEN IN HEALY

The second overnight control, in Healy (mile 480), was only a couple of miles past the construction.  It was hosted in a small church equipped with a shower, which was all the luxury I needed.  While I got cleaned up, re-chamois creamed, and put on fresh clothes, Max performed some much-needed mechanical work on my bike, including cleaning the drivetrain and remounting my front headlight, which had fallen off on a rough stretch of pavement.  I wasn't capable of articulating thoughts very clearly, but fortunately he figured out what I needed and did it quickly and ably.  I ate a massive plate of lasagna and washed it down with a couple of cups of coffee before turning to my shoes, with which I'd lost all patience.  My small toes were unrecognizable as such; they felt like they were being bent into new, creative appendages.  So, I did what anyone with the mental wherewithal of a 7-year-old and a pair of scissors would do: I hacked massive holes in my toe boxes.

Now my toes could enjoy the views in Denali, too.

There was nothing scientific about the approach, but it worked like magic -- I had no problems with my feet for the rest of the ride.  I should have done it long ago.

Hope.  Have you seen my hope?  Coulda sworn it was in here.

The gloves came off, but then I put 'em back on.

Having checked off everything on my to-do list, I thanked the volunteers and prepared to do battle with the dusk.  As it turns out, it was only 7:30 p.m., but I'd lost all sense of time and space.  I just turned left, stomped on the pedals, and hoped for the best.

DESPERATELY SEEKING DENALI

Virtually as soon as I rolled out of Healy, the world fundamentally changed.  Gone were the harsh headwinds, punishing sun, and desolate landscape.  I'd ridden 210 miles since leaving the mountains, and that changed in a moment.

Denali.  What is there to say?  There are no words for how gorgeous the place is.  Compared to the eastern part of the Alaska Range that I'd passed through the day before, with its snowcapped peaks and glaciers, the western part was more earthen but no less spectacular.  If anything, the grassy slopes had a  living, vibrant character that the the previous mountains had lacked in their austere beauty.

Rather than describe it, I'll let the pictures and video do the talking.  What's impossible to convey is the sense that you're utterly surrounded by these visions; there were times when I stopped my bike on the side of the road and just turned around slowly, thinking "you must be kidding."

This is gonna be good.

A photograph or an oil painting?

I hope that driver glanced over his shoulder.

Yep, that's a descent.  For miles and miles...

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

Surely one of the most beautiful valleys on earth.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

I loved how the mountains in Denali had distinct characters.

To a cyclist, this may as well be an "upshift and smile" billboard.

I've heard of blue mountains, but some of these really were.

As the sun began to get lower in the sky, the landscape changed yet again; the mountains to the west turned to silhouettes, and shadows played across the slopes of their sisters to the east.

If this doesn't speak to you, nothing will.

Stripes of sunlight.  Just below is a video of this scene.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

The contrast between earth and sky was remarkable.

River vista: the view to the west

River vista: the view to the east.

The fireweeds tried their best to compete with their surroundings.

Me, bombing down another stunning descent.

And as the sun got lower yet, the view to the west froze me in my tracks.  I was nearly heartbroken by the sense that I might not have chosen to do this ride, and that, if I hadn't, my life might have passed without visiting this place.  

If I had a dollar for every time I've seen this, I'd have a dollar.

Unmissable.

Unforgettable

I could try to spin a story about how the 38 miles from Healy to Cantwell were tough, that I was tired, and all of it.  In truth, though, I was sorely tempted to turn around and ride right back to Healy just so this segment wouldn't end.  I had the sense that I wouldn't see anything like this again for many years --  that the sunset was somehow metaphorical.  Maybe it was my sleep-deprived state, but I was completely choked up.  If you're thinking about visiting Denali, don't wait -- just go, and bring your bicycle.

Max and I had planned to spend our second night in Cantwell (mile 518) and we had a hotel room there, so this was another place I spent as little time as possible as I didn't want to be tempted to crash out.  I wanted to ride my "Denali high" as far as it would take me.  It was about 10:45 p.m., and I knew that if I were going to succeed in my gambit of riding straight through to Anchorage, the next several hours would be critical.  I reasoned that if I could just make it to sunrise without any system failures, the rest of the ride would take care of itself on some level.   The challenge would be to avoid a nighttime segment as disastrous as my hypothermia experience on the first night.

With Max meeting me at each control through the night, I simply had to decide what I wanted to carry for each segment of 30-40 miles.  When I left Cantwell, it was still pretty warm out: low 70s, I estimated.  So I held off on the jacket, opting instead for arm warmers, although I carried my knee warmers with me for peace of mind.

The first few miles heading from Cantwell toward Hurricane Gulch were simply made for aerobars -- a flat cruise through a gorgeous valley cast in pastel hues by the indirect sunlight.  If I squinted correctly, I could almost believe the small trees were cacti and that I was rolling through a scene out of an old Western movie.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

To the west, the prismatic spectacle continued.

On the horizon, I got my first view of Mt. McKinley.

Those are huge mountains in front of McKinley.  Holy crap!

The locals are used to sights like this.  Less so to interloping cyclists.

Eventually the "TT to McKinley" theme yielded to a different one: as the sun went down, the road went up.  As darkness descended after midnight, the temperature plummeted, and I was reminded that with climbs come descents, and there just isn't much of a way to warm up when rolling downhill for five minutes at a stretch in 50-degree weather.  My paltry arm warmers were totally insufficient, and I found myself desperately hoping to see a climb around every corner.

At least the moon was trying to cheer me up.

What's more, the road after midnight was empty... except for massive tanker trucks blasting past at about 80 mph.  And there were a lot of those.  I generally preferred to ride in the road, as opposed to on the shoulder, to minimize my chance of encountering debris in the dark, but every time I heard an oncoming roar I'd have to duck back across the rumble strips and take refuge as the rolling thunder barreled past.  To be fair, the drivers were generally courteous, often driving on the left side of the road even though I was on the shoulder to the right, but each time I knew that the next one might be a closer shave.

As I gained altitude and the hours passed, the clouds around Mt. McKinley dispersed and I was finally able to make out its jagged contours, which were backlit long after the rest of the world had succumbed to the night.

Now that's a mountain.  I'd see it from the other side the next day.

I rolled into the Hurricane Gulch control (mile 554) at 1:45 a.m., chilled to the core once again.  Will I never learn?  A real lesson to take away from this experience is that, when my body's exhausted, it's basically unable to regulate temperature at all, so what's an acceptable level of crisp in the normal course can reduce me to a shivering mess if encountered at the wrong time.  Fortunately, Max was waiting for me with my jacket, which I considered to be virtually life-saving equipment at that point.

We found Mike Price, a volunteer, asleep in a van with a sign in the window urging us to knock when we arrived.  It was amazing dedication for him to be out there all night essentially just waiting for me; the next riders wouldn't arrive until about 8:00 in the morning.  Even more amazing, as I waited, he dished out a bowl of homemade bison chili with minestrone.  The hot, salty, and hearty meal was just about the best thing I'd ever tasted, and I gratefully accepted a second and third helping.  

It was the very finest of dining!  Thanks, Mike.

I was a little reluctant to set off from Hurricane Gulch because I knew that the next stretch, a 40-mile segment to Mary's McKinley View Lodge, would have me riding through the darkest of night available in Alaska at that time of year, and doing so after having been on my bike for an unfathomably long time.  It was especially difficult to stay focused given that there was no one to talk to.  But, I reasoned, this is it: if I were going to ride straight through, this was the time when I had to do it rather than just talk about it.  I figured that, if the Race Across America guys could ride for 8-10 days on an hour or two of sleep a night, I could pull off the feat for only a couple of days.  It sounded like a good theory at the time.  

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

THE HEART OF DARKNESS

Max took off for Mary's McKinley View, planning to sleep in the car for a couple of hours and to meet me when I arrived around 4:00 a.m., so I was on my own for 2-3 hours.  The chili powered me through the darkness well enough for the first ten miles or so, even if it was awfully desolate.  I turned up the music a bit and just tried to keep the pedals turning minute by minute.

Videos can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

Around 2:15 or 2:30 a.m., I heard a truck approaching from behind and saw the lights, much as had been happening for the last couple of hours.  This time, though, the truck seemed to pull up a bit behind me and then match my speed, something that always makes me a little nervous.  When that happens, it's almost always someone just checking out the action, but I'm always a bit afraid that it's some drunk person or group of teenagers plotting something incredibly stupid.

They were just checkin' me out; who can blame them?  I have nice lights.

Thankfully, after 30 seconds or so, the truck pulled alongside and I was astonished to see Greg and Joe, the photographers!  I couldn't believe they'd found me at that time of night, but it was great to see friendly faces and we chatted thorough the window for a couple of minutes.  As we did, I found myself in surprisingly high spirits and feeling great.  It's amazing what a little company will do.  The RAAM guys must benefit immensely from having a follow car and a headset through which they can communicate constantly with their support crew.

Fighting the night.

Four headlights.  Overkill?  Not for our protagonist.

After chatting about my day -- could it really have been 14 hours since they found me fixing my flat tire? -- they pulled ahead for a few minutes.  I then saw them facing back toward me, where they captured this incredible shot:

That pretty much says it all.

That was to be the last time I'd see the photographers on my ride; with the rest of the field 8-12 hours back, there simply was too much ground for one crew to cover.  I was honored that they'd made the effort to find me at such a late hour -- those guys were working as hard as we were.

In some ways, it's too bad the photographers didn't find me 20 minutes later, as 3:00 a.m. approached, because I suddenly fell apart in truly epic fashion.  I knew I was tired, of course, and anyone would be a bit sleepy after riding for 24 hours and finding oneself alone at night.  But this was something more serious; my mind and body were just shutting down.  I realized I'd had no caffeine since my coffee in Healy some 8 hours earlier -- an immense mistake -- and for some reason I wasn't carrying caffeine pills.   I was alone in the dark, and the real challenge of riding without adequate sleep suddenly hit me full force.  I realized that I wasn't riding straight down the road, and even worse, I began to hallucinate.  Looking up the road, the yellow center line on the left and the white line on the right converged in the distance in front of me, and they transformed into the bottom wings of an Imperial Shuttle from Star Wars, which I saw floating in front of me.

This did not bode well.

It was almost a dissociative experience; I didn't actually believe the shuttle was there, but I was seeing it nevertheless.  The voice in my head suggested that this might not be an ideal state.  Things were no better when, a couple of minutes later, a group of branches arching across the road transformed into the arms of some primordial creature intent on devouring me.  As Sean Connery put it in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, "Our situation has not improved."

The last hour to Mary's McKinley View Lodge was one of the hardest I've ever had on a bike.  I was going incredibly slowly, just trying to keep my eyes focused and on the road.  There were large cracks running sideways across the road every 50 yards or so that would jolt me uncomfortably.  I'd cranked my music mix as loud as it would go and was shouting along with the tunes at the top of my lungs, trying to get my brain interacting with something.  If any bears were watching as I slogged past, they'll be calling me.  Maybe.

After one of the longest hours of my life, I finally saw a parking lot to my right with a couple of cars parked in it, including Max's.  I'd made it!  At least, I'd made it to the control at Mary's McKinley View Lodge at mile 593, wherever on earth that was.  Max was asleep in one car and another volunteer was asleep in a van, so I rousted Max and together we convinced the volunteer to make some coffee on a propane stove.  That's what I really needed.  While the two of them attended to that, I staggered over to Max's car and passed out in the passenger's seat for 10 or 15 minutes.

When I awoke and gulped down the coffee appreciatively, I noted that the world was getting lighter once more.  I hoped that the sunlight would galvanize my brain into something resembling consciousness, because I couldn't bear the thought of another stretch like the last one.  With many thanks to Max and the volunteer, I rolled out toward Talkeetna, the third overnight control.  Max, noting my state, suggested that I sleep for 30 minutes when I got there, which I thought sounded like a very reasonable plan assuming that I managed to get there at all.

There were great views of Mt. McKinley, but I was in no mood to care.

Max then headed back to Cantwell to rejoin his parents; I was on my own for the remaining 180 miles of the journey.

I knew that, past Mary's McKinley View Lodge, the route turned left to head north for a 28-mile out-and-back (14 miles each way) to the Alaskan climber haven of Talkeetna.  In my mind I'd thought that this turn was immediately past Mary's, which meant that the upcoming segment would, thankfully, be a mere 20-miler or so.  How wrong I was -- it turned out to be 36 miles to the turn north, and fully 50 miles to Talkeetna.

Even worse, the coffee and daybreak did little to bring my mind back into the game.  The bottom line is that I'd ridden 580 miles on 3 hours of sleep and had nothing left to give.  As I tried to get myself down the road, I felt oddly hollow, and had the tinge of nausea that accompanies sleep deprivation.  The drowsiness descended once more, and again I wasn't sure what to do.  I could just stop on the side of the road and lie down in a ditch, but that seemed unwise on a number of levels.  At one point I stopped on the shoulder and did 30 pushups and some jumping jacks to try to get my blood moving.  On several others I intentionally rode right down the rumble strips in 10-second intervals, which is a thoroughly jarring experience that probably does nothing good for one's bicycle.

Moreover, the infernal cracks across the road continued; it felt like I'd been getting banged around for 100 miles.  This probably sounds like a trivial matter, but these cracks were anything but a joke.

No bueno.

I can't tell you how sick I got of the "buh-BUMP!" every fifteen seconds.  Part of it is doubtless that, in my exhaustion, any setback had a crushing emotional resonance; regardless, it was driving me to wit's end.  At one point I took off my jacket and put it in my trunk bag in the thought that some cool air on the torso might wake me up, and 30 seconds later, I heard a loud rattle on the ground behind me.  I circled back to find that I'd entirely forgotten to close my trunk bag, and my iPhone had hit the ground to disastrous effect.

Not the most effective case in the world.

Trying to look on the bright side, I reasoned that maybe getting some glass shards stuck in my face would wake me up a bit.

Somehow I gutted out the 36 miles to the Talkeetna spur -- only 14 miles to go to breakfast! -- and I spied a gas station on the corner, where I stopped and treated myself to an extra strength 5-Hour Energy and large bag of Sour Skittles.  It was very effective, although the acid from the Sour Skittles quickly burned off half of the skin in my mouth and left me unable to taste much for the remainder of the ride.

Happily, after hours in the pits of despair, I was finally starting to come around a bit.  The 14-mile spur north to Talkeetna was a flattish cruise on nice pavement that reminded me a lot of our rides on the east coast.  It was a beautiful day!

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

As Talkeetna approached, I was treated to some amazing sights:

Sunlight glistened off of enormous lakes with the range in the background.

Mt. McKinley suddenly materialized in front of me.

And then I was there: the second overnight control Talkeetna, at mile 643!  It was 9:15 a.m., about 4.5 hours after setting off from Mary's McKinley View Lodge.  How the time flies when you're delirious.  By this point I had no idea where the other riders were; I had little enough idea where I was.  But I had a cadre of volunteers all to myself, which was amazing.  While one prepared some scrambled eggs and toast, I took a shower, changed clothes once again, and somehow persuaded myself not to crash on the bed that was waiting for me.  Just 112 miles more, I reasoned -- I knew that distance only too well.

Over the course of an hour or so, I enjoyed another round of eggs and toast and a few more cups of coffee.  I'd learn later that I even earned a mention in a news story about the ride.  Galvanized by the shower, the food, and the bright sunshine, I shot Max a text message telling him that I wasn't going to bed down; I wanted to knock out the remaining century-plus and call it a (very long) day.

THE HOMESTRETCH

I knew several things about the upcoming segment to Wasilla, the last control before Anchorage: (1) It was a punishing 70-miles long; (2) It was pretty flat and net downhill; and (3) Given the winds out of the north on the first day, I should have a tailwind.  I figured I could just gut it out to Wasilla and then the remaining 39 miles to Anchorage would take care of themselves.

Without putting too fine a point on it, this segment turned out to be difficult and unpleasant, especially compared to the wonderland of Denali that lived on in my recent memory.  It was indeed largely flat.  But it was also a very hot day -- mid-80s in Alaska is a rarity -- and it was totally exposed to the sun.  Even worse, it was a featureless haul down the shoulder of a highway with sometimes double-wide rumble strips.  The result was something of a sufferfest as I picked my way along, hoping not to flat as I battled the blazing sun.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

After about 30 miles of this, a fact sunk in that I hadn't quite been conscious of until then: the air in Alaska was as dry as a desert, and it was sucking the water out of me at an alarming rate.  I drained both bottles quickly after leaving Talkeetna and my mouth was parched when I found a convenience store halfway to Wasilla, where I drank an entire gallon of water along with a Red Bull for good measure before filling my bottles again.  Even so, my mouth was dry again five miles later.  It was not good.

As Wasilla approached and the traffic picked up, I found myself unsure of where on the road to ride.  There was a narrow and gravel-filled shoulder, which wasn't much of a good time and didn't look like it was made for cycling.  About twenty yards off the side of the road, there was a paved bike path, which seemed like an obvious answer.  I tried it for a bit.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

The problem was, the pavement on the path was often broken up and rutted, and the path itself wasn't  continuous.  It would branch off from the highway, arch up into some woods, and then merge with the highway again, usually in a pile of gravel.  It was fine for recreational cyclists, but it wasn't at all what I was looking for at that point.  The further I went, the more often I found myself grinding it out down the shoulder.

As I approached the final control in Wasilla, at mile 718(!), I was just done -- completely dehydrated, bonked beyond recognition, sleep-deprived, and utterly exhausted.  The final control was at a Walmart, which offered the fine dining options of McDonalds and nothing else.  I didn't care.  I staggered into McDonalds, ordered two chicken sandwiches with large fries and large Coke, and plowed through them despite my dehydration-driven lack of appetite.  It was pretty disgusting, tasteless and greasy, although the tasteless part might have been because I'd burned off all of my tastebuds on the Skittles earlier.  Taking care not to get glass shards in my fingers, I sent a Tweet letting friends and family know that, if I disappeared, at least they could confine any search to within 40 miles of Anchorage.  I sat in McDonalds for nearly an hour, a gratuitous amount of time but one that somehow seemed unduly rushed anyway.

I pulled out from Wasilla at about 3:30 pm for the final 39-mile stretch to Anchorage.  By that point I'd ridden about 440 miles without sleep, on top of a 270-mile opening day.  Wasilla turned out to be quite pretty, although my appreciation of Another Beautiful Mountain (ABM) was long behind me.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

It struck me that the 20 miles south of Wasilla should have been a piece of cake, with stretches of 5 miles or more at slight downgrade.  Unfortunately, the headwinds that day were so strong that they'd quickly bring me to a halt of I stopped pedaling.  There was no rest to be found, and as with most of the day, I found myself plowing down the side of a very busy highway. It's too bad there's no better way to get from Denali to Anchorage.  It was a relentless and dispiriting stretch, and my legs were so shot that the only way I could make real progress was to get out of the saddle and charge for ten seconds or so, then hunker down and coast.

The last fifteen miles through Eagle River and into Anchorage got prettier and more interesting.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

Kevin had marked the course well, obviating any need for a cue sheet.

Hurray!  I'm supposed to be here.

Surprisingly, though, these miles had by far the steepest hills of the entire ride.  The last several miles were largely on bike paths, but some of them seemed like they climbed at a 10% grade for nearly a mile at a time.

The last few miles were blissful, a calm spin along a bike path through the woods with the pavement speckled with sunlight filtered through the trees.

Video can be played on YouTube in 720p HD.

I shot Max a text when I was 3 miles out, and he came out to cheer me along the path.  He told me I had about half a mile left to the last control at the Comfort Inn, but when I got to a building that looked promising, I was too exhausted to figure out how to get from the path to the parking lot, so I just dismounted and walked my bike toward what I hoped was the end.  And then I saw it!  The finish line, at unbelievably-long last.

Video can be viewed on YouTube in 720p HD.

I'm alive!

Standing because I can't get off my bike without falling.

I'd made it: My first 1200k, or 758 miles!  I finished at 7:15 p.m. on Wednesday evening, 67 hours and 16 minutes after rolling out at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday night.  What an unbelievable journey.

I'd gotten a little sun.

REFLECTION

To call this the most ridiculous thing I've ever done would be to undersell it.  The ride was so spectacular that I'm mildly depressed at the thought of riding anywhere else.  To anyone who hasn't been to Alaska, just go.  If you have a bike, bring it.  It's an utterly transformative experience.

My informal and somewhat ambitious goal with Max had been to try to finish the ride in 72 hours or so, which would have been a gratifying performance.  To ride low 67, with the last 600 miles being a solo effort, certainly qualifies as the ride of my life.  The next riders finished in just over 80 hours.  As I keep reminding my friends, this wasn't a race; arguably an 85-hour ride finished with a smile and a beer is a "better" ride, and one more true to the randonneuring spirit, than one ridden faster.  Still, I feel like I got to experience a little bit of what the RAAM guys go through on their quests, and I found out some things about myself in the process.  Having said that, I really wish Max had been in a position to ride rather than support my effort.  His support was invaluable and he took many of the pictures and videos on this ride recap, but rides like this go better with good company.

The event production was a marvel of efficiency and good cheer.  Kevin and the rest of the volunteers put on an amazing show.  Randonneuring is, by definition, a self-supported endeavor, but I think there were only 2-3 controls without a volunteer ready to sign our control cards, feed us, and send us on our way with a smile.  That was true even in parking lots in Nowhereville in the middle of the night.  These guys really went above and beyond; I can't say enough about the job they did.

I'll probably ride another 1200k at some point, and I have some ultracycling races in my future.  If I do ride another 1200k, though, I probably won't do it like this.  Riding 750 miles on 3 hours of sleep, and with no one to talk to for the last 55 hours, put me in a place I'm not keen to revisit.  I didn't emerge unscathed.

1. I went to bed about three hours after I finished and slept for 12 hours or so.  I was sleeping on an air mattress on the floor, which was quite comfortable.  The problem is that, when I woke up, I literally could not get off the ground without dragging myself across the floor to a sofa that I could use to leverage myself upright.  In doing so, my arms and legs were shaking uncontrollably, and it took me about five minutes to stand up.  I wasn't sore; my body just didn't work.  It was a little alarming.
2. That morning, I initially felt okay, and Max and I walked to a local coffee shop for breakfast.  Around 11:00 a.m., though, I suddenly went into an acute downward spiral.  I got nauseated and dizzy, started shivering uncontrollably, and ached all over like I had the worst flu in the world.  I spent the next six hours in bed trembling, before hauling myself up to go to the party at the end.  I'd have no appetite for the next four days.
3. It's now 10 days after the ride, and I still substantially lack feeling in the small fingers on each hand, which were almost completely numb for the latter parts of the ride.  When I pressed on my palms, I'd get pins and needles up and down my hand and fingers.  It turns out I have a classic case of handlebar palsy.  Having name for it makes it a little less unnerving (no pun intended), but I have to think this isn't healthy, and that getting some solid sleep mid-ride would have done a lot to alleviate the problem.
4. At the risk of oversharing: despite drinking constantly, I didn't urinate for 21 hours after the event.  That likely has a lot to do with my problems.

In short, I had a terrific ride and proved to myself that I could fight through adversity in a way I've rarely done, but next time I think I'll leave such efforts for races.

THINGS THAT WORKED

Almost everything, fortunately.  My bag setup, with large bento box and trunk bag, was perfect.  The aerobars really helped me and probably saved my wrists and fingers from further damage.  Dropping  a new USB battery in each overnight bag was a straightforward and effective way to ensure that I was never without power.  Likewise, the combination of GoPro camera on the aerobars and handheld camera in the bento box worked a treat.

I tried three new things on this ride, and each worked amazingly:

1. Tums.  I carried a roll in my bento box, and I ate 1-2 tablets after each snack or meal.  I've had severe acid reflux problems on my 400ks and 600ks by the end; I think it comes from ingesting sugary and acidic foods and burping for hours on end.  The Tums kept my stomach in working order for the entire ride, and had a pleasant flavor to boot.  Highly effective.
2. Preparation H.  It sounds ridiculous but, in combination with a good chamois cream (DZNutz, in my case), it helped tremendously with saddle comfort.  Every 100 miles or so, I'd slather a layer of Prep H cream everywhere that risked chafing, and then 5 minutes later I'd apply a generous layer of chamois cream.  The antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties made an enormous difference.  I'd had a little trouble sitting down toward the end of my 600k, but that was never a problem on this ride.
3. Cutting holes in my shoes.  In my opinion, ultracycling shoes should come that way.  

ONE THING I'LL TRY

I was pretty much the only moron out there on a triathlon saddle.  I actually find it quite comfortable on shorter rides and at least livable on longer ones, but the Selle Anatomica saddle was ubiquitous among the vets on this ride, and I think I'll give it a try.  It's a leather, Brooks-like number with a perineal cutout, and it looks classy to boot:

Selle Anatomica Titanico X.  Be mine!

MacGYVER AWARD

I had my silly tire mishap on the ride and fixing it was unduly dramatic, but it was nothing compared to what one guy overcame.  Apparently he was riding by himself and got a series of punctures.  He was able to repair the tubes, but he used up his supply of Co2 cartridges and had neglected to bring a hand pump.  He was, in short, unable to inflate his tires.

His unbelievable solution was to wander into the woods and find tree branches that could be stripped down to a diameter just larger than that of an innertube.  Over the course of an hour, he then painstakingly filled his tube with wood, remounted the tire, and rode the bike several miles down the road until he could find a more permanent solution.  I'm serious.

He wins. 

I had to see it to believe it.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR ME

I'm not sure what's next for me as far as randonneuring goes.  Almost certainly nothing this year, as I have Ironman Lake Tahoe in September, and the California Internal Marathon in December, to contend with.  I may well give High Country 1200k or Shenandoah 1200k a try next year; we'll see.  I'll definitely compete in a few 12- and 24-hour time trials to see what I can do on those, and of course I'll have a few triathlons here and there.  Perhaps Paris-Brest-Paris in 2015?  

For now, I'm still basking in the glow of this experience, and I'm glad I remember as much of it as I do.  I'll never look at cycling the same way.

Don't forget to check out my movie of the ride!

Big Wild Ridin'! Start Your Engines

I'm in Alaska, preparing to set out on the 6-hour ferry ride from Whittier to Valdez, where the ride will start tomorrow night.  It has been amazing here so far: cool temps reaching highs near 70 and lows around 50, clean air, and rings of snow-capped peaks in every direction.  Yesterday morning I went for a 30-minute easy run on a bike trail along the coast, and then on an utterly amazing 30-mile spin along the Seward Highway.  It's quite a thing to be bombing down the road with cliffs on the left and ocean on the right, with mountains across the water.  It's easy to see why people choose to live here, although I understand that the winters are quite another matter.

Last night was the bike check and meet-n-greet.  There are about 50 riders -- a very sizeable field for an event like this.  Among the riders is a healthy D.C. contingent, maybe 7 or 8 total including me and Max, and they're universally friendly.  There's a guy from England, another couple of guys from Japan, and at least one triathlete on a tricked-out Cervelo P5.  He confessed that he was trying to figure out how to carry food on it.  Maybe not quite the weapon for this fight.  There was the usual assortment of recumbents, vintage steel with fenders and downtube shifters, and carbon racers.

I'm the youngest person riding, at a not-so-young 36.  Max is the only other person under 40.

The ride starts tomorrow night (Sunday night) at midnight local time (4:00 a.m. EST), which will be strange in many ways, not least because it is dusk at that time of night, and sunrise will be only a few hours later.  Unfortunately, the schedule has us riding the prettiest part of the course in those few hours of darkness; the schedule evolved to this form in order to ensure that riders wouldn't be in the truly remote, cell-signal-free region during the night.  It's safety over scenery in this instance, which is fair enough, though personally I'd prefer it the other way.

The ride is 1200k (750 miles), and the time cutoff is 90 hours -- that is, riders have until 6:00 p.m. on Day 4.  Most will take 85-89 hours for the trek, but our plan is a little more aggressive.  If all goes wells we plan to cover 3 legs of 400k (250 miles each).  That distance usually takes 18 hours or so.  Thus, each day we will ride from midnight until about 6:00 p.m., then sleep for a few hours before setting out at midnight for the next day.   The big picture is that we plan 3 legs and two snoozes; if we manage it, we'll likely finish under 70 hours, but a lot of things can go wrong in that period, even assuming one has no need for bear spray.  If we meet our goal, we'll finish around 8:00-10:00 local time on Wednesday night, which would be sometime after midnight on Thursday morning on the east coast.

I'm feelings pretty good about the ride.  Nervous, yes; but the nerves aren't due to the challenge of covering the distance.  I know that will be completely exhausting, of course, but like many things we'll take it mile by mile and get there eventually.  My nerves have to do with logistics -- what am I forgetting?  What might I need that I haven't thought of?  We'll have access to drop bags (equivalent to special needs) at about the 400k, 700k, and 1,000k points, but that means we have to guess what we might want or need.  That's difficult when I've done nothing like this before.   We're lucky in that the weather should be consistent and favorable, but you don't want to be caught off-guard.  If you shred a tire or fall off your bike in a remote region, it could be quite awhile before help arrives, and what is comfortable clothing while riding might be utterly inadequate if you're on the side of the road for hours, at night, in the rain.  That probably won't happen, but you have to plan for it anyway, or at least you should.

I'm also pretty worried about saddle and foot pain.  Toward the end of my 600k, my butt and feet were killing me, and this is twice as far.  Having two short sleep breaks should help, and I'm trying a lot of new/different things this ride in order to make life more comfortable, but I'm pretty sure I will have trouble sitting down toward the end of each day.  Maybe a new randonneuring saddle is in my future, but for now I'm dancing with the one who brought me, so to speak.

In all, I'm pretty excited.  A couple of years ago I thought events like this seemed completely absurd. I still do in many ways, but if 5,000 people can cover this distance at Paris-Brest-Paris every four years, then surely the challenge is surmountable.  At this distance the challenge is largely mental.  In all, though, I can't think of a better way to experience Alaska for the first time.  It'll certainly be memorable; one can't make it through an event like this without some colorful stories to tell.

I will do my best to tweet/post to FB status updates at least once a day, and there will be a full ride report afterward, come what may.  For now, I'm off to catch a ferry!

600k Solo: From Sunrise to Sunrise

One of the hardest things I've ever done, but man was it memorable

The word "epic" is a towering monument of cliche these days -- some might even say it's the most "awesome" adjective one can deploy in the world of endurance sports (boom!) -- but sometimes it fits.  Sunday was one of those times, as was Monday; indeed, both days fell during the same bike ride, a 600k/375-mile solo voyage from just west of DC nearly to Roanoke and then back again. 

(Garmin crapped out at mile 341 of 376)

PROLOGUE

Many people -- friends, relatives, and my cats (who also are people) -- have observed that this was a nutso plan, and I can't really disagree. The distance is certainly part of it: my longest rides to date had been 400k/250 miles, but those typically involved finishing in 18-19 hours, which means riding for only a couple of hours after dark.  In contrast, 600k rides take most people 33-35 hours, which means that the extra duration falls overnight and into the next day, which is a different animal entirely.  

What's more, although my 400k rides had certainly been challenging, in one respect they were much more comfortable than this one, as I'd ridden them with a group in an organized brevet.  In that setting, if you're on the quicker end of the field, you might cruise along alone for a good portion of the day depending on your pace, but at least you know that there are others following the same route who'll be along eventually if you have issues.  

Beyond safety, the solitude also can present profound motivational challenges: when you're exhausted, other people can be valuable motivators both on the bike and off of it.  When you're sitting at a gas station chewing dazedly on a Snickers bar, feeling sorry for yourself, and idly pondering whether a particular bird flying around is happy with its life, an impatient riding buddy can be a valuable kick in the ass to get up and get moving.  Everyone in the group will have bleak patches, but they'll likely come at different moments, so people can take turns dragging each other along.  When you're on your own, it's all on you.  It's only you who decides to push harder or not to waste time sitting around, and only you who resists the urge to crash in a hotel for a few hours overnight instead of pushing through the darkness.  In short, it's only you, period, to stare down the demons when they come -- which they most certainly will.

Oh, and just to add a final fun twist, I couldn't even say that I was truly rested for this ride, as the weekend before I'd gotten the snot kicked out of me in the Diabolical Double, itself one of the hardest single-day rides in the country.  Oy vey.

Yet... despite it all or maybe because of it, I was looking forward to the ride on a meaningful level.  Having been around the endurance sports scene for awhile now, there aren't that many things that jolt me out of my comfort zone, and there's some fun in that.  Also, as much as I enjoy riding with friends, there's also something to be said for the meditative, "present" state that comes when you're not making small talk, but instead are letting your mind wander wherever it wants to go.  It's said that people (and dogs) are happiest when they have a job, mission, or purpose, and they dedicate themselves to getting it done.  That's exactly what a long solo ride is: you're here, and you have to get way the hell over there, so, to quote Captain Picard, "make it so."  

LAST MINUTE BIKE TWEAK

I previously described my bike setup for this ride, and I went with it as planned, except for one last-minute substitution: the morning of the ride, I found that my new top tube bag had been delivered, so I swapped in in place of my Revelate Gas Tank.  This EO Gear Top Tube Brevet Bag turned out to be one of the best uses of $30 I've found in the ultracycling world:

Central pocket two side pockets, and pen holder.  One side pocket is sized to hold a control card and comes with a  sturdy plasticized envelope to hold the control card and any necessary receipts (which are required on permanents).  No more misplacing control cards or stuffing them in jersey pockets.

This will definitely be my bag of choice going forward.  It's my bag, baby!  (Sorry.)

WE RIDE AT DAWN!

The noble steed.

I rolled out of bed at 3:00, briefly considered what nightmarish cascade of ill-considered life decisions had led me to that point, downed a big bowl of apple-cinnamon oatmeal with bananas and walnuts, threw my gear in the car, and rolled out to Haymarket, a small town about 40 minutes west of D.C.  After taking 30 minutes or so to get sunscreened, chamois-creamed, GPS-readied, tire-pumped, and signed-in, I was ready to roll out at 5:00 sharp.

For this ride, I'd brought an iPod loaded with two audiobooks.  (Yes, I can hear absolutely fine with these on.  Relax.  You try riding alone for 28 hours without one.)  One was by David Baldacci, and other was written by Tom Clancy and read by Lou Diamond Phillips.  Sometimes audiobooks just choose themselves.  That combination's almost unfair to the other audiobooks out there -- a literary dream team.

The first miles of the ride, heading west from haymarket along Rt. 55, are familiar ones to any cyclists who frequent Northern Virginia haunts.  Rt. 55 is a main-ish road, but the pavement is great and, in the pre-dawn hours on Sunday morning, there's nary a car to be found.  Sunrise was at 6:30, so the first hour or so gave me a good idea of what the following night would entail, i.e., peaceful cruising and keeping a lookout for woodland faunae foraging for their breakfasts.  (Note: all videos can be viewed in 720p HD.)

Dawn can be a beautiful time to ride, and this one was in certain senses, but it was anything but crisp: the overnight low was in the mid-70s, and the air was thick and heavy from the get-go.  The rolling meadowland of The Plains was fogged in and hazy.  As of 8:00 or so, I still had my lights on flash mode simply to help cars pick me out.

Riding in very muggy conditions is tricky: due to the breeze inherent to cycling, it doesn't feel overly warm, but you can lose quite a bit of fluid without knowing it.  My dehydration misadventure at Diabolical Double had made me particularly attuned to this, so I made sure to continue taking pulls off of bottles full of Skratch Labs hydration mix, which I find has enough sodium to continue to simulate thirst.  Some endurance sports scholars, including Joe Friel and Tim Noakes, have advised drinking only to satisfy thirst and no more, but I've found that my thirst mechanism often lags behind, and I couldn't let that happen on a ride of this difficulty.

I got an unscheduled break when, 20 miles into the ride, I encountered my first of three train delays.

At about Mile 25, I was moseying along a wall of vegetation on my right and noticed a black patch in a gap about 30 yards in front of me.  I slowed down rapidly and came to a stop 20' or so from a very large, somewhat confused-looking black bear, which had been shuffling in the bushes, perhaps trying to befriend someone's lost cat.  It saw me, I saw it, and we came to an understanding: Man in Spandex is not to be trifled with.  It turned tail and went gallumping off into the woods, looking like an exceedingly portly black St. Bernard.  I kissed my biceps ostentatiously, downed a testosterone flavored gel, and continued on my way.

Hay is for horses!  I must be near Middleburg.

Even before the first control points, this ride presented some unusual challenges.  On both the "out" and "back" legs -- i.e., at about Miles 30 and 340 (gah!) -- the route traverses the Shenandoah river via the Morgan's Ford low-water bridge.  I'd ridden this about a month earlier in my 400k brevet, and it's one of the cooler features of any ride.  The bridge is a completely exposed slab only a couple of feet above the river, which makes it very picturesque to ride across.  

Unfortunately, its concrete is badly broken up, and per its name, it can be rather touch-and-go when the heavy rains come.  Given the multiple summer storms and flash floods around D.C. in the days before the ride, I was far from certain that it would be open.  Putting aside the gates that close when the river is too high, traversing it when underwater is not an option.  

Morgan's Ford  in good times

Morgan's Ford in bad times

As it turns out, the river was roiling in an angry manner, but it hadn't risen sufficiently to make passage a problem. Unfortunately, it was so densely fogged that I had to pick my way across it, and getting pictures or video would have been fruitless.  This didn't completely settle the issue, of course, because heavy rains were predicted later in the day, which meant it could be closed when I encountered it the next morning on my return trip.

The first and second control points came at Miles 45 and 53, respectively -- unusually close together, but I suppose necessary to ensure that riders follow the correct route.  In the grand scheme of a ride this long, 50 miles is a warmup, but it's easy to get lost in the miles and forget that 3 hours of riding in muggy conditions can definitely set you back if you're not diligent about nutrition.  I made sure to slow down and enjoy the morning hours by stopping for pictures whenever the urge struck.

Shenandoah foothills by morning light  

By 9:00 or so -- about the time I'd normally be getting out of bed, if I had any sense -- I'd already ridden a metric century, circling west around Front Royal before turning south through the valley to parallel I-81.  This 50-mile leg, between miles 60 and 110, was gorgeous, with fields framed by mountains in the background.  The fog burned off, and I found myself merrily cruising through rural Americana on a sleepy weekend, with dogs lounging around, lawn art twirling in the breeze, and with my legs having woken up and accepted their fate.

At this point in the ride, I can honestly say that there was nowhere I'd rather have been: I felt fresh, happy, and like I was well on the way to a memorable adventure.  There's a true joy that comes from being in just the right gear, cruising effortlessly down the road as the tires whir hypnotically and the miles melt away.

Life seemed particularly auspicious when some woodland creatures came bounding across the road, just in front of me (view in pop-out HD):

And cyclists weren't the only exotic vehicles on the road.

Of course, this is endurance cycling, and things can fall apart faster than you can say "bonk."  Although this leg contained no particular climb or hill I could point to as being inordinately difficult, there was about 80 feet per mile of climbing for 50 miles or so, which put it in the category of very rolling hills.  There wasn't a flat patch of ground to be found, and to make matters worse, this stretch of the ride was utterly exposed to the sun.  By that time, the day had turned bright and sunny and the fog had burned off, and by 11:00 the temperature was approaching 90 degrees. What's worse, the air was positively soupy -- I felt like I was pedaling on a pool deck, or maybe in Cozumel.  

  

By 1:00, when I reached the next control at Mile 110, I was not a happy camper.  The balls of my feet felt like they were on fire -- hot foot is something I suffer from fairly chronically due to my unfathomably high arches -- and I was dripping sweat.  In almost every instance, if I'd covered 110 hilly miles on a hot day, it would be time for watermelon and a nap.  In this case, however, having ridden for 8 hours, I wasn't even 1/3 of the way to the end.  Candidly, things felt bleak, but a large coke, some salted peanuts, and I was on my way again.  I sent out a Tweet whining about my self-imposed situation, and climbed back on the bike to head further into the pain cave.

By this point, I had truly arrived in rural America.

You may notice that it suddenly got much less sunny than in the videos above.  That's due to what weather forecasters euphemistically call "scattered showers," but are in fact better labeled "ninja storms."  For the next 20 minutes or so, I was soaked to the gills, but to be frank, it felt absolutely wonderful.  I could almost feel the sludge of sweat, salt, and sunscreen being washed off, and the rain felt crisp and refreshing -- far superior to the blazing sun I'd dealt with for the previous five hours.  It was just what the doctor ordered, and by Mile 150, the sun was shining again, I'd caught my second wind, and I was blasting through the countryside as good as new.

This part of the adventure was quite a bit of fun -- the roads were smooth, and though there were some chippy climbs, they often led to gentle, wide-open descents that I could bomb down with big grin on my face.

As often as not, I'd round corners to find myself with panoramic views of farmland with the road snaking its way into the distance.  At this point in the ride, I felt indestructible and couldn't remember why I'd been apprehensive in the least.  It's this sort of riding that people who stick to the trails will never get to experience, and it's part of what makes cycling such an endorphin rush at times.

Through this stage, I had but one goal: to make it to the turnaround point at Mile 189, in Clifton Forge, where I'd scoped out a pizza place.  If I could make it there, I reasoned, I could make it back in the cooler nighttime hours.  Surviving the afternoon heat was the key.  

It turns out, though, that I shouldn't have been so eager to make it to dinner: Miles 140-189 offered by far the most beautiful and enjoyable part of the ride, as they meandered gently through the George Washington National Forest.  The pavement was immaculate and the dense forest offered respite from the sun at just the time I otherwise would have been most vulnerable to cracking a second time.  The first half of the journey through the park was largely uphill, which at times was highly discouraging; there's nothing like a false flat for 10 miles to make you question whether you'll ever get where you're going.  But, at least on this course, what goes up must come down, and there were miles on end of bombing through the woods, here and there emerging onto panoramas that made me fall in love with cycling all over again every few miles.

There were yet more bucolic hayscapes.

And even road signs offering warm welcomes to visitors from DC.

At long last, around 6:00 pm -- 189 miles and 13 hours after the journey began -- I rolled into the small town of Clifton Forge, VA, the southernmost tip of the route.  The halfway point on a ride like this offers an odd mixture of elation and bafflement.  The elation is obvious: you get to eat real food, storing up calories for the ultracycling equivalent of winter, i.e., riding through the night where the only calories on offer are at 7-Elevens.  (Or is that 7s-Eleven?)  The bafflement is once you realize that, as tired as you are and as grateful for dinner as you may be, you're only halfway there, and the return trip is every bit as hilly, and will require riding through the night.  Indeed, I'd ridden a solo 300k in this territory in March and had been utterly whipped by the end.  It was hard to imagine that I had a slightly hillier version of that route still to go after already having come so far.  Ultracycling is, as they say, substantially a mental challenge, and this was the part of the day when that really became true.

Because I'm just a little bit anal, I'd scoped out Clifton Forge online in the days before the ride to ensure that there would be a pizza place where I could park myself and ingest about 2 million calories of cheese and 10 grams of sodium.  There was indeed, just half a mile off the route, past the control point.  Unfortunately, what hadn't been obvious from my research was that the half-mile in question was straight up at about a 12% grade, which was enough to feel like some cosmic deity was kicking me in the nuts.  What also hadn't been obvious was that the restaurant was profoundly out of business.  

There must be a psychological condition characterized by one's entire sanity being held together by the prospect of crappy Italian food in the middle of nowhere, and I was team captain of the crazies.  Utterly depressed at the thought that my dinner had suddenly transmogrified into yet another Clif Bar purchased at an Exxon station, I mushed another half mile, where lo, I reached the promised land, which came in the (rather surprising) form of The Most Redneck Pizza Hut Ever.  I didn't care a whit.  In fact, since I was basically the only customer, I rolled my bike inside, took off my shoes, and for the next 45 minutes proceeded to render half the restaurant in violation of every health code on the books.  I even took a bath in the restroom using baby wipes I'd brought along for the purpose.  I then ordered a large pizza with chicken, mushrooms, and green peppers, and proceeded to eat the entire damn thing, taking care first to empty most of a salt shaker on top of it.  Much like a dog gnawing on a bone, all the happiness in the world was on the table in front of me, and I devoured that happiness and thereby claimed its powers as my own.  Go ahead and judge.  

THE LONG ROAD HOME

In all, dinner and the Clifton Forge control/resupply point took an hour, which brought me to about 7:00 pm.  I was making good time: in the D.C. Rand 600k brevet that had been run in similar territory a month earlier, the finishing times had ranged from about 32-37 hours.  I was at the 14-hour mark halfway through, which put me on the golden side of my goal of finishing in the 28-30 hour range.  But the big variable lay ahead: my first all-night ride.  

First, though, I had to tackle the only major climb on the route, a 5-mile, 1800' beast that would take me past the Mile 200 point.  I knew that, in the grand scheme, it was a net downhill from the summit, and given that it was a climb up through the National Forest, I looked forward to a Skyline-esque, cruising descent for miles on the other side.  

It was not to be.  Not even a little bit.  No good, very bad.

All told, I'd been relatively lucky on the weather front -- the region had been stuck in a system of periodic, violent storms, but apart from my afternoon dousing, which had felt pretty good, I'd managed to avoid the worst of it.  My bill came due halfway up the densely forested climb, when it suddenly turned extremely dark, and the flashing and booming started.  There was really no choice for me to make except to keep moving forward: I figured I'd get a little wet, but that would be fine, and in any case I was climbing, so who really cares about rain.  

What then proceeded to happen shows that there is rain, and then there is rain.  By the time I reached the summit, it was as if, instead of cycling up a mountain in the GW National Forest, I'd inadvertently climbed Mt. Olympus and pissed off Thor.

By the time I reached the summit and started the descent, I realized that the situation was rapidly devolving from memorable to "I hope I live to remember anything after this."  The rain was full-on flash flood strength, with rivers washing down the road and my brakes not even stopping me a little bit.  Massive rooster tails were being flung off my front wheel in front of my headlight, which made them burn blindingly before they flew backwards into my eyes.  Here's a very brief look at what I was dealing with.

Although the temperatures were still around 70, I was soaked to the bone, and I was starting to shake with cold as I tried to descend and keep the bike on the road.  (For those who were at IMUSA in 2008, imagine the huge descent, at dusk, in much, much harder rain.)  I finally wrestled the bike to a stop and frantically dug through my trunk bag to get the rain jacket and cap I'd brought out of (what I thought then was) an excess of caution, and they proved to be completely, utterly invaluable -- I'm not sure how I would have gotten off the mountain without them.  As it was, I was descending at about 10 mph for a solid 20+ minutes, just trying to get down to safety.   Even putting aside my grief at doing all the work to climb the mountain but not being able to make up time down the other side, it was terrifying and exhausting.  I'm just glad that the descent was relatively gradual, and that I'd been sufficiently paranoid to pack a jacket on a hot day in July.  The cap was equally important, as it finally allowed me to keep the rain out of my eyes enough to pick my way down the hill.

(Note: some people have expressed the opinion that they'd get bored on a bike ride this long.  Periods like this show why I don't think this is a major worry -- I could have done with a little boredom just then.)

I finally did make it down the mountain, and barreled along to mile 215, where the cue sheet said there was a country store.  I hadn't planned to stop -- it wasn't a control point -- but the next control wasn't until mile 250, which was further than I was comfortable going without refueling, and I wanted to get a drink and de-stress for a minute.  I passed the store at 8:59 pm before turning around 50 feet later and circling back to it.  How do I know that I passed it at 8:59?  Because, in the time it took me to turn around, the "open" sign in the window had turned off, as the cashier pointed out indignantly when I approached the door, mouthing "Nine o-clock!"  Good grief.  So, on I went, into the darkness with only about 12 hours of riding to go!  Only 12 hours.  12 hours. 12.  Hours.  Ugh.

The nighttime portion of the ride was, for me, the huge unknown.  Having experienced it, though, I can say in retrospect that it's actually best considered the reward following a hard day's work.  It was utterly delightful: smooth pavement, long stretches following the same road for 10-15 miles at a time, wide shoulders, and very few cars.  Most important, the temperatures dipped down to about 70, which made it absolutely perfect for cranking out the miles.

I think there's a single question that determines whether rural nighttime rides are the best or the most grueling of a ride: whether your lighting system is adequate.  This may seem obvious, but I think my definition of "adequate" is quite a bit more demanding than most people's.  As I explained in my bike setup post, I was running an Exposure Strada and Joystick simultaneously, with enough battery backup power to keep each going far beyond what I'd need.  On the setting I'd selected, the Strada was putting out 400 watts in front of me -- I could crank it up to a car-like 800 lumens with the flick of a switch -- and the helmet-mounted Joystick was at about 200 watts, but in a very directed beam that followed my head.  With these two lights, I could ride absolutely full-speed with complete confidence.  I don't believe in playing the "how little illumination can I get away with?" game.  Even if you manage to get away with skimping on lumens and thereby carrying a smaller battery or cheaper light -- and one might not get away with it -- the experience is much more stressful and taxing, and you have to go more slowly in order to ensure that you don't "outrun" the illumination.

I also feel strongly that a good helmet light is an important complement to a strong front light.  That's not only so that you can flash cars, look around curves, and that sort of thing, but also because it makes it mentally easier to get through the night.  In the daytime, you can distract yourself by looking at vistas, houses, trees, people, or what-have-you.  Not so at night, particularly when all you have is a headlight pointed straight ahead.  You come to feel like you're in a tunnel.  With a helmet-mounted light, however, you can look around at the nighttime world: the critters with glowing eyes, and everything else.  I froze numerous cats in their spots, each time declaring loudly that they'd been owned.  You can, that is, enjoy the slightly surreal nighttime world in a way that's not possible with a headlight alone.  

Home sweet home, but not for me.

Compared to the daytime slog through the heat, the nighttime cruising flew by, aided on its way by Lou Diamond Phillips whispering sweet neocon nothings in my ear.  At Mile 262, I hit the overnight control at the Village Inn in Harrisonburg, VA.  This is the control point where most riders on a 600k choose to bed down for a few hours of rest before rolling out again the next morning.  I anticipated being sorely tempted to stop, but happily, I was absolutely wired and eager to keep moving.   (I suppose this is what 20 hours of drinking Coke and Mountain Dew, and eating energy bars and gels, will do to you.)  The innkeeper was not entirely sure what to make of me, and expressed a little hesitation about initialing some random card thrust upon him in the middle of the night by a spandex-clad cyclist who smelled of a thousand tragedies, but I prevailed in the end, perhaps when he realized that the alternative might entail my coming inside.

Maybe the most interesting riding was rolling through towns in the true dead of night, around 3:00-4:00 am. On a Saturday night, I could conceive of their being at least a little activity, if only drunks barreling around trying to make it home.  On a Sunday night/Monday morning, though, things are just empty in a way that's deeply tranquil or unnerving, depending on how much Steven King one's read lately.

The only nighttime hiccup -- which, admittedly, was a little stressful -- resulted from a combination of mother nature's wrath and my own incompetence.  I was as alone as alone can be on this ride, but I figured that, at the very least, I should make it possible for people to find me should I disappear.  For that, I used my Garmin 810's "LiveTrack" feature.

LiveTrack feature used in a previous ride.

LiveTrack connects the Garmin to a cellphone via Bluetooth, and enables you to send a web link to certain people via email, or to the entire world via Facebook or Twitter.  Anyone who clicks on the link will get an up-to-the-minute idea of where you are.  If something happens, they'll know where to look.  I considered it to be of some peace of mind.

The problem is that the Bluetooth connection between Garmin and cellphone cuts each device's battery life substantially.  It's partially for this reason that I'd brought a massive USB backup battery that I used to recharge them as I was rolling along.  The trouble is that, with about 100 miles to go, I realized that I couldn't find the mini USB cable that interfaced with my Garmin.  I had the micro USB for my cell, and the cables for my lights, but not the one for the Garmin, which I'd last seen... in the middle of the thunderstorm.  It seems that, when I was fumbling around in the rain for my jacket and putting batteries in safe locations, I'd accidentally dropped that small cable, which meant I couldn't recharge my Garmin.  

This had two implications.  First, I had to turn off LiveTrack, which was moderately stressful in of itself.  Second, my Garmin -- which was handling my routing home -- was going to go dead with a good three hours to go.  I had a cue sheet, but that had substantially dissolved in the deluges, as I hadn't realized that my cue sheet holder was far from watertight.

So, I was faced with somewhat of a dilemma about how I'd get home, with neither electronic nor paper routing.  It just wouldn't be a randonneuring ride without some sort of calamity to deal with.  I figured that, if worst came to worst, I'd plot the route back home using Google Maps on my cellphone.  Hurray for over-the-top electronic redundancy!

As it turns out, though, things worked out.  By turning of Bluetooth and any trace of backlighting, my noble Garmin 810 lasted through mile 342(!) of 376; by that time, dawn was breaking, and I'd managed to dry out the tattered cue sheet enough to pick my way back home.  

The last 30 miles of the ride, from Mile 350 on, were simultaneously beautiful and completely dreadful.  My randonneuring compadre Max and I often have remarked that, no matter how long you're riding, it seems like the last 10% of the ride is excruciatingly difficult.  In my 300k, miles 170-190 were death on wheels.  In the 600k, those miles flew by without a second thought, but the bill came due at mile 350.  Dawn was breaking and the world was beautiful once more.  I'd made it through the night, and ridden for more than 24 hours.  It was Monday morning, and around me the early birds were leaving for work.  Their weeks were just beginning, but the end of my journey was in sight.  

Well, almost in sight.  It's a trick of the mind when 30 miles -- 2 hours, at my pace -- seems like nothing.  It's not nothing; indeed, it's far from it, and it can seem close to forever when your digestive system is upside down and you're tired beyond belief.  My feet were on fire, and every rolling hill constituted a deeply personal insult.  In the end, though, I cruised back across the low water bridge and along Rt. 55, with the miles to Haymarket counting down: 8... 5... 3... 

And then I was at the massive intersection, looking at Sheetz across the street, at 8:39 a.m. -- 27 hours and 39 minutes after I'd taken off the morning before.  I'd made it.

EPILOGUE

I'll remember this ride forever.  I'm not sure I'd say it was fun, exactly, but then again, I can't remember the last time I was in a race or ultradistance ride when I was filled with glee the whole time.  Like much of life, endurance events often are meaningful and enjoyable only in retrospect.  "Fun" in the conventional sense doesn't quite translate.

I've often thought that a primary purpose of long rides, and a primary purpose of life in general, is to do memorable things, and this was one of the most incredible journeys I've ever had.  In the grand scheme, the result doesn't matter; it wasn't a race, and I was the only one riding.  But in this year's D.C. Rand 600k brevet, on a comparable route, the finishers' times ranged from about 32 hours to 37 hours, with 40 hours being the official cutoff.  Not having any idea what to expect, I'd set a flexible but ambitious goal for myself of going under 30 hours.  27:39 is a dream time, especially considering the motivational issues inherent in a solo effort, the gruesome heat in the afternoon, and The Nothing that struck when I was on the mountain. 

The result is also particularly validating because, in the last month, things have been pretty awful for me athletically.  Since my seemingly minor fall at Columbia Tri six weeks before this ride, I hadn't been able to run more than a couple of miles at a time or swim at all, and my cycling had been limited to a couple of long rides, the last of which -- the Diabolical Double the weekend before -- had gone spectacularly badly.  I've often felt listless, and like my fitness was bleeding out with every passing day.  Hopefully this is the sign of a corner turned.

This result also confirmed to me that, to the extent I have any talent for riding a bike, it's probably best expressed in very long efforts, where I seem to have good success in holding things together until the finish line.  I surprised myself with a 256-mile effort in a 12-hour time trial last summer, and this ride suggests an answer to my uncertainty as to whether I'm capable of riding through the night without sleep.

In response to some flattering questions I've gotten lately, I'm not planning to take on RAAM.  I don't think I'll ever go for that.  I'd like to think I could finish it within the time limit if I set out to make that the overriding goal of my life in the next few years, but I don't want to strike that (lack of) balance.  And, to be honest about it, the guy who won it this year rode the same pace I did on this ride, but did it for 8 days straight.  That is simply freakish and alien levels of talent (or something), and I'm not, and will never be, in the same galaxy.

But it's not RAAM or bust.  I'd like to qualify for RAAM next year, which is in itself an honorable feat.  I plan to compete in a few 12- and 24-hour time trials to see what damage I can do if I put my mind to those events.  They're a new sort of challenge.

In the immediate term, though, this ride checked the final box to qualify me for the Big Wild Ride 1200k in Alaska in 3 weeks' time.  That ride is double the distance of this one, albeit in flatter terrain, and it promises to be utterly gorgeous, including riding through the not-quite-night that prevails in Alaska in the summertime.  I look forward to seeing the snowcapped peaks on Denali by bicycle, and to experiencing the beauty of that amazing state for the first time in the most memorable way I know how.  Here's to it!

Shooting for 600k -- My Ultracycling Setup

Tomorrow I'll be attempting by far the longest ride of my life to date: 600k (375 miles), with 24,000 feet of climbing.  My previous record is about 250 miles.  If all goes well, I'll finish in 28-30 hours.  40 is the limit.

Adding to the intimidation factor is the fact that it'll be entirely unsupported -- I'll be riding alone.  Honestly, I'm a little apprehensive, but I suppose it's just a question of keeping the pedals turning.   I'm planning to ride straight through the night, which will be a first for me.  This is all in preparation for the 1200k ride I'll take on in Alaska in 3 weeks.  In that ride, the plan is to ride an initial chunk of 600k before bedding down for a bit, so tomorrow's ride is something of a dry run.

Tomorrow's route isn't something I just made up.  Instead, it's a "permanent," which is essentially a brevet, complete with control points and the like, that one can arrange to ride alone at a designated time.   My route tomorrow will take me from Haymarket, VA, west through Marshall and Middletown, and then south to Clifton Forge, which is a stone's throw from Roanoke.  And then I'll come back, hopefully before work on Tuesday.  :-)

Over the months and years, I've tried a lot of different bike setups for ultra cycling rides from 200k-400k.  This is not a "racing" setup by any means.  Instead, it assumes I'll be unsupported, and the priority is on comfort and durability for the long haul, complete with anticipating any reasonably foreseeable contingencies.  For my ride tomorrow, I'm doing a dry run of something very close to the setup I'll use in Alaska.  Since I know several people who have expressed interest in ultra cycling, I wanted to explain my setup.  Rather than write 375 pages, though, I thought a video might make the most sense!

Listed below the video I link to certain items I discuss.  Please let me know if you have questions about anything.  I didn't talk about the many things I've tried and chosen to leave home, which is a worthwhile topic in of itself.

Magnic Lights -- note that this page shows the older, initial Kickstarter design

Dura Ace Tubeless Wheels

Hutchinson Sector 28 Tubeless Tires

Hed Clip Lite Aerobars -- mine are an older version

Banjo Brothers cue sheet holder

Revelate Designs Gas Tank

Exposure Lights Strada (front light) -- with triple-cell backup battery.

Exposure Lights Joystick (helmet light)-- with single-cell backup battery.

Arkel Randonneur Seat Post Rack with Tailrider trunk bag

Anker A2 USB battery

Hail to the King

Strasser wins RAAM 2013.  Photo from www.christophstrasser.at.

Facebook friends know that, last week, I posted an incessant string of updates about how the 2013 edition of the Race Across America was unfolding.  For those who've seen the excellent documentary Bicycle Dreams, my updates may have had some resonance.

Most people, though, were likely perplexed as to why I'd care about something seemingly so trivial and irrelevant: "Great, some Teutonic dude is mushing his way across the country on a bicycle for reasons best known to him, and he's beating some equally misguided souls who clearly overreacted to someone's advice that they get some fresh air."

The reason why I care is simple: in my view, Christoph Strasser's ride in RAAM 2013 was the single greatest feat of endurance cycling in history -- including every Tour de France ride, every stage race, and every time trial.  Indeed, I think it may be the most impressive performance in the history of endurance sports, period. Others may quibble.  I don't care.  It was utterly superhuman.

It's hard to quantify how inconceivably difficult RAAM is; the numbers just blend together, like the odds of one's picking the winning lottery number.  Outside magazine famously described RAAM as "the toughest race in the world."  It is nearly incomprehensible: a 3,000 mile bicycle race across the United States, from Oceanside, CA to Annapolis, MD.

It involves more than 170,000 feet of climbing, cresting above 8,000 feet.

Drafting is not allowed and, most critically, the clock never stops.  Unlike the Tour de France, which covers about 2,300 miles in daily stages over the course of three weeks, every minute a RAAM rider spends off the bike is a minute lost to another rider who didn't stop.  The result is mutually assured destruction, a competition to see who can rest the least and push the hardest.  The winners usually take 8-9 days to complete the journey, averaging more than 22 hours a day on the bike during that time.  Fewer than 200 people have completed the event in the 30 years it's been run.  Far more have summited Mount Everest.  And waiting at the finish line is only a medal and bragging rights -- no prize money whatever.

The struggle merely to finish RAAM is an endurance challenge almost without parallel.  Two people have died in the attempt.  Many, many more have been hospitalized with pneumonia and renal failure.   Hallucinations are ubiquitous.  In fact, the race has given rise to a medical condition, Shermer's Neck, that exists nowhere else: the muscles holding a rider's head up simply give out, such that his head flops around like a ragdoll's.  But if you think such a trivial malady stops these guys, you're mostly wrong.  What happens instead is MacGyver meets a Terminator T-1000:

So, yes: RAAM is stupid.  It makes no sense whatever.  But you can be sure of one thing: the people who compete in it don't do so for multi-million dollar contracts, to get their faces on a Wheaties box, or to date a starlet.  There is no reason at all ever to compete in this event except that the athletes feel a drive to do it, often for reasons only they understand.  Many of the very best ultracyclists come from impoverished, hardscrabble backgrounds in eastern Europe, and ride their bikes as a means of escape -- of proving themselves to the world, and to themselves.  There's some beauty in that.

Against that background, enter Christoph Strasser, a 30-year-old Austrian competing in his third Race Across America.  He'd won the race in 2011, in a time of 8 days and 8 hours, but was beaten in 2012.  Competing against him was likely the most stacked field in race history, including Dani Wyss, a 2-time winner, and Reto Schoch, the 2012 winner.  The only name missing was the legendary Jure Robic (at left), the 5-time winner and star of Bicycle Dreams, who died in a bicycle accident in 2010.  Aside from Robic, every winner in the last 10 years was toeing the line.  Strasser had a support crew of 11 people spread across three vehicles, including an RV, and he'd set his sights on beating the course record of 8 days, 3 hours -- which had been set back in 1986 and not approached since then.

What transpired over the next... well, almost 8 days was one of the most outrageous episodes of utter domination that endurance sport has ever seen.  Here was the leader board when Strasser crossed the finish line:

Dear. Holy. Crap.  He was 245 miles ahead of the guy in second place.  He averaged 15.66 miles per hour for 7 days, 22 hours, and 52 minutes -- the fastest time in history by a country mile, and the first time anyone had ever completed RAAM in under 8 days.  Here is what 245 miles looks like -- note the second-place rider out near West Virginia:

Dani Wyss, the second-place rider and 2-time winner, finished fully 22 hours after Strasser, and Strasser went 1.5 mph -- or 10 percent -- faster:

Figures like that are hard to comprehend.  By way of analogy, similar performances in other sports might be:

• Winning the Boston Marathon in 2 hours flat, and with a 10-minute gap over the second-place runner;
• Winning the Ironman World Championship by an hour, over a field including two former winners.

In other words, this is not "merely" a win in the hardest race on earth.  It's something closer to an evolutionary leap.  The 8-hour barrier at RAAM is like the 4-minute mile of endurance athletics.  

So, who cares?  It's just a bike race.  Well, I'd put it the opposite way: I don't understand how someone could *not* find this utterly amazing.  I don't understand why it wasn't the lead story on ESPN and the sports section of every newspaper in the country.  If endurance sport has any meaning -- and millions of people running marathons each year suggest it does -- then it's surely the ability to redefine what's possible, and failure to appreciate that shows a lack of poetry in one's soul.  We watch the Olympics to see the best athletes on earth doing things no one else has ever done, and attaining speeds no one has ever reached.  People who've never swam a lap nonetheless can appreciate the athletic genius of Michael Phelps, and I think what Strasser did last week is every bit as stunning.  If a man can ride a bicycle for 23 hours and 15 minutes a day, at nearly 16 mph, for 8 days on end, what else might we be able to do that no one's dreamed?  What limits have we each imposed upon ourselves that aren't limits after all?

Putting the "Doh" in "Gran Fondo"

The Diabolical Double at Garrett County Gran Fondo accurately describes itself as an "extreme epic ride that highlights the incredible beauty and severe terrain of the Allegheny Mountains of western Maryland and West Virginia."  That about sums it up.  There are four distance options, the longest of which is the 125-mile "Diabolical Double[-Metric Century]," an utter beast that clocks in at more than 16,000 feet of climbing.  It's certainly one of the marquis rides in the mid-Atlantic region each summer, and this was my third trip through the wringer.

I wish I could say it was a great time, but the truth is that I wasn't ready for this ride and got found out in pretty epic fashion.  No mechanicals, no wrecks (although I did nearly dislocate my shoulder in a pothole in a gravel road), and no excuses.  I just had nothing in my legs from Mile 1 to Mile 125, and the heat, which climbed up into the 90s at points, compounded the problems.

A month ago, I'd have said I was very optimistic about this event, having taken a massive chunk out of my personal best time at Mountains of Misery, a comparable -- if less, er, diabolical -- ride of the same distance.  That ride hurt a lot, but I felt pretty unbreakable throughout it, and I probably could have kept going past the finish if someone paid me enough.

How things can change in the course of a month.  After Mountains of Misery, my hip irritation had gotten bad enough that it hurt to walk, and I couldn't run to the sidewalk without hopping in agony.  I didn't see any option but to Shut It Down.  No cycling, no swimming (kicking and pushing off the wall would have been painful), and certainly no running.  It's amazing how much one's fitness level can plummet after spending a month on the couch, and how any heat acclimation can disappear by living in air conditioning.  I also find that my dietary discipline goes out the window when I'm feeling sorry for myself, so I've been following something close to the Paula Deen meal plan.

By the time I toed the starting line yesterday, I don't think I realized how unprepared I was.  Things then went downhill due to a stupid decision and an unexpected logistical setback.  The stupid decision was a rookie mistake: eating two huge bagels with almond butter and honey an hour before the start.  I spent the first three hours trying not to throw up while grinding up 20% grades.  I wanted nothing to do with water, food, or anything else.  Things then got worse when, on a shaded gravel road, I hit a virtually invisible pothole *hard*.  I nearly dislocated my shoulder, and both of my hands were knocked completely off the bars.  Bottles went flying.  I managed to stay upright, but the cap on one of my two water bottles was shattered, so I was forced to complete the remaining 5 hours of riding with only one bottle, as temps were climbing up toward 90.

I was riding with two teammates as part of the "Gentleman's Race," which is like a team-based scavenger hunt.  If not for the requirement that all teammates ride and finish together, I'm absolutely sure I would have switched over to the century distance at some point.  It was great riding with those guys, but toward the end, I couldn't even draft competently, and my world was a distinctly fuzzy place. Looking back on it, I was almost certainly very dehydrated, an awful state in which you want no food, no water, and nothing more than to sit down on the side of the road until the world stops being so mean.

When it's all said and done, it could have been a lot worse, especially considering the extremely technical descents throughout the ride.  People end up running off the road each year, to varying degrees of disaster.  I never had any doubt that I'd finish.  Instead, I just got owned, which in the long run may be a good thing.  I've gotten so used to 200k, 300k, and 400k epic rides that I've ceased to be intimidated by them.  That confidence is helpful on some level when things get tough -- you can always recall when things have been tougher -- but it also means that I've started neglecting fundamentals.  Yesterday my ego and dignity got kicked in the nuts for 10 hours straight, and there's some value in that.  These things wouldn't be any fun at all if they were easy.

On the plus side, my hip was just about the only thing that wasn't in agony at any point yesterday, so I'm hopeful that I've turned the corner on a deeply annoying injury.  One bad ride isn't the measure of a season, and I have a lot to look forward to, starting with a 600k (375-mile) solo voyage in a permanent next weekend.  In the grand scheme, yesterday will go down as a particularly painful training day.

Midnight Moonlight Madness

Last night (Friday), I found myself at 8:00 having no plans for the evening.  But I wanted some!  It was a beautiful, clear night, so I decided to hop on my bike, fire up the new randonneuring-friendly lighting system, and set out for remote pastures.

What a blast!  I think all avid cyclists owe it to themselves to try a nighttime ride at some point.  I wound up covering 85 miles or so, from my front door out to Sugarloaf and back, while enjoying (in a safe way) a new audiobook.

I headed out around 8:30, and got home just before 2:00 a.m.  It couldn't have been much more pleasant: no cars on the roads, no bikes on the roads.  Heck, no one on the roads but me and nocturnal wildlife.  I probably saw two dozen deer, several raccoons, and a few cats, all with eyes illuminated by my (quite wonderful) Exposure Joystick helmet light.

There's something liberating about freeing oneself from the dictates of prescribed training rides, group-ride pacing, wattages, heart rate zones, and all of that -- just head out and go.  When the only sounds are the soft whirring of one's tires, it's easy to remember why cycling is such a joy.  Even familiar routes look quite different at night, and the stars come out to play far from the city lights.

I definitely need to do this again soon.  If you love driving at night on the open road, this is way better.