In the days leading up to Hunterdon, I rode my MTB and crashed twice, bruising my right knee (the bad one), my right shoulder and bicep. I followed that up by working at the shop the next day (day before the ride) and throwing my back out reaching for an S5 with Di2 Ultegra. You read that right, a 16lb bike threw my back out.
I felt cursed, and there was a huge part of me that was set on just not doing it. I hadn't registered, so I wasn't out anything and other than catching a ton of shit from everyone at work, there was no real reason not to pull out. Well, except for pride. Stupid, foolish pride.
As I was packing everything the night before, and constantly looking at weather.com, I couldn't calm myself down. Here I was, getting ready to do my first Philly Spring Classic and it was going to be perfect Spring Classic weather. It was calling for 45* and rain the whole day. That meant that the 10+ miles of dirt roads were going to be muddy and slick. It was set up to be exactly the kind of ride I was hoping for.
Saturday morning I rechecked weather.com no less than five times. I wanted to be sure I brought all the right gear so I wouldn't be miserable. I brought my arm warmers, knee warmers, a base layer, my hat, my clubfit specialized jersey, vest, wool socks, rain jacket and waterproof shoe covers. I brought both my winter gloves and my 40* and over gloves, just incase.
When we got to Lambertville, it was cold. I figured it was because of the rain, and I would warm up as I rode. We all made sure we had the right stuff and headed towards registration. After a quick chat and $50 that I borrowed from Jude, I was registered and able to stop at the rest stop. We ran into a ton of people that Jude knows (17yrs of being a wrench, he knows EVERYBODY) and rolled over to the start line 10 riders deep.
At the start line we were staged in the second group, so we had to wait about 5 minutes after the first group before we could leave. It was misting, but I was just standing there, nervous and cold, going over and over in my head how I was going to start without fucking up. When they fired the gun for us, I realized that all of the nerves were for nought, because everyone just slowly rolled off and gave everyone else a ton of room. We made it a whopping block before we had to stop on a hill to wait for the crew to stop traffic before we could cross 29 and start the ride. That didn't settle my nerves at all.
The ride starts with a nice mile long climb. I warmed up right away, and just went at a nice steady pace as the lead guys in our group (Jude and Julz included) slowly pulled away from me, but the slower guys didn't catch me up. I sat in no man's land for the majority of the climb. It was lonely. By the top of the climb, I had slowed enough that Anna and the slower people had caught up, but I had also caught a bunch of the slow people from the first group, so it was all of the sudden chaotic. As soon as I found Anna, we settled into a comfy pace and started our ride.
The organizers waisted no time getting us on to dirt. I was expecting dirt roads, but it never even occurred to me that there would be dirt climbs. I was stoked. I noticed right away that a lot of people that flew by us on the straights I was flying by on the hills and dirt sections. Even on the downhills, I was surprised by how much more confident I was than most of the people. It was a lot of fun talking to the people who had obviously never riden their road bike on dirt before, but were super excited now that they had. You would just see the muddy faces of people who had their minds blown. I wish I had my camera, I would have taken an entire series of photographs.
As Anna and I continued, I noticed that My gloves were getting wetter, and my hands colder, but that my feet were perfectly warm. I pushed on, thinking little of it. I would very quickly regret that.
By the time we hit the third or fourth section of dirt I was still feeding off my excitement. We bombed down a paved hill that ended with a tiny cement bridge followed by a two foot puddle of mud-water and then dirt. I was at 35mph at the bottom of the hill, hopped the water and hit the dirt pedaling. There was a long dirt hill almost immediately following that, and I could see a bunch of people standing on the side of the road and a red bike was down. As I got closer, I noticed that it was Julz, and I sped up to see what happened. It looked like he was huddled on the ground, so I was worried. As I got right up on them, he stood up and flipped his bike over. He had a flat and was taking forever to fix it because he was nervous/cold. All the people he was with were the group of Jude's friends we started with (Jude didn't stop), one of whom was Julz's cross team manager. I gave the kid a hard time and made sure he was good then I started off up the hill again. If I had known how long or steep that hill was, I wouldn't have stopped at all, even if Julz was hurt. Jesus, it sucked.
After Anna and I regrouped, I noticed that both of our drivetrains had lost all their lubrication and sounded like shit. Mine sounded especially gross, and after a few hundred more yards I realized that my rear wheel was out of true. This was mile 13. Fuck. I asked Anna how far it was to the first rest stop, and she said only like 10mi or so, so I figured I would just wait until we got there and I would fix it then. After three or four more hills, I couldn't take it any more and I hopped off and opened up my brakes until the rim couldn't hit the pad anymore. This, of course, meant that my lever hit the bar before I could get maximum engagement, but it was a lot better than having my rim slow me down as I climbed.
At mile 23, I realized my hands were almost numb, my waterproof booties were clearly not as they claimed and that I really, really had to piss. Where the fuck was this rest stop?
By mile 28, I couldn't wait until the rest stop, I had to piss. I pulled over, but was too cold to pee. So I hopped back on and we rode a little further. at mile 29, I hopped off again. Anna said she would wait for me at the end of the dirt section. I managed to pee this time, and as I watched the ground steam, I couldn't help but think I was literally pissing away my warmth. My hands were so useless at this point that I couldn't open up my Shot Blocks without using my teeth (they were rock hard, for the record) and putting on my soaking wet gloves was actually painful. To add insult to injury, my Speedplay cleats had filled up with mud and were now clogged, so I couldn't clip in. I got enough gunk out that I could ride, and finished the climb out. As I reached the top, the road became paved again, and I pedaled until I almost geared out, and I tucked and just went for it. I was zooming past people, and I saw Anna up ahead. More importantly, she saw me and pulled out and started hammering. She pulled out at the perfect time for me because by the time she got up to speed and tucked, I was a few lengths behind her and I just slowly got sucked in by her draft and then shot by her enough that she could catch mine. It was awesome, but the hill was so long that my arms were hurting and we were so much colder that my hands became absolutely useless.
After that, we weren't talking as much. There were a few long stretches of roads where we didn't speak at all. The cold was just brutal and I was so miserable, I seriously thought about just hopping into the SAG wagon and being done with it. My legs had never felt that tired after 30mi and I couldn't stand up on the bike because it hurt my back. I just wanted it to end, but I couldn't bring myself to stop it. I wanted to do the whole ride and was hell bent on reaching that goal.
After about 5mi of silence, we came into a little town that Anna knew and was telling me where some nice roads were. We started talking again and questioning how much further to the rest stop. We made a right onto a road where you could just see it go up for a while, and I put my head down and just pedaled. I dropped Anna quickly, and caught every person I saw. When I got to the end I saw a guy walking and asked if he was okay. He snapped back "I have a cramp!" as if my asking if he was alright was offensive. I guess the ride was just getting to everybody.
At the top of the hill I just coasted down and at the bottom I went to stop and wait for Anna to catch up. As I came to a creeping stop I tried to clip out, and I couldn't. Both feet were locked in, and I made myself fall to the right. I was really pissed, because now my side was soaked and muddy. Luckily, there was a rock there, and I was able to push myself up to a standing position, and I had to tweak the shit out of my leg to break free. I took off my gloves and wrung them out, reached for my Shot
I found Anna and she started shedding layers to use the bathroom. Being a woman and wearing bibs is rough, especially in weather like that. While she waited in line, I gorged on food. I ate 1 and a half PB&J sandwiches, three bars and a banana. All before Anna got back. I finished off the pack of Blocks I had been eating and changed to my 40* and warmer gloves. I figured I would trade warmer, but soaked in water and just useless for no warmth but lots of dry. That, in conjunction with the rain jacket were wonderful, because while my hands were still numb, they weren't wet, and the thin cape was enough for my core to stabilize. As we got back on our bikes Anna asked if I wanted to throw in the towel. We had made it 38mi and were freezing, wet and just hated life, but I insisted we keep going. Anna harped something about us not finishing until 3pm at our current pace. "Fine, we'll go a little bit further and then we'll catch a ride back. I'm at least doing half of this fucking thing."
The rest stop was at the top of a hill, so that meant that we immediately went downhill. I've riden in 23* before and not been as cold as I was after starting after that rest stop. We both almost quit right then, but We finally reached a tiny hill that we could kind of warm up on and then shut up and kept going. After a few more miles we crossed 202 and I started getting really pissed off. I couldn't clip out without falling over, so the next few miles through the neighborhoods were terrifying and down right dangerous, not to mention, profane, as I did whatever I could to stay upright. We finally hit a General Store and Anna asked if we could stop. We had been talking about the cut off point for a few miles, and we had reached it. We were 50mi in and It was the only chance we would have to cut the course and get back to town without going out of our way. As We came to a stop, I fell into a flower pot and used my hands to clip my foot out on the ground. I had to pee again, so I went into the General Store and they were kind enough to let me use the facilities. The shop was warm, but I couldn't tell. It wasn't until I washed my hands that I felt any kind of heat return to my body. The water burned for a few seconds, but then I had instant mobility back in my fingers and I could feel them again. I washed my hands for a solid two minutes. It was blissful.
When I came back down Anna huddled inside the store for a few minutes to warm up, then we set off. Fueled by the light at the end of the tunnel, we picked up the pace and ignored the pain our legs were feeling. It was a false downhill flat, so were were doing 21mph and just booking when we hit another huge downhill. It was windy and fun, but ended abruptly into 29. I barely slowed down in time and almost fell over again. As we got on 29, we were passed by a guy who was finished the main ride, and Anna just took off. She spit me off the back twice. I had to dig deep to catch her and then I was just holding on. We caught the guy and she just blew by him. I made some joking comments about not knowing what got into her, and then took off to catch her. We made it into Lambertville and she finally ran out of gas as I got a second wind, so I pulled her through the town and back to the finish. She did the Doylestown Duathlon today (the day I'm writing this), so she explained that she was just getting a last bit of training for it in while she saw the chance. Maniac. We did almost 57.8mi. We never would have made it all 80. I could care less.
We hung up our bikes, got our prize, our pizza, and our beer. As I asked the woman for a beer she asked if I wanted a cold one or a warm one. I told her to surprise me, and she handed me a cold one and said "keep the suffering going." Brilliant.
I looked at my phone and saw that Julz had texted me. He dropped out after mile 50 and had to take the SAG wag back because he had early signs of hypothermia. It turns out that weather.com was a full 9* off and it was 36 out. Anna was the only one that was almost close to being dressed for the weather.
We met up with Julz and got changed and headed to a coffee shop while we waited for Jude. He showed up about an hour and a half after we got back. His description of what the terrain was like a few miles after we dropped off was a good reassurance that we did the right thing. Jude is a beast, and he thought about stopping.
After he got his beer and prize (Jude only rides for beer) we went back to his friend Jed's house. Jed is the guy who manages Julz's cross team, and is an all around awesome guy with some awesome friends. He fed us, gave us beer and we joked and laughed for a while. It was a great way to end the day. My hands were still cold, but at least I was smiling.
If anything, I'm completely encouraged by how I did on the ride. My knee, despite being bruised and my falling on it two more times, barely showed any signs of pain. With my back thrown out, I was able to ride 60mi and climb hills over 3,500ft without getting out of the saddle. If I were dressed properly for the conditions and not in terrible condition, I think I could have done the whole thing. I would have been gassed, but I think I could have done it. Regardless, I'm doing it again next year, and I'm going to spend the whole season working my way up to doing 80mi rides with a lot of climbing. Next year, I'm finishing Hunterdon, and I may do the Fool's Classic the following week, just to do it. I really enjoyed the ride (in retrospect) and am so happy I went out to do it. I'm even happy I had the miserable experience. It couldn't have been any better.
Eidt: After re-reading this, it sounds like I'm making myself to be some kind of billy goat on the hills. Remember that all the fast people had already passed and after stopping a few times for mechanicals and such, I spent the rest of my time on the ride passing people slower than me. The bigger hills just happened to be a long jam for slower people, so that's where I did most of my passing. Get ready for a humbling read for the Roubaix ride.
1 comment:
Great read! Glad I missed it.
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