I haven’t been talking much about my weight or fitness lately. Here’s a quick assessment, for those who care: my weight is way too high and I’m having motivation difficulties with dropping that weight, mostly due to a profusion of really good taco stands within walking distance of my office.

My fitness, though, is doing pretty well. This morning, for example, I climbed the Tibble Trail. This is not an easy climb, and most people would have to push most of it.

I, however, cleaned the first mile of this climb today. Meaning I didn’t put a foot down during the most intense mile of an extremely intense climb.

And I kept going.

I cleaned the second big pitch, too. That’s saying something, because the second pitch is even steeper than the first mile, and goes for about a quarter mile.

In other words, my legs are strong, and I’m climbing well.

So I thought, “Well, let’s see if I can clean this whole thing” (I planned to give myself a free pass with regards to the crux move, which is more of a miracle move than a real move right now).

And I kept climbing.

I cleaned the hard, loose pitch at the end of the first meadow. I cleaned everything leading up to the Mill Creek intersection.

And I kept climbing.

The section between the Mill Creek sign and the third meadow is very steep, rooted, and otherwise technical. Cleaning it is never likely, but I was doing well.

That’s when I saw a group of cyclists, descending toward me.

“They’ll yield,” I thought. “They’ll know the rule.”

They got closer.

“They’ll pull over,” I prayed. Surely they could see that I was climbing in a difficult spot and should be given the right of way.

And then the first guy in the group rolled by me, forcing me off the trail and off the bike.

I guess he didn’t know the rule.

The Rule

So, for anyone who mountain bikes but perhaps doesn’t intuitively know the rule of who yields to whom, here it is:

The climber has the right of way.

It’s obvious, really. Who has an easier restart? The guy going downhill. Who’s fighting harder to keep his momentum? The guy going uphill.

Yield to the climber. No exceptions. Any questions?

I did not intend to write today. After all, I wrote entries both for this blog and for Random Reviewer yesterday.

But something happened this morning, and it just can’t wait.

I Briefly Consider Myself an Accomplished Downhiller

I’ve started attacking the climb on my commute each morning. It’s about four miles, 1500 feet of climbing. I’m trying to re-learn to ride at threshold. It’s a painful skill, but incredibly valuable if you’re going to race.

Today, the climb went well. I suffered the whole way up, but did not crack. I was pleased; how could I not be?

Feeling good, I hit the downhill hard and fast, and it wasn’t long ‘til I was spun out. I looked at my speedometer: 52.2mph. Considering that I was wearing a bike messenger bag and was not in any kind of tuck, that’s pretty danged fast.

I said to myself, “I should write a blog entry about how I’ve learned to be a fast, fearless descender on the road. I’ll find a self-deprecating angle, but will nevertheless make it clear that I’m a force to be reckoned with.”

All Hell Breaks Loose

That’s when the bike started shaking side to side. No, not shimmying. Not wobbling. Shaking. Shaking hard.

I went for the brakes and slowed the bike down a bit.

The shaking continued. In fact, it got worse.

I kept braking. The bike was now shaking so hard that both the water bottles were flung from their cages.

I remember very clearly saying aloud, “I’m going down.”

But I didn’t. I managed to bring the bike to a stop. Even at slow speed, though, the bike kept shaking.

I sat on the guardrail, adrenaline making me completely unfit to ride.

I looked over at my bike. This is what I saw:

OK. Well, that explains things.

A wave of nausea hit me as I realized exactly how close to dying I had just come: My downtube had snapped at 50mph.

Wait a second, I think I need to emphasize that a little more strongly:

My downtube snapped at 50mph.

How to Ride a Bike with a Broken Downtube

I went and collected my waterbottles, sat down on the guardrail, and thought for a moment. I was eight miles into a twenty mile commute. I had a broken downtube. What should I do?

Gingerly, I climbed back onto the bike. To my pleasure and relief, it held my weight. May as well finish that ride into work.

Here are some observations I have about riding a road bike with a broken downtube:

• When you’re off the bike, the break in the downtube merely looks like a crack. When you’re on the bike, there’s a gap of about 3/4 inch.
• A road bike with a broken downtube steers very much like a boat.
• A road bike with a broken downtube is very vertically compliant. Really absorbs the road vibration, bumps, everything. It feels just like a full-suspension mountain bike, really.
• Looking down at a big jagged gap in your downtube is not confidence-inspiring. I rode the rest of the commute at about 10mph. This affected my average speed significantly.

Goodbye, Old Friend

I’ve had that Ibis Ti Road for nine years. I planned to keep it forever. I still might, but more in a hanging-in-the-garage way than in a ride-it-til-I’m-old-and-gray way.

On the positive side, I now have the best possible reason to buy a new road bike. The shopping has already begun. Suggestions are welcome.

PS: Note to road bike manufacturers: There has never been a better time to step forward and get actively involved with the Fat Cyclist blog.

I love big rides. Even when I am suffering monumentally, bonked and sick and barely able to turn the cranks at all, there’s a kernel of my brain that knows I’ll be back. Because every once in a while, an epic ride will go perfectly and you’ll feel like you’ve seen half the world in a day.

That’s how last Saturday was.

BotchedExperiment and I met at the Grove Canyon trailhead at 6:00am (others were invited, no others came). Over the next six hours we’d do a thirty mile loop, at the end of which I would effuse, “This was the best ride of the year.”

Somehow, everything that could go right, did. And everything that could go wrong, didn’t.

I was having such a great time, I found myself making a list of what was great about this ride. I doubt that I remember all of them, but here are a few, in semi-random order: 

• Terrain changes: The ride we did starts by making you climb steeply on dangerously exposed, loose shale for a few miles. Then you cross a bridge to the other side of the canyon and you’re on forested singletrack. That turns to tall grass and ferns, then to high mountain desert. Then you’re in an alpine forest, then in a giant grassy meadow. Then a boulder-strewn, hair-raising descent. Then twisty, buff singletrack. All within in 25 miles.
• Feeling cold in July: We were in the shadow of the mountain until about 10:00am, which—coincidentally—was about how long it took for us to do the bulk of the climbing for the day. I had expected to be uncomfortably hot for most of the ride, so to be cool—and to have my wet feet (from the dew on the plants and from the occasional stream crossing) be cold on the first day of July—was a great surprise.
• Telling complete strangers about the ride you’ve done so far, knowing there’s almost no way they’re doing something as awesome as you: As Botched and I rolled into the Timpooneke parking lot—about 2/3 of the way into our ride—a guy in biking clothes asked us what our ride plan for the day was. I was so happy to say, “Well, actually we started at Grove Canyon, rode up until we caught the Great Western, then took that up to the summit of Timpooneke and rode that to here. Next, we’re going to head toward Pine Hollow, connect up to the Ridge Trail, take that to Mud Springs, and then follow Tibble down to the reservoir. From there, we’ll just take the road back to the Grove trailhead. What’s your plan?”
• Botched’s hairpin: In a completely non-show-off-y manner, Botched pulled off the most elegant downhill hairpin maneuver I have ever seen. Instead of approaching the hairpin (a tight U-turn) slowly and then trying to stay upright as you squeeze your bike through a turn with a smaller diameter than the length of your bike, Botched did this: He rode smoothly to it until his front tire was at the inside apex of the turn. He then locked his front brake and did a nose-wheelie, pivoted the rear-wheel in the air 160 degrees, set the rear wheel down and continued riding. It was a thing of beauty, I tell you.
• 25 miles of singletrack, 5-6000 feet of climbing: Neither Botched nor I had an altimeter, so I really don’t know how much climbing we did, but I think 5000 feet is a conservative guess. 7000 is probably the outside limit. But we spent the whole day on singletrack, and the trailhead was no more than five miles from either of our houses. Oh, and that 25 miles of singletrack only scratched the surface of what was available to us. Utah is, in fact, a pretty great state.
• Running across two groups of cyclists and a couple of hikers in 25 miles of singletrack: During the big six-hour ride we did, on a holiday weekend, we saw a couple hikers on the trail, one tent (at Indian Springs, where there is always someone camping), and a couple hikers. Otherwise, we had the trail to ourselves.
• The Apex Trail Moment: In Utah, a given trail is going to be perfect twice in a year: Once in the Spring or Summer when it dries out but before it gets dusty, and again in the Autumn when the rain packs down the dust. Botched and I hit this trail at its absolute best.
• Small groups: It’s a well-known fact that a large group is difficult to get moving, and just as difficult to keep it moving. When you’ve got a small group—up to four people, say—you can cover a lot of ground, even if you’re fat and slow. I don’t think Botched and I stopped for more than five minutes at any point.
• Similar abilities: It’s bad form to apologize for your lack of cycling ability—it puts the people you’re riding with in the awkward position of either having to tell you, “no, you’re a super rider” or forgiving you for aforementioned poor riding ability. But while Botched is clearly much more technical than I am, we climbed at similar speeds. Meaning we didn’t have to wait for each other every ten minutes.
• Outrageous view, earned by outrageous amounts of climbing: It’s always great to look down from the top of a mountain. It’s even better to look down from the top of a mountain when you realize that three hours ago, you were at the bottom of that mountain, and have climbed the whole thing on your bike.
• Showing someone new trail: Botched hadn’t been on parts of the ride we went on last Saturday. I love showing incredible trail to someone who appreciates it.
• Julie Andrews Meadow: Julie Andrews Meadow is right in the middle of the Timpooneke trail. It’s the most appropriately-named meadow in the world. Big, beautiful meadow. Giant vistas all the way around. It makes me want to spin around and sing “The Hills are Alive.” Luckily for Botched, I decided not to.
• The term “choclatiest:” Unable to resist playing the part of the tour guide, I was constantly telling Botched what was coming up next. As we neared one particularly sweet piece of buff, packed, banked and otherwise delicious singletrack, I told Botched that this was the “choclatiest” section of the whole ride. “The what?” Botched asked, not unreasonably. “Choclatiest—the superlative form of choclatey,” I replied. It’s a good, descriptive term for high-quality dirt, and I stand by it.
• Climbing first, descending later: If at all possible, I will arrange my rides so that I do all my climbing first, and finish with a downhill. The ride Botched and I did has that characteristic in spades. I’d guess we did nothing but climb for three hours, then alternately climbed and descended. We finished, though, with a massive descent down Mud Springs and Tibble. And nothing’s better than that.
• Finishing a ride tired, but not bonked: After six hours of riding, Botched and I were both fairly cooked, but neither of us were bonked. I tell you, I love that exhausted, happy, been-on-a-big-adventure feeling an epic ride gives you.

I tell you what: I love biking.