Me and My RV: Fatty’s Boggs Funduro Adventure, Part 3

05.11.2015 | 11:25 am

The day started well, and it would end well. And more often than not, it would just be a great day.

But there would be some in-between stuff that I could have happily done without.

No Pressure

Jeff started the day by surprising me with an outrageously cool, autographed poster of Jens Voigt:

So now I have no choice but to lose this 15 pounds of winter blubber I’m still carrying around and get into race shape.

[Note to self: Write a post sometime soon about how lack of self-discipline in dieting can make for slow weight loss. Said post will undoubtedly be groundbreaking.]

Then, after purchasing Mountain Dew and lots of cookies, we were off toward Boggs Mountain State Forest, where we’d be staying and racing for the next three days. Friday: a short-but-steep hill climb. Saturday: an eight-hour relay. Sunday: a Super D (which I had no intention whatsoever of participating in).

And this is where the problem began. You see, here is a representative section of the road from Santa Rosa to Boggs:

Actual size. 

What this bird’s-eye view doesn’t show is that this is also seriously uphill, except when it’s seriously downhill. Otherwise all those switchbacks would make a lot less sense, I guess.

Anyway, here’s what I’d be driving to Boggs:

Much smaller than actual size. 

Probably, there are a lot of people who are comfortable driving big vehicles. Maybe you, for example, are perfectly comfortable driving a 24-foot RV. But until this day, I had never driven such a vehicle. And I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I’m not all that big on driving at all. The main reason I bought the Honda Ridgeline (and have now been happily driving it for eight trouble-free years), as long as I’m being candid, is because it is a truck that drives pretty much like a Honda Civic (which I consider the most-perfect-handling vehicle of all time).

And in short, driving big things is not really my thing.

Hence, I was, more or less, terrified of driving it over three mountain passes and into a forest as my baptismal effort in such a vehicle.

And was even more afraid that I was going to make Jeff—who had been lucky enough to “win” the experience of being my passenger—so utterly terrified that he’d require medical attention. Or psychological attention.

And yet, we survived. And I’ll always be grateful to Jeff for the fact that he managed to maintain casual conversation for the duration of the trip, and didn’t even laugh when I pulled over every three miles to let by the most recent line of thirty cars that had built up behind me. Meanwhile, he navigated and guided and gave helpful advice like “turn a liiiiiittle wider or you’re going to hit that telephone pole.”

I tell you, that guy should talk people off ledges for a living.

Practice Loop

There’s something just a little bit magnificent about arriving to any event and finding that among general seating, your spot is reserved. 

Which is my way of saying that a space for our RV had been roped off, nice and close to the start/finish line for the eight-hour race that would be happening the next day.

I put the RV in Park, absolutely positively certain that I had just completed my most difficult task of the weekend. After this, it would just be riding my bike and hanging out with friends.

Which, in fact, was absolutely correct. 

Team WBR —which I will henceforth refer to as “Team Fatty 2” — had already arrived, but since we had a better parking place, they moved their RV over to ours. 

We were set for the weekend. Better take a selfie.

Left to right: me, Jeff, Doug (with his head cocked coquettishly to one side), Chris, Dave Thompson. Dave Houston wouldn’t arrive ’til later.

It was only noonish, and the race for the day wasn’t ’til 5pm, giving us plenty of time for a pre-ride of the loop we’d be riding during the relay the next day.

And I’ve got to say: it was a fantastic course. Mostly buffed-out singletrack in cool, shaded pine forest, with several climbing sections on dirt road. The climbs were steep, but were never seriously long. The descents were fast and fun.

I reiterate: a fantastic course.

Dave T

Jeff

Doug

Chris

Me

Just look at those smiles. Those are not posed-for-the-camera smiles. No, those are “This is a really fun trail” smiles.

How long were we out there? A couple hours. We weren’t going hard; we were just having fun.

Although I would like to point out that, right at the beginning of the course, there is a steep little grunt of a hill strewn with embedded rocks at inconvenient locations.

None of us made it up that grunt the first time, so I suggested we all try it again to get the feel of it and figure out the line.

The second time, both Jeff and I cleaned the move…while nobody on Team Fatty 2 got it.

“I’m going to go ahead and call the move-cleaning ratios by the two teams represented here portentous.”

Nobody disagreed, possibly because nobody expected me to use the word “portentous” in that context.

You can relive this lap, including our numerous regroupings, in this Strava Flyby.

Practice Race

The afternoon wore on and it got close to being time for the hill climb race, which I have no Strava record of, alas. 

No, I’m just kidding about the “alas” bit, because I was on the sad side of pathetic in the hill climb. It was short — less than two miles — and I managed to barely make the back part of the midpack. Or maybe the front part of the back of the pack. 

Either way, for a guy who prides himself on his climbing, that’s not awesome.

Here’s a picture of me nearing the finish line, as a guy in baggy shorts riding a CX bike is passing me.

Have I mentioned that I need to lose some weight?

I tried to put it behind me, though. So I’m heavy right now. But my legs, lungs and endurance are all good. And bike racing is about more than climbing, right?

And, more to the point, it’s not like I’d have been a significantly more asset-y asset to the team even if I were fifteen pounds lighter right now.

I knew that, as a teammate to Levi, the odds of me bringing up the average were pretty darned slim.

Which is where we’ll pick up tomorrow.