A Note from Fatty:The “Meet BSNYC” winners have all been sent email, and all the people who won a t-shirt have responded. The person who won the grand prize, however, has not. So. If you donated some money for this contest and haven’t checked your email in a while, well, maybe you should.
Another Note from Fatty:The response for the 100 Miles of Nowhere has been huge. I am getting really excited for this strange event. And you still have time to register. Go to yesterday’s post for details.
Also, I have added a section at the Fat Cyclist Forum for discussion about the 100 Miles of Nowhere. If you are looking for someone in your area to do the race with, post a message there.
I have been coping with a cold for about a week, now. I’ve been through the sore throat stage, the watery eye stage, and the stuffy nose stage.
Through it all, I have been taking daily advantage of one of cycling’s great little secrets: when you’re on the bike, you feel fine. Your head clears up. You can breathe. Your throat stops hurting, and your body stops aching.
Well, maybe your body continues to ache, but it’s a different kind of ache.
A couple days ago, for example, even though I had been feeling miserable the whole day, Brad and I went riding on Corner Canyon, to see if the warm weather we’ve had for the past few days has opened up Jacob’s Ladder: the highest trail in Corner Canyon, and a crazy, rocky, rollercoaster of a descent with sharp embedded rock everywhere and exposure on both sides.
The whole time I was riding, I felt great. In fact, I felt like I was descending better than I ever have in my life. Even Brad noted in his blog that I had a banner day, descent-wise.
So — even though I still felt awful — we went and did it again the next day, this time taking the helmetcam. Here’s the video:
Obviously, I’m still learning to use this camera. Lessons learned from this ride include that I need to adjust the mount on the helmet so it doesn’t point down so far, and to try to tilt the mount up for rear-facing mounts, so I get more of the rider instead of just the trail.
Still, you wouldn’t have thought, looking at this video, that I had been feeling sick as a dog the whole day.
Off to RAWROD
The thing is, I’m about to rely verrrry heavily on the “I feel fine when I’m on the bike” effect. Because today I head out for the Ride Around White Rim in One Day (RAWROD) 2009. Even though I have a near-constant hacking cough that is sometimes so fierce it doubles me over, I am not missing this.
After all, I’m sure that the “I feel fine when riding” effect will hold over the course of a 100 miles of mountain biking.
A Note from Fatty: Many of you have been asking whether the100 Miles of Nowhereis still on. Yes, it’s definitely still on. I’ll be giving more details and opening up registration next week. Meanwhile, I thought you’d like to get a sneak peek at the very cool design Twin Six has come up with for the event t-shirt. Seriously, could those guys get any more awesome?
Another Note from Fatty: Tomorrow I will be announcing a different contest. I will say no more about it now, other than that I think there’s going to be huge interest in winning, and not just from the readers of fatcyclist.com.
The core team is made up of nothing but married men, all of us with children still living at home. That’s not a requirement for admission; it’s just the way it is.
And of course, we all enjoy telling our respective wives about the rides we go on. Why wouldn’t we? They’re exciting, close, more-or-less in cell phone range, and no more unsafe than, say, driving a car or eating a corn dog with cheese. And mayo.
Here, for example, is a little video I just put together of Brad, Jamie and me riding Corner Canyon during an unseasonably warm couple of days in early March:
Who wouldn’t want to show that to one’s spouse?
This is likewise true of the other local MTB rides: Frank, Tibble, Timpooneke, Hog Hollow, the Zoo, Lambert, BST, and so on.
All good clean fun, and worth recounting.
But we tend to get a little vague when describing Grove Creek.
Grove
Grove Creek — which we just call “Grove,” because it’s just too darn much work to say that extra syllable, is the hardest-climbing uphill I know of. I don’t even dare hazard a guess as to how much climbing there is in its short three (or four? Maybe five?) miles to the bridge, but I would bet it’s closer to 2000 feet than 1000. And it feels like 5000.
Grove may also be the most beautiful of all the rides we do. Or more accurately, it may be the most beautiful of the rides we fail to do, because it’s so hard we mostly pretend it doesn’t exist — even though the trailhead is no more than five miles from my house.
My point is, though, that Grove is beautiful. But the nature of its beauty is its curse: Grove is a freakishly dangerous trail.
Oh the Pain
Oh, sure, Grove starts out harmlessly enough. You ride along on the nice, flat jeep road for a few minutes, dodging mud puddles (there are always mud puddles in the first section), chatting with your friends, trying to keep your mind off what is next.
And then the “what is next” part arrives. The jeep road turns sharply upward, and you know it’s not going to level off for a good long time. On a geared bike, I will try to ride most climbs in the second or even third gear, with the granny unused — an insurance policy.
On Grove, however, I just immediately go to the granny gear. No questions asked, because they’ve already been answered.
Until yesterday, I had never attempted Grove on a singlespeed. Which shows that until yesterday I had some common sense. Which is to say, I walked a lot of the trail yesterday, and have no plans to try Grove on a SS again until I have magically transformed into Brad or Kenny.
Then — in the one piece of mercy Grove shows to the rider — there’s a short piece of swoopy, buff, fun downhill singletrack, letting you recover for a moment.
Before the really hard part begins.
Stay on Target
While the first part of Grove is brutally difficult, I hardly ever think about it, because the insanity of the second part of Grove just blots the first part clean out of my mind.
Everyone regroups at the top of the first climb — there’s a nice little flat spot where people sometimes set up camp — and then everyone looks around at each other, hoping someone has a flat or another really good reason to delay.
In the absence of a good excuse to turn around, negotiations begin on the riding order. These negotiations are very important, because — and I may be tipping my hand about the trail a bit here — there aren’t a lot of great places to pass on the second part of the Grove clmb.
And then the clmbing begins.
Immediately, the transformation of the trail is as complete as it is terrifying. Suddenly you are not riding on buff singletrack. You are riding on rough, sharp shale, embedded into the ground in a technical trail with what I like to call a “significant penalty for failure.”
And by “significant penalty for failure,” I mean that you’ve got a cliff wall going up on your left — you can literally put your hand out to lean against it when you need to stop and rest — and another cliff wall going down on your right.
The good thing about this cliff — the one going down, I mean — is that if you do fall off it, you have time to consider your options. The bad thing about this cliff is that the time spent falling off a cliff is not really optimal for option-considering.
In short, if you’re going to fall, it’s a good idea to fall left. (This statement is only true on the way up.)
Of course, it’s not shear cliff on the right all the way up. Sometimes instead you’re riding on loose shale. And sometimes you’re deciding whether you’re up to trying a not-quite-a-ledge move. Usually I’m not.
And a lot of the time, you’re looking around, completely stunned at how beautiful it all is. That dangerous cliff off to the right gives you a view of the creek at the bottom. And the canyon made by that creek leads to a gorgeous waterfall. And on the other side of the canyon, you see Mt. Timpanogos, covered in fresh snow right now and blindingly white up top.
I have found it wise to stop from time to time and take it all in. This is wise for two reasons:
I need to stop anyway, because I have exceeded what I previously thought was my maximum heart rate.
I find that I’m less likely to veer off the trail when I’m paying strict attention to aforementioned trail. On most trails, that’s good. On this trail, it’s downright necessary.
Eventually, you get to a bench, just before the bridge that crosses Grove Creek (and on the other side of the bridge is more excellent riding of a completely different sort, but that trail’s still covered in snow this time of year). Someone built that bench as a monument to a cyclist family member / friend. I cannot think of a better, more fitting monument, anywhere.
Memories
The first time my friends brought me on this climb, I was astounded and outraged. I really thought it was some kind of mean-spirited prank: “Hey, let’s take Elden on a climb that goes on forever, hurts constantly, and is life-threatening if you screw up.” Very funny, guys.
Of course, once you’ve made the climb, you’ve got to turn around and ride down.
I remember the first time I came down Grove, I actually dismounted and walked about a third of it, muttering darkly the whole time.
Meanwhile, Dug and Rick M flew down the trail. As if nothing could happen. It just seemed insane, and part of me wished I could keep up with them, just to see up close what it was like to defy death.
Strangely, though, yesterday as Kenny and I descended, I noticed I was able to stay with him pretty easily. And I actually felt like I was in less danger, not more, as I flew down.
Slower does not necessarily equal greater control. I’m finally learning that.
Most Disappointing Video, Ever
One of the big reasons I wanted to ride Grove yesterday was because I now have the VIO-POV.1 helmet cam, and I was picturing what a glorious five minutes it would be to do a continuous shot of the descent down Grove.
Kenny and I agreed we’d drop to the camp spot, switch the camera to be rear-facing, then continue from there.
But when I got to that regroup spot, I saw something terrible: my helmet cam was switched off. Evidently, the zip tie I had around the camera unit had punched the off button or something — and I’d find out when I got home that I had only got the first — and least spectacular — half minute of that whole part of the descent.
“Oh well, we’ll get the second part, anyway,” I said, and turned the camera back on. And then, once again, it turned off just a few seconds into the descent.
So now, belatedly, I’ve learned how to use the “keylock” feature, so the camera will keep going regardless of what buttons inadvertently get punched due to jostling.
So I went ahead and made a video anyway, so you can see exactly how freaky the trail is. Just understand that it’s pretty much an uphill-only video.
I’ll get the downhill view as a separate video, the next time my legs will let me do that climb.
Provided, of course, that my wife ever lets me ride Grove again.
The weird thing is, afterward a bunch of you said that if I made it an annual event, you’d want to do it, too. So, foolishly taking you at your word, I am happy to announce that soon I’ll be announcing (in other words, I haven’t finalized the date yet) the 2nd Annual FatCyclist.com 100 Miles of Nowhere.
But this time it’s going to be much more awesome.
How It’s Going to Work
Well, first off, there’s going to be official registration and everything, with racer schwag approximately 300% better than most racer schwag bags. More on that in a second.
And of course, most of the money for registration will go to Team Fatty’s LiveStrong Challenge.
When you register, you will specify your category (choose from one of my pre-made categories or create your own), your race location, and the distance you will ride your rollers or trainer: 25, 50, or 100 miles.
Of course, if you cheat and decide to ride outside, I will give you a stern warning, but will not treat it as cheating outright.
Then, On a certain day in the not-too-distant future, we will all — wherever we happen to be — ride nowhere at all, in a race that is both incredibly local and impossibly far-flung. Racers who normally drop everyone else will note that they are somehow going the same speed as recreational riders.
Above all, as you ride you will have conflicting senses of pointlessness (why am I riding my bike and not going anywhere?) and pointfulness (because I’m fighting cancer, that’s why).
And it will be awesome in a whole new way.
What You’re Going to Get
I’m currently planning on having a $75.00 entry fee. $25 of that will cover shipping costs and labor, and the other $50 goes to Fatty’s LiveStrong Challenge.
And what will you get, besides a sense of satisfaction that you participated in an incredibly strange race and also fought cancer? Well, you get a schwag box of awesomeness, that’s what. Here’s what’s in it so far:
A suitable-for-framing certificate, declaring you the winner in your category and location. Yes, that’s right. I am guaranteeing you a win, regardless of who else is in the race. What other race gives you that? Oh, and by “suitable for framing” I mean that I’ll use high-quality paper in my color laser printer. Oh, and I’ll sign it, too. With a blue Bic pen.
An event t-shirt, designed and produced by Twin Six . Twin Six designs all my jerseys and t-shirts, and they’ve never ever ever disappointed. This will be one shirt that definitely does not become a rag used to wipe the grease off your chain. Not for several years, anyway. Value: $22.00
A tube of DZ-Nuts. Yes, really. If you use chamois cream, it’s high time you try DZ-Nuts. If you have never tried chamois cream, I cannot think of a more perfect time to begin. As I have noted in my review, this is good stuff. Value: $22.00
A Banjo Brothers Seat Bag: These bags open wide and perfectly hold exactly what you need for a roadside tube change: tube, tire levers, mini tool, CO2 can and adapter. And a couple of rolled-up bills in case you need to buy a Slurpie. Every road bike should have one of these. Value: $10.99
A Garmin / Slipstream Camelbak Podium Bottle: I recently got one of these bottles for myself…and I liked it so much that I ordered a six-pack of them. They’re the only bottle I use now. Somehow, CamelBak has made the bike water bottle better. A lot better. And the Garmin / Slipstream graphics look great. And how cool is Team Garmin / Slipstream for helping raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation? Value: $10.00
CarboRocket Single-Serve packs: How weird is it that one of my very best friends invented what I consider to be the very best sports drink in existence? You’ll get three single-serve packs (perfect for making one bottle’s-worth), letting you try each of the flavors. And, I daresay this is a good opportunity for you to try them out. Value: $6.00
Clif Shot Bloks: The fact that I will, if left to my own devices, eat Shot Bloks recreationally, tells you everything you need to know about them. They taste like jam, and look terrifying when microwaved. Value: $2.00
ProBar : These things taste far too delicious to be organic, and yet they are. And they’re far too delicious, I might add, to be an energy bar. And yet they are. Value: $3.29
That is not a bad amount of stuff. In fact, if my calculations are correct (and they may not be, because I am far too lazy to double-check my work), the retail value of the FatCyclist.com 100 Miles of Nowhere schwag box is $76.28.
Yes, that’s right. You pay $75.00, get $76.28 worth of stuff, and you’re still donating $50 to Team Fatty’s LiveStrong Challenge.
How is that even possible? I do not know, but it is.
How I Need Your Help
Want to help out? Great. There are a couple things I need.
If you’ve got pull with a company and think they might want to be a sponsor: I would love to make you a sponsor. You can be a sponsor by either donating something very cool to go in the schwag bag, donating a very cool random-drawing prize (like a bike or a car or a lifetime supply of Diet Coke), or donating a good amount of cash to Team Fatty’s LiveStrong Challenge. E-mail me and we’ll talk about details.
If you’re thinking about participating: Just start talking to your friends and family about how insane it would be to ride your trainer for 100 miles (or 50, or 25). Once they agree, tell them you’re going to do it as part of this race, so you can do something completely ridiculous and noble at the same time, and you’d like them to donate to your LiveStrong Challenge page in support of your effort.
We’ll be starting registration soon. As soon as I pick a date. Which I believe will be around the end of April. Yeah, I know I should have done this when it was too cold to go do anything outside. But as it turns out I sometimes have other things I have to take care of in my life. So feel free to not give me any grief about waiting ’til now to get to this. Or I will bite your head clean off.
Don’t test me.
FAQ
A few people have asked questions in the comments section, and a couple of questions have occurred to me that I expect some people might want to ask but are simply too shy.. I will try to answer them here:
Can I use my spin bike / stationary trainer? Sure. Why not?
I’m more of a runner? Can I do a running version? Of course. It seems that the runner’s equivalent of this would be to do a marathon on your treadmill. Your T-shirt will still say you did the 100 Miles of Nowhere, but you can edit it with a Sharpie.
What about riding a really small course outside? Yes, please do that. The smaller, the better. And please have a GPS with tracking on and send me the an image of your ride. I will post it.
My computer is mounted to my front wheel. What do I do? Mount a computer to your rear wheel, or, alternatively, just guess how fast you’re going. Guess low.
What if I’m not available on the day you pick? Do it on the day before. Or the day after. Or something like that. With all the time zones and date lines involved, it’s not like we’re all going to be riding at the same time anyway.
If you’ve got more questions, ask in the comments and if they seem general enough, I’ll answer them here.
PS: A bunch of you should be getting the bracelets you had Susan make for you (and I’ve gotten really nice emails from several of you saying how much you like them already; thanks!) over the next couple of days. She’s only got about 20 more to make, and she’s hoping to get them done between this week and next. Susan wanted me to let you know that each of the women’s bracelets has one squarish pink bead, which you should think of as her signature and a reminder of what this is all about. Susan also says that once she’s done with the remaining bracelets on order, she’s going to put jewelry making aside for a bit, so she can concentrate on finishing writing her novel.
PPS: Yes, that’s right. My cancer-fighting wife, having just raised north of $8K for the LAF by meticulously hand-crafting more than 80 bracelets, is now hard at work completing her first novel. How awesome is she? (Answer: very)
In 1924, a New York Times reporter asked George Mallory why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest. Mal (his friends call him “Mal”) replied, “Because it’s there.”
It’s a witty, quotable line, as evidenced by the fact that a krazillion people have since tried to sound witty while quoting it.
Unfortunately, unless you’re George Mallory and it’s 1924, giving “because it’s there” as your reason for doing something is not witty. It’s stupid, and it’s a lie. Please do me a favor and never say it again, especially if someone asks you why you bike.
Think for a moment. There are a near-infinite number of things that are “there.” If your reason for doing something–endurance mountain biking, for example–is because it’s there, you must also eat every single Big Mac on inventory at the local McDonalds, because they are there, too. And you’re going to need to learn to riverdance, because that’s there too. And look, just over that hill: there are some yaks that need shearing. And if I remember correctly, nobody’s manned a mission to Mars.
In short, you’ve got a lot of stuff to do if you’re going to use “because it’s there” as your primary criterion for doing something.You’d better get hustling.
My Reasons Since I’m going to be all snippy about giving bogus cliches as my motivation for biking, I suppose I’d better have some actual, real reasons for why I do endurance rides and races.
Because I can. I made it to my 30th birthday with the firm belief that I have no athletic ability at anything at all. Then I discovered that while I am not necessarily fast or technically capable, I can turn the cranks over nearly indefinitely. It’s my gift.
Because I like it. Endurance rides make me happy. I like planning them. I like starting them. I like being with friends when I’m riding them. I like finishing them. Now, there are big chunks of time during any given endurance ride when I’m completely miserable, but the fact that I’m miserable but am not giving up makes me happy. This is probably perverse, but there it is.
Because I like to tell stories. Long before I started this blog, I wrote stories about my long rides and sent them to friends or posted them on a web site I created because I like having people read my stories.
Your Reasons
So, why do you ride the way you ride? If you’re a downhiller, why do you downhill? If you’re a roadie, why? If you’re a trackie, why do you like to go around in circles?
I want to know. Really, I do.
PS: This post rescued from my Spaces archive. Originaly posted 18 August 2009 2006.
Monday (Labor Day), Kenny and I rode the Mt. Nebo Loop: 112 road miles, 7,717 feet of climbing. It’s quite possibly the best road loop in Utah, and Kenny and I picked a perfect day for it. The weather was mild, the mountain was beautiful, traffic was negligible, and we had a tailwind on the 40 miles of flat road at the end of the ride. (You can look at the climbing, speed, distance and other data for this ride at http://eldennelson.motionbased.com — Click on Mt. Nebo Loop.)
Really, it was just about perfect.
Except for just one thing.
About 2/3 of the way up the 22-mile-long climb, I noticed that my left shoe was sliding around on my left pedal. Which meant the cleats were loose. I knew without even bothering to look that I’d need a Phillips screwdriver. What I also knew without bothering to look was that I had no tools with me whatsoever. Kenny didn’t have any either.
So, I did the obvious thing: I started looking for a vehicle parked on the side of the road, one that looks like it might have a screwdriver. A truck, for example, would be a good bet. A Porsche Boxster would be a less-good bet.
Before long, I happened on a truck on the side of the road. There was nobody in it, though. I continued on until — surprise! — I saw a guy sitting on the side of the road about 20 feet from the truck. I could immediately tell that he was trying to spot elk. How could I tell? Camouflage, binoculars, and elk hunting season might have something to do with it.
“What luck,” I thought to myself. “This guy’s right by his truck and is doing nothing in particular! I’ll bet he’ll be happy to loan a cyclist a screwdriver.”
So I rolled up to him, slowing to a stop, and saying “Hi” to catch his attention.
And it’s a good thing I got his attention before I came to a stop, because if I hadn’t, he wouldn’t have witnessed the following sequence of events:
I came to a complete stop, still clipped in.
I started tilting, slightly to my left.
I swung my left foot out, to clip out of my pedals.
My cleat and pedal remained firmly attached to one another.
I continued tipping to my left.
I tried more desperately to unclip.
I stayed clipped in.
I crashed heavily on my left side, three feet from the man in camouflage.
I said, “Oof!”
I struggled to get from under my bicycle for an eternal minute, eventually removing my shoe so I can separate myself from the stupid thing.
I asked the incredulous-looking man if he could loan me a screwdriver.
Evidently, three of the four screws that fastened my cleat to my shoe had come out, so that the cleat pivoted freely around the final screw.
Luckily, the man did have a screwdriver. I tightened the one remaining screw into the cleat, then removed one of the screws from my right shoe’s cleat and moved it over to the left shoe. And thus was I able to salvage the ride, though not my dignity.
You know what, though? I can’t help but wonder how the hunter tells this story. I imagine it begins with, “So I was just sitting there minding my business when this stinky, sweaty pansy in skin-tight shorts rode his bike right up to me. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fear for my safety. Then the guy just fell over on his side for no reason whatsoever and started wrestling with his bicycle.”
Then he and his friends would speculate for hours — and rightly so — on what this strange event meant.
PS: This post rescued from my Spaces archive. Originally posted 09/06/06.
A Note from Fatty: The “Meet BSNYC” winners have all been sent email, and all the people who won a t-shirt have responded. The person who won the grand prize, however, has not. So. If you donated some money for this contest and haven’t checked your email in a while, well, maybe you should.
