08.19.2016 | 7:35 am
A Podcasty Note from Fatty: The current episode of the CyclingTips podcast — which I co-host along with bike tech hero James Huang— is a really important one for anyone who rides road bikes and would like to be both faster and more comfortable, without a lot of effort or expense.
It changed my thinking on how I’m going to set up the road bikes at my house, that’s for sure.
It’s one hour long, and it’s a really great panel discussion with three guys who really know what they’re talking about…and me.
You can listen to it below:
You can also find it on iTunes or download it directly There are lots of other ways to get it, too, which you’ll find in the show notes on CyclingTips.
Free Verse Friday: Duke
I had never been
Much of a
Dog guy
But that might be
Because
I hadn’t had
A dog
And six or so
Years ago
That changed
When we lost Kita
I realized
I had become
A dog guy
Everyone
Say hi
To Duke.
Thank you.
PS: I expect a few people might wonder, so: Duke is a 17-month-old English Mastiff and weighs 130 pounds, which makes him the lightest male in our family. We are his third home and everyone but the cat fell in love with him instantly.
Comments (32)
08.18.2016 | 3:59 pm
A Podcasty Note from Fatty: The latest episode of The Paceline is out, and — like all episodes of the Paceline — it’s fantastic. I should warn you, however, that I talk about the Leadville 100 a lot in it, and I give away all kinds of things. So you may want to hold on a little if you like your race reports spoiler-free.
If, on the other hand, you are more interested in hearing the short version of the story before reading the long version — and you’d like to hear how I sound when being interviewed moments after the race is over — head on over to Red Kite Prayer and give it a listen.
2016 Leadville 100 Race Report, Part 2: Can’t Explain
First of all, let me apologize for calling my second part of my race report — which was in fact the second part of my report, but only the first part of the part about the race — “part 2.”
Hence, I am calling this part “Part 2.” The previous Part 2, which was originally called “Part 1” is now once again called “Part 1.” In spite of the fact that it was the second part.
I’m glad I could clear that up for you.
Now, on to (a very small piece of) the story.
Against Type
I had big plans for this day: I was going to keep The Hammer on my tail and pull her the entire day, keeping her safe right from the beginning of the race as the thousands of people tried to crowd around.
So of course, within a few seconds of the race beginning, I had ridden up through the field, juking my way past rider after rider, more or less completely losing my wife:
Yep, over there on the left, that’s me. Meanwhile, waaaaaay back — like, ten racers back — The Hammer (on the far right, wearing a red vest) was dodging racers, doing her best to thread her way back to me.
In my defense, whenever we do a running race, The Hammer does the exact same thing to me.
Also in my defense, we had talked about the likelihood that this would happen, and might even happen often. I’m bigger than The Hammer, and therefore pick up speed more quickly on descents (I’m not sure if physics says this should or shouldn’t happen, but it does happen). I brake later and harder than she does, and am more willing to take risks.
For this race, we’d both learn to do some adapting and communicating so we could stay together.
For this first part — a very crowded and fast paved descent — we knew I wouldn’t want to turn around to look for her, so we agreed I’d feather my brakes from time to time, and we’d regroup when we got to the dirt if necessary.
As it turns out, it would not be at all necessary.
About three or five minutes into the race — after the first right turn on pavement, but before the second one — I sensed I had few enough people around me that I could risk looking back without veering into another rider. I touched my brakes, then looked over my left shoulder…just in time to see The Hammer fly by me in a deep, low tuck.
To be frank, I had no idea she could get into that tuck, much less bomb it during an early-morning race.
I laughed — this kind of aggressive riding on her part was a great sign — and revved up my cadence until I was crazy-legging fast enough to accelerate a little bit. It’s the absolutely most ridiculous way to make it clear to everyone around you that you are on a singlespeed.
Then I went into my own tuck, bringing my hands and nose in close to the stem. I was sure I’d catch her in a moment.
I did not catch her. In fact, I’m pretty sure her lead increased.
I laughed harder. The Hammer always climbs strong and aggressively; this kind of descending was new. Maybe she had been inspired by The Monster?
We hit the dirt. I caught up with The Hammer, moved up front, and began playing against type. By which I mean that both in size and inclination, I am not an imposing person. But today, I would be imposing. My job was to make a path for The Hammer, to be vocal and assertive, asking people to move aside so she could concentrate on riding.
Unfortunately for me, everyone was being so darned polite and accomodating that I didn’t need to sweep them aside with my booming, authoritative voice. A simple “Hey there, on your left” was pretty much all that was necessary.
Mountain Bikers are good people.
Approaching St. Kevin’s
We drew up to St Kevin’s: the first climb of the day. The first mile or so of it is steep, but people in general don’t think of it as one of the serious obstacles of the day.
The Hammer and I, however, were afraid of it. And I don’t mean we were afraid to begin the ride in earnest, or that we were afraid of what the day might bring.
We were very specifically afraid of the St. Kevin’s climb, and we were afraid of it because we’d learned to be afraid of it a few days earlier.
Let me flash back for a moment to explain.
The Bugaboo
Back on Monday, not quite a week ago, The Hammer and I were doing our final pre-ride of any substance. We were taking The Monster out to ride up St. Kevin’s.
“I’m going to hit it with everything I’ve got,” I had told them. “I’ll meet you at the hard left turn a mile into the climb.”
And I had taken off, just attacking St. Kevin’s like I could sprint it.
As it turns out, I could not sprint it. Not even close. In fact, by the time I got two-thirds up this steep mile, I was utterly smoked. Just destroyed.
As I hit one of the steeper pitches, I cracked. And when you crack on a climb on a singlespeed…you’re off your bike. Walking.
Which is what I did. I got off and walked a big chunk of the final quarter of that first mile of St. Kevin’s. I then stopped and looked back…to discover that The Hammer was learning the same lesson I had just picked up:
Don’t you dare disprespect the St. Kevin’s climb. It may be the first climb; it may be the shortest. But it is steep and it is all above 10,000 feet.
“I can’t believe I had to walk that,” I said.
“I’ve never had to walk that before,” The Hammer replied.
“Is something wrong with us? Are we weaker than we used to be?” I asked, absolutely serious.
“I was wondering that exact same thing,” The Hammer said.
“We should come back and ride this climb more sensibly before this race,” I mused. “Get this bugaboo out of our heads.”
“OK, good idea; let’s do,” The Hammer agreed.
But we hadn’t. And the St. Kevin’s Bugaboo was now fresh in our minds as we reached the base of it.
Which seems like a good part to continue in the next installment of this story, this Monday.
Comments (12)
08.16.2016 | 9:51 am
If this race report is going to be fewer than fifty installments, I have to leave some things out. I just have to. And that’s too bad, because this morning I got an email from my friend Rohit, where he listed some of his favorite moments from before the race:
- The Ted King vs Fatty “buckle off”
- Witnessing a pro cyclist in remission (Ted again) eat four brats (no buns, though) and drink five beers, two days before the race
- Getting into a doping debate with Fatty and Hottie on the front lawn of the house
- Hearing Fatty’s imitation of Floyd Landis scolding a hobo
- Learning a little about how Katie Bolling turned a passion into a career
- Watching how much Chris and Shon can eat and still look like they have 2% body fat
- Witnessing the pre-race Fatty and Hammer stress-out
- Having a mere three-minute walk to the starting line
Rohit is right. I could — and who know, very well may — write a blog post about every single one of the moments Rohit bulleted out here. Every one of them could make a great stand-alone story.
But right now, I want to talk about the race itself. Or at least, the starting line.
Wrong Side of the Tracks
In the Leadville 100 race, color matters. A lot. Specifically, the color of the number on your race plate — earned either by your finish time a previous year or your finish time at a qualifying race — specifies where in the starting line (which is multiple city blocks long) you get to start your race.
My 8:12 finish in Leadville last year qualified me to be in the “silver” starting corral, right behind the pros and rocket-fast guys in the gold corral.
But that would have separated me by dozens of yards from The Hammer right from the beginning of the race (her 9:08 finish last year put her in the green corral, two corrals back from silver), and one of my critical jobs — as her domestique — was to give her a clear path right from the line.
So, when we had done packet pickup two days earlier, I had asked the race organizers to make two changes to my status:
- Change my registration to singlespeed
- Put me in the green corral
They were happy to do both those things (though they gave me a categorical “no” when I first asked them to instead move The Hammer up to the silver corral with me).
That little green sticker on my race plate became my passport to ride with my wife right from the gun.
As we arrived at the starting line area, however, we had a couple of surprises waiting for us. First, the green corral was further back than we had expected, across the street from the starting line arch.
Second, the green corral was jam-packed, and there was no way we could get in. In fact, it was overflowing, with people lined up outside the corral — just hoping to wiggle our way into the corral once they dropped the barriers and more of us could flow in as we filled up the space in the street kept free of racers until the last few minutes before the race.
The Hammer’s Turn
We got into a place outside the corral, figuring that one way or another, we’d get across the starting line once the race began. Our friend Al Iverson — a honcho with Life Time who was starting for his tenth race — was doing the same thing, so we figured this was the best option any of us had.
“I need to go use the bathroom one last time before the race begins,” The Hammer told me.
This, of course, was part of the plan, and one of the really nice things about starting together. I’d watch her bike and hold her place while she found a porta-potty, and then she’d do the same for me.
She took off to take care of her business, and I stood there, holding up two bikes and talking with Al. Happy to have a friend to chat with.
Separation Anxiety
And then the barriers dropped, and everyone surged forward. Including me and the two bikes I was walking. Swept up with the tide.
Somewhere, a couple of blocks away, I thought, The Hammer is in a porta-potty, and when she comes back, she isn’t going to know where I am…or where her bike is, for that matter.
“Five minutes ’til start!” the announcer boomed.
I worked my way over to the left side of the corral as best as I could, figuring The Hammer would be coming back on that side.
Be cool, Fatty, I told myself. Worst-case scenario, she’ll find you after the gun goes off and sees you all alone in the corral, holding a couple of bikes.
If I hadn’t been so cold — it was thirty-six degrees out, the coldest start in years — I might have laughed. I actually have a recurring dream not too dissimilar from what was happening right at that moment.
Reunited
In the end, it was the cold that helped The Hammer find me. You see, for the past few years I’ve worn a thrift-store faux-fleece coat to the starting line, as shown in this photo from last year’s report:
Thanks to this coat, The Hammer was able to spot and rejoin me.
What a relief.
“Do you need to go use the restroom?” The Hammer asked.
“No time, the race starts in just a few minutes,” I said. And also, I didn’t really need to go anymore. Really, that “pee before racing” thing is 97% nerves.
I then broke open and ate a Bonk Breaker Almond Butter and Honey bar — my current favorite pre-race thing to eat: they’re delicious, moist (so they’re easy to get down even when you have pre-race cottonmouth), quite small, and have 200+ calories, helping you stay on top of your calorie count right from the gun.
And also, I’d be eating nothing but GU Roctane gels (and drinking 2/3-strength CR333, swapping between Grape and Lemonade flavors) for the next 103.5 miles, so it was nice to actually eat something I could chew.
I looked around, didn’t see anyone else eating. Too bad for them, it’s a valuable, practical, and easy way to push off the inevitable calorie deficit this kind of race brings.
I took off my faux-fleece coat and threw it over the corral fence. (Yes, it found its way back to me after the race.)
Then thought about it and decided to get rid of the vest, too. I knew I’d be cold for the upcoming few minutes of pavement, but I also knew I’d warm right up as we hit the St. Kevin’s climb.
St. Kevin’s, which both The Hammer and I had cause to fear. (I’ll explain why in the next installment of this story.)
It was getting light.
A photographer captured a shot of The Hammer, staring at the race clock, behind these two guys who had moved in front of me when I slow-walked our bikes in the corral and searched frantically for The Hammer:
I love this picture particularly because The Hammer’s expression looks exactly like everyone feels. Look:
It doesn’t matter how many times you do this race. On the starting line, the anxiety is intense.
The Hammer finally tossed away the thrift-store sweatshirt she was wearing, though she kept the vest on. It made sense for her to keep an extra layer; she doesn’t have the subcutaneous layer of insulating blubber I have.
The national anthem. The countdown. The shotgun blast. My twentieth start in the Leadville 100.
I have so much experience with this race. But I’ve never partnered with another racer before, and I was about to find out: I still have a lot to learn.
Which seems like a good place to pick up in the next installment.
Comments (16)
08.15.2016 | 6:37 am
A Note from Fatty About the “Choose How Fatty Rides Leadville” Fundraiser: I’m incredibly excited to announce that the “What Should Fatty’s Leadville Focus Be / Monster Vs Hammer” fundraiser was a massive success. Here’s how the results went:
So I changed my registration and rode my singlespeed as The Hammer’s domestique. When I begin the race report (tomorrow, probably — although I have a lot of day-job work to get caught up on today, so no promises), there’ll be a lot more about that.
What was more interesting was where the competition between The Monster and The Hammer wound up:
This wound up being an incredibly tight race. Although it should be known that it wasn’t an exact tie. Here’s what the chart looks like when I don’t have it round to the nearest percentage point:
With only one percentage point separating them, well, it couldn’t have been much closer.
And with a total of $4210 raised for NICA, this fundraiser won no matter how you look at the pie charts.
2016 LT100MTB Race Report, Part 1: Family Photos from Last Week
Over the next several blog posts, I’m going to tell the story of The Hammer’s and my Leadville 100 (and I’ll ask The Hammer and The Monster to write their own reports, too).
But before there was the race, there was a week of vacation. And before that, there was a week when I was in Ireland for my day job. So today, I’m just going to catch you up on some of that before jumping to the big drama at the starting line.
How will I catch you up on so much, in just one post? With a bunch of captioned photographs, of course.
The Hammer and I wanted the twins to be able to participate in some of the rides before the race, so we surprised them with new Felt Surplus 70s. Just before I took off for Ireland, we showed them off to the Twins, and then The Monster was going to take them for a ride. I showed the girls how the big volume tires could take a hit by just riding straight up a curb without lifting a wheel. One of the girls followed my lead…and immediately got a pinch flat. The thing is, we had not spare tubes and I had to go to the airport right then. So The Hammer and The Monster got to learn how to change big 27.5+ tires in a trial by fire. To their credit, they got it done and the bikes haven’t had another flat since.
A newspaper from Ireland, to prove I was there.
I didn’t read this article, but am pretty sure I would have enjoyed it.
I got home from Ireland late at night, got some sleep, got up, and it was time to pack the truck. But since six of us were going (The Hammer, The Monster, The Programmer [formerly the IT Guy], The Twins, me) and The Hammer and I were each bringing two bikes (just to be safe), we needed to take two vehicles. Here’s my truck, loaded with about half our gear and 3/4 of our bikes. The Programmer’s truck held the balance of bikes and gear. Big families have a lot of stuff.
While walking around town in Leadville, I stopped in Melanzana, where I usually buy a beanie or hoodie. There, I saw Floyd Landis as he was leaving the building. I wanted to chase after him, but The Hammer stopped me, telling me to leave the man in peace. But I tweeted about seeing him, and he replied, telling me to swing by Periodic Brewing (Pb, get it?) and say hi. I did, and we wound up hanging out and having an incredibly interesting, heartfelt, honest, and fun conversation.
A mural on the side of a building in Leadville. I’m not 100% sure I approve of where The Hammer’s got her hand. Nor the Monster’s for that matter.
The Hammer, The Monster, and I tended to coordinate outfits when we pre-rode sections of the race course, and over the first few days, we rode about 75% of it, so The Monster had a great idea of what she’d be experiencing. And we took a lot of photos, too. Here we are at the top of the Columbine Mine turnaround point. All smiles right now.
I’ve been to Leadville twenty times now, but this is the first time I’ve ever been on the awesome hiking trail right by the Fish Hatchery. Combining the race with a family vacation was an awesome idea.
Car and Couch strike heroic poses upon a rock of considerable size.
Posing behind the fish at the Fish Hatchery. Not an actual fish.
Skipping rocks at Turquoise Lake. As it turns out, kids will skip rocks for hours if you let them. Which we did.
We got to town right as a racer in the Leadville Boom Days Burro Race was finishing. I’d explain what a burro race is, but I really have no idea. Good for him, though.
One of the things I love about getting to Leadville a week before the race is the Boom Days street fair. And street fairs mean street food, which include bacon-wrapped sausage and fried turkey legs.
We visited Frisco (close to Leadville), bringing our bikes, because there’s a beautiful bike path alongside I70. Colorado is so beautiful.
The Monster and Couch, taking a break during our ride.
We rode the Leadville train, which goes a whopping 5mph, for about eight miles. I stayed awake for the first half of the ride, but on the return trip took a little nap. It was glorious.
One of my favorite moments from the whole trip was when we rode the ziplines. Six of them, from the top of a mountain down to the highway.
Car coming in for a landing.
Leadville has a great bike path loop — the Mineral Loop, I think it’s called — that goes around the town. Our friend Rohit was nice enough to join us and act as ride photographer, and now I’m pretty sure we’ve got our Christmas Card photo nailed.
Or maybe this should be our Christmas Card photo.
Finally, of course we got a photo of us at the famous “We Love Leadville — Great Living at 10,200 Feet” sign that greets you as you enter the city.
Honestly, I believe this was the best, most relaxing family vacation I’ve ever been on.
And then the race began.
Which is where I’ll pick up in the next installment of this race report.
Comments (14)
08.5.2016 | 10:51 am
A Note from Fatty: Today is the last day you can vote in my NICA Fundraiser. And while the “What Should Fatty Focus on for His Leadville Race” contest is pretty much a settled thing (unless someone really wants to completely upend my world), the other question is still very much in play.
Will The Hammer finish the Leadville 100 more than an hour faster than The Monster? Or will The Monster be less than an hour behind The Hammer?
For the first time since the beginning of this contest, The Hammer has pulled ahead. It’s a very close race now.
So today is your last chance to vote — and literally any vote right tip the final result. So here you go. Move that needle.
And I’ll send email to winners this Saturday, from Leadville.
Free Verse Friday: Reflections Upon a Nineteenth Race
Wednesday I was in Killarney
Yesterday I was in Dublin
Today I am home
Tomorrow, in Leadville
Such a traveler am I.
Such great distances
Thousands upon thousands of miles
Followed by hundreds and hundreds
And then finally, one hundred
And four.
In times past
I often drove to Leadville
Alone
One person, one bike, one goal
A goal which I never achieved
For more than a decade
And now things are different
One man
Four women
Five bikes
All bundled together
Some racing, Some crewing
All awesome
And goals have changed
As well
Now I have many finishes
Faster than I’d thought possible
8:12 baby
You can’t take that away from me
Don’t even try.
And all of those fast finishes
Happened after I started training
With this woman, The Hammer
So It seems only fair
—not to mention fun—
To ride for her this once
But I wouldn’t have done it
Until now
Because that’s not my way
Or at least it wasn’t my way
But now it is
And I am pretty sure
This will be
The.
Best.
Leadville.
Race.
Ever.
Thank you.
Comments (22)
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