06.23.2010 | 11:20 am
Every time I’ve ever ridden the Kokopelli, there’s been some big central event that winds up being the standout memory for the whole trip. After the first day of riding, I wasn’t sure what that standout memory was going to be. The heat and thirst? My pride in the way Lisa powered through the first day, getting stronger as she went? Jumping into the Colorado after the ride? Relaxing and eating in the shade at our camp?
All good memories and stories. But none of them would wind up being the big standout. That would — surprisingly — come on day two of the ride.
Why “surprisingly?” Well, provided you ride the Kokopelli Trail the way we did — start from Moab, camp at Dewey Bridge, finish in Loma, CO — the second day’s riding is much easier than the first day’s. Where the first day feels like nothing but huge climbs — 9000 feet of climbing in 60 miles or so — the second day has only a few thousand feet of climbing, spread out over 80 miles.
So the second day should be the day where we just spin along, taking in the big desert views, putting lots of miles on our bikes.
As it turns out, things sometimes don’t go as you’d expect.
Good Start
We got started fairly early in the morning and began the day with some of the funnest trail on the Kokopelli; the section right after Dewey Bridge is rolling hard-baked desert doubletrack with occasional short, technical, ledgy climbs.
On a singlespeed, you have to go full-tilt into these kinds of moves; you won’t get to the top without considerable momentum at the bottom. So, as I attacked one of these moves, the move . . . counterattacked. Specifically, I took the left line and misjudged the flexibility (or lack thereof) of a scrub oak’s branch. I hit the branch with my left arm; the branch didn’t give, and I bounced to the right, madly pinwheeling my arms and kicking out of my pedals.
It was a decidedly ugly save, but I celebrated anyway. I remained on my feet, with nothing but a trivial cut on my arm.
Sadly, my new FattyFly SS — my beloved bike with the custom paint — took a little more damage than I did.
When this happens, you have the choice of getting upset, or not. A long time ago, I developed the philosophy of not. It’s a bicycle. A tool. A means to an end, not the end itself. It will get beat up as I use it the way I like to ride it.
So I only cried a little bit.
Fateful Moment
We crossed the pavement that led back to camp — our 90-minute ride on dirt could have also been an easy 10-minute downhill road ride, but what what fun would that be? — and started yet another section of desert singletrack. As Kenny and I rode side-by-side for a few minutes, I asked: “So, now that you’ve had it for a while, what do you think of the belt drive instead of a chain?”
“I like it, but I don’t love it,” said Kenny. While you don’t have to lube it, he went on, you do have to maintain it in other ways, and squeaking and popping were a problem for him.
By the way, that’s foreshadowing right there.
Lisa and I rode ahead for a little while. After losing sight of Kenny and Heather, we stopped and got something to eat while we waited.
In a few minutes, Heather rode up to us. Alone.
“Kenny’s belt just broke,” she said. “He has another one, but it’s probably not the right size. He’s trying to make it work, but if he’s not here soon, he’ll have to go back to camp for a different belt.”
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’ll use The Secret to bring him here.
And sure enough, Kenny appeared, about ten minutes later. But he wasn’t on his bike.
Which goes to show, I guess, that I needed to be more specific when using The Secret.
But Kenny had used his time running over to us to come up with a plan. A really good plan.
Kenny’s Plan
You should pay attention to this part, because the plan’s a really good one, as I believe I have mentioned.
“I’m going back to camp to get a new belt for my bike,” Kenny said. “I’ll fix my bike, then drive Elden’s truck over toward Westwater. You guys go on ahead and I’ll meet you there, we can fill up with water from the truck, and we can keep going from there.
Kenny then elaborated, “I’ll drive to the railroad trestle right before the ranger station — since that’s where the trail meets the road — and then get on my bike and ride on the Kokopelli back toward you. But if you get to the trestle before me, continue on to the Ranger Station so you won’t have to wait to get water.”
Here, I’ll draw a helpful map, for those of you who like hand-drawn maps:
So, Lisa and I were to look for Kenny at Meeting Place #1 (or just be intercepted by him along the trail), and if we beat him there, take the 3/4-mile-long road (or, for those of you who prefer metric, that’s 2640 cubits) to Meeting Place #2 and wait there. Kenny would check Meeting Place #2 before coming back to Meeting Place #1 and riding up the trail.
We all agreed this was an excellent plan.
Heather volunteered to go along with Kenny; Lisa and I took off.
My Math Skills Are Defeated By My Exaggeration Skills
My two sons are both extremely gifted in math and sciences. I am very proud of them. I, on the other hand, am gifted at the opposite end of the spectrum: I am good at making things up and exaggerating.
So it shouldn’t really come as too big of a surprise when, after making good time on the trail, Lisa and I rolled up to the “Meeting Place #1″ and she said, “Oh, I thought you said that was supposed to be 40 miles away from camp. It’s only been 33.”
“I may have rounded up,” I replied.
In any case, Kenny and Heather had not yet arrived. So we continued on to “Meeting Place #2,” where we filled up our Camelbaks and bottles (each of us carrying extra water this day, not wanting to relive the stress from the previous day of not knowing whether you have enough).
Kenny had not shown up yet. Not that we had really expected him to. It could take a while to make that repair, and we didn’t know how long it would get back to camp anyway. Plus there was the drive.
So we took off our shoes and walked down the boat ramp, standing in the Colorado River. 61 degrees (12.89 Reaumur, for you fans of the metric system). Heaven.
No Kenny yet, so we sat at a picnic table and had lunch.
A Quick Aside About Eating
You would think that as a cyclist with years of experience on long rides, I would be very smart about food to eat during big ol’ epic rides.
I have just discovered that I have been a fool.
While I have always loaded my pack with things like energy bars and energy gels and energy inhalants (OK, I haven’t actually heard of energy inhalants, but the idea is interesting), Lisa brings things like turkey and swiss sandwiches. And salt and vinegar potato chips. And Swedish Fish. And Mountain Dew.
Her food is better than mine. And so I’m very happy to report that it was her job to put food together for us for the day, which means that when we sat down to eat at the picnic table, it was not too different from actually having a picnic.
Though I’m a little disappointed she didn’t pack potato salad or a watermelon.
Enforced Leisure
We finished eating. An hour had elapsed since we arrived.
“I’m ready for Kenny to show up,” Lisa announced. But we had no phone signal — which we knew was also the case back at our Dewey Bridge camp — and so there was no way to find out where he was.
Stubbornly, Kenny continued to not show up.
We laid down on the picnic table and took a nap.
Kenny did not show up.
Two hours had now gone by, and began to speculate on what could have gone wrong. We considered the following possibilities:
- Kenny had needed to drive into Moab to get a part for his bike.
- Kenny had discovered that The Bikemobile is a fantastic vehicle, and had stolen it.
- Kenny had been in a car wreck
- Heather had poisoned Kenny
We gave each of these the serious consideration they were due, then tried to figure out what — in the absence of any information at all about where they were and what had happened — we should do.
Should we get on our bikes and ride to the freeway, where we might be able to make calls or check voicemail? No, if we did that, Kenny might show up at Meeting Place #2 while we were gone, compounding the problem.
Should we go to Meeting Place #1? No, there’d be no point to that — Kenny knew to come to this place, which — after all — had trees and picnic tables and drinkable water and a river to cool ourselves off in whenever we wanted.
How did anyone ever connect up with anyone else before cel phones existed?
The thing is, apart from growing concern about Kenny and Heather, we were actually having a really nice afternoon. As two usually-antsy people who are normally incapable of just sitting around, there was literally nothing for us to do, so we relaxed. We opened the Kindle app on Lisa’s iPhone and read aloud several chapters of A Race Like No Other, a book that talks about the NYC Marathon.
And in short, we basically had an enjoyable, lazy afternoon. Exactly the opposite of what we had expected from the day, but awesome in its own way.
Grand Reunion
By the time three hours had elapsed, we had become worried. I persuaded Lisa that we needed to start making calls and figure out what’s going on before it got dark.
We decided we’d ride our bikes out toward the I70 freeway, where I was pretty sure we’d get reception.
Then, just as we were putting on our helmets and strapping on our Camelbaks, Kenny drove up. Looking visibly relieved to find us.
The Second-Hand Part of the Story
When Kenny and Heather left us to go repair Kenny’s bike, Kenny rigged a tow-rope made of his busted belt and an inner tube, and Kenny and Heather took turns pulling each other on the road back to camp.
They got to the camp in good time, fixed Kenny’s bike, and drove out to the trestle (Meeting Spot #1).
“There’s no way they could have gotten here yet,” said Kenny (except, of course, we had).
“No,” agreed Heather. “They’d have had to ride 30 singletrack miles in less than two hours.”
Unfortunately, Heather was working from my “40 miles from Dewey Bridge to Westwater” assertion, instead of the actual distance: 33 miles or so. My superpower — exaggeration — was biting me in the butt.
“Then there’s no point in us checking the Ranger Station (Meeting Place #2) to see if they’ve arrived, is there?” said Kenny.
“Nope.”
And so they got on their bikes and rode up the Kokopelli Trail, on what they thought was an intercept course with us, but was actually in the opposite direction.
After riding for two hours — almost all the way to Cisco (about 5 miles from where Kenny broke his belt in the first place) — they agreed Lisa and I could not have been that slow and turned around. At which point they discovered how much faster that trail was in the opposite direction.
Resolution
Even then, they didn’t think Lisa and I would be at the Ranger Station. Kenny only came and checked it as a “cross your T’s” type measure.
We all agreed, once we were together again, that it was too late, too hot, and too windy (and I had become too lazy) to try to finish the ride, so we headed back to camp.
As we drove to Dewey Bridge, Kenny looked at me. Questioningly. Beseechingly, even.
I knew what he was asking. And I had my response ready.
“Damn straight this is going in the blog.”
Comments (39)
06.22.2010 | 11:08 am
I realized, pretty early into riding the Kokopelli Trail last weekend, that I have become the geezer with a story for every occasion. Pretty much every mile or so, I’d tell whoever was around me — Kenny, Lisa, or Heather — about something else that had happened at that spot another time I had been on this trail.
And it’s not like it had to be a great story, either. I am not making the following, which I recounted to Lisa, up:
“It was about here one year that I looked down and saw a big adjustable wrench. I remember thinking to myself, ‘Huh, that might be useful,’ but I didn’t pick it up. Then, about five hours later Dug had a big ol’ mechanical that would have been easily fixed if only we’d had a big adjustable wrench.”
At some point, everyone stopped acknowledging that I had just told (yet another) “I remember when . . . ” story.
Fatty exists, therefore he talks. Not much you can do about it.
After finishing one of my “I remember when” stories, I pointed out, “The Kokopelli’s just a big ride. Big enough that something’s going to happen. Every ride on the Kokopelli’s going to result in a story.”
And it did.
Day 1: Hot and Climby
Kenny, Heather, Lisa and I started early in the day — about 7:30 AM — from the Slickrock trailhead in Moab, Utah. Our plan was to ride the 62 (or so) miles and 9000 feet of climbing to Dewey Bridge the first day, where we’d stashed my truck full of camping gear.
We were comfortable as we rode up Sand Flats road, which must be the worst-named road in America, being not even remotely flat. It’s a long grind and a big climb.
It was already warm by the time we got to the singletrack / doubletrack section that connects Sand Flats road to the La Sal loop.
As we rode — the temperatures dropping as we went higher and higher — we saw a couple dozen runners heading in the opposite direction. Wearing race bibs. I asked and found that they were on the last leg of a multi-day stage race run of the Kokopelli: Desert RATS.
So we became their rolling cheering section, telling each of them one of the following:
- Looking good
- Looking strong
- Keep it up
- You’re doing awesome
- You’re doing great
- Beware of the badger around the next bend
OK, I didn’t really tell anyone to beware of the badger, but I would have if it had occurred to me.
The climb up to the La Sal mountain loop road leads to a big (paved) descent, followed by a big (paved) climb.
It was then we all wished we’d started earlier. Like at about 6:00 or 6:30 AM. It was hot. Like 95 degrees Fahrenheit (or for those of you who prefer metric, 554.67 rankine).
Right at the bottom of the climb, I stopped and dunked my jersey in a roadside stream, then put the jersey back on.
The coolness wasn’t just wonderful. It was exquisite. Indeed, I assert that this may have been the most intelligent thing I have ever done in my life.
We got to the top of North Beaver Mesa, where we ate lunch and refilled our Camelbaks and bottles, using the same canal the cows do to get their water.
Hey, the cattle looked healthy; I’m sure the water was very clean.
We dropped into Fisher Valley, and then started up toward 7-Mile Pass, which begins with a killer hike-a-bike section.
Thirst
That’s when the day stopped being merely hot and became hot. The sun was right overhead, we were pushing our bikes, there was no breeze at all, and you could — at least it seemed to me — feel the heat radiating from the rocks.
We were all hot. Tired. And slowing down.
And that’s when Lisa let me know she was worried. “I don’t think I’ve got enough water,” she said.
Out in the middle of nowhere, in the hottest part of the day, where there’s no chance of finding a stream, on a ride where you don’t know how much further you’ve got to go, that’s about the scariest feeling there can be. Those of you who have run out of water on a hot day with a long ride still in front of you know what I mean.
So I tried to ease her concerns by recounting the story of the time Rocky and I had done this ride and he had actually run out of water and become delirious and unable to ride.
To my surprise, this did not help.
So I tried another strategy. “Actually, I packed extra water for you without telling you, just in case the day got hot.”
Yes, I know. I am a wonderful person.
However, I should probably point out that the “not telling” part was because I knew she wouldn’t have let me carry water for her if she knew what I was up to; I was taking the chicken way out.
But let’s just focus on the “wonderful person” part, OK?
Best Camp in the World
Once you climb 7 Mile Mesa, the hardest part of the Kokopelli Trail is behind you. It’s more downhill than up, and before long you can see the Colorado River and its lush green banks standing out in contrast to the desert around it.
It’s beautiful.
We dropped into the Dewey Bridge area, where we had stashed my truck. The nearby campground was mostly vacant, leaving us to pick the best campsite in the area — one with a giant tree providing shade.
First, though, we all took off our shoes and jumped into the Colorado River. The shock of the cold was amazing, and wonderful. The current was so strong though, that if you submerged yourself, you’d come up about 20 feet downstream.
Lisa and I — wanting to rinse the sweat and multiple layers of sunscreen and bug spray off — found a way around that problem. We took turns planting ourselves and then holding on to the other’s foot, allowing us as much time as we wanted underwater.
After that, we toweled off, set up camp in the (glorious) shade, and made a spaghetti dinner.
Tomorrow we’d have more miles (80 instead of 60) but lots less climbing ahead of us.
Oh, and the temperatures were suppose to get warmer.
Comments (25)
06.18.2010 | 6:49 am
A Note from Fatty: Thanks to everyone who helped raise money in the fight against cancer for a chance to win a SyCip bike outfitted with Shimano and PRO components! I am now collating all the fundraising reports and will select a winner and notify her / him this morning.
Meanwhile, you know what’s really, really great? We have raised $185,117 so far this year in the fight against cancer.
Team Fatty, you are amazing. Thank you for all the work you have done, and continue to do.
Remember back in February when we cleaned out my garage in order to help my sister Kellene’s son Dallas get a new kidney?
Well, I think it’s time I give you an update on what’s going on now and what will be going on soon.
(And relax, this is a happy post with lots of good news.)
July 29: A Big Day
Pretty much everyone in my family wanted to get tested to see if they could be a good match for donating a kidney to Dallas. When the results came back, though, it turns out that Kellene herself is the best match.
So the surgery happens on July 29, in NYC.
And which means that Dallas will now have had a kidney from each of his parents. Which seems fitting, and which I find really touching for some reason.
So How’s Dallas Doing?
Once Dallas got past all of the awfulness of the kidney failure itself and got on dialysis, his life returned to normal. Not that spending hours every day hooked up to a machine that acts as a kidney substitute is what you or I would call “normal,” but the fact is, he’s adapted and is not letting this slow him down. He went back to work and the rest of his life.
In fact, he took up crit racing.
Yeah, really. Check out his ride:
He texted me this pic with the caption “My first geared and brake-installed road bike ever!”
I sent him a Fat Cyclist jersey (had to be one of my used ones; I do not have a secret stash of new ones hidden away), and he promised to send me a photo of him riding across the Brooklyn Bridge.
But things aren’t exactly easy for Dallas. All the work the doctors did on him last February pretty much totaled his immune system, and Dallas has come down with — and is currently still fighting — a nasty case of Shingles, which is “a painful, blistering skin rash due to the varicella-zoster virus, the virus that causes chicken pox.“
Dallas’ case of Shingles was bad enough that he had to go to the hospital again for a while, though he’s back out now. And looking forward to getting back on his bike, which warms my heart.
And How About Kellene?
Kellene is prepping for her surgery by . . . doing the Ride the Rockies multi-day road event. In fact, she’s doing it right now with a group of friends registered as Team Fatty. Check them out at the beginning of day 1 (Kellene’s on the far left):
And at the summit of Molas Pass:
And yesterday, at mile 300:
Kellene’s been sending out nightly text message blasts during the event, too. From the first day:
So a hail storm just about froze us to death, but all is sunny and well now. First hundred completed. Time for a Diet Coke. A great day.
And from the second day:
A wonderful 70 mile ride in the sunshine. Long and rolling. Tomorrow is the beast. Red Mountain pass at 12,000 feet plus two others. We should be mostly dead. People love our Fatty jerseys.
And her report from part way through that day?
Kill me. Just climbed two passes over 11,000 feet each. The Madone loved it and I suffered! Wind is not my friend One more to go! First a Diet Coke is in order.
And then yesterday:
A beautiful day. 87 miles. Tomorrow will be another battle: uphill and over Wolf Creek. My but and neck are done!
Kellene’s reports make me either want to do this event really badly soon, or never. I’m still not sure which.
How Not to Give Up
Lara is one of the women riding with Kellene. On a training ride a week before the event, though, she took a fall. A bad one:
She got a concussion and was otherwise seriously banged up, but apparently one of her big concerns was that she had shredded her Team Fatty jersey.
Well, as it turns out, I did in fact happen to have one women’s jersey in her size. New even. So I guess I did have a secret jersey stash after all.
And Lara’s out there. Doing the ride.
I’m not sure what it is about Team Fatty that makes all of you so bullheaded.
But I like it.
PS: Team Fatty-Seattle, go out there and kick butt at the LiveStrong Challenge this weekend. I wish I was there!
PPS: Today’s my birthday. I’m 44. Allow me to nostalgically impress you:
- I remember before there was color TV
- I remember when there were 3 TV stations, and changing between them with a dial. (I also remember being confused what the UHF / VHF switch was for.)
- I remember when rotary phones were the norm
- I remember before microwave ovens
- I remember before VCRs
- I remember before car phones (it was a while before they became small enough to be carried around by hand)
- I remember before the Internet
- I remember before personal computers
- I remember music stores stocking vinyl, 8-track, and cassette of every album.
- I remember getting a Schwinn Stingray, brand new, for my birthday
Comments (123)
06.17.2010 | 10:15 am
A Note from Fatty: Today is the last day you can enter to win the SyCip hand-built bike, tricked out with Shimano and PRO components. Read here for details on the bike, then click here to donate for a chance at the bike.
I’m so angry right now I can hardly see straight. Well, the truth is I have a lazy left eye so the “not seeing straight” part is pretty normal for me.
But — trust me — I’m pretty darned angry.
And I’m not the only one. Lance is mad too. Which is us is angrier? It’s hard to say.
I better back up and explain.
As many of you know, Lance Armstrong and I are now pretty tight. We hang out together, share training successes and failures, give each other parenting advice, exchange recipes, and are on the same World of Warcraft guild (his handle is “MelloWarlord;” mine is “FatPaladin”).
And so — like Lance — I was outraged when I saw the upcoming cover of Outside Magazine:
No, Lance was not outraged because the hairstylist made his hair look like he was photographed while hanging upside down. Nor was he angry that they chose the one photograph out of the whole sitting where he was looking menacingly intense, instead of showing his usual congenial, toothy grin.
He wasn’t even angry — well, OK, he was kind of angry, but not red-faced and seething — at the “Major Shrinkage!” headline right there beside him.
No.
He was angry for the exact same reason I am angry. And that reason is: Outside Magazine photoshopped “38. BFD.” onto his T-shirt.
Note: For those of you who aren’t familiar with the “BFD” acronym, it stands for “Bidirectional Forwarding Detection,” which is a network protocol used to detect faults between two forwarding engines connected by a link — a very peculiar thing to put on a t-shirt, I think you’ll agree!
Lance was so angry, he actually tweeted:
Wow. That’s angry. I, for one, hardly ever get so angry that I start talking in light grey rectangles. But Lance — he and I have agreed during one of the many, many times we’ve hung out together — has a greater capacity for anger than I.
Which is not to say that I am not angry.
At this point, you’re probably wondering why — apart from indignation on Lance’s behalf — I am angry. What stake do I have in this egregious example of Photoshopping a plain t-shirt?
Well, the only way I can explain is by showing you the original photograph — the comp Outside emailed to Lance and me, saying they were just going to make a “couple of minor changes” before going to final.
For one thing, it is not easy to get Lance Armstrong to wear your t-shirt in public. At least, not for most people.
And for another, I totally paid Lance $20 to wear that shirt for the cover, and Lance says he’s already spent it and it wasn’t his fault that Outside Photoshopped it out anyway.
I’m so angry, I could just tweet .
Comments (53)
06.15.2010 | 12:14 pm
As a beloved, Bloggie hall-of-fame-winning, and very influential blogger, it is now very rare for me to go riding without being accosted by other cyclists. Many of them (you) simply want a signed 8 x 10 photograph, and for that purpose I now always ride wearing a Camelbak HAWG filled with an assortment of photos of me in different outfits and poses.
For efficiency’s sake, I have even pre-autographed a number of these photographs for common names. If, for example, your name is “Barbara,” (currently #4 in the US), I will be able to give you your pre-inscribed photograph (“Barbara! You’re awesome. Ride hard and keep reading the blog. XOXO – Fatty”) with practically no delay at all.
You think you’ll get the same treatment from Bike Snob NYC? No, you will not. In fact, he’s likely to punch you in the throat. Or push you down. Depends on how foul a mood he’s in, really.
Why do I do this? Because I am all about service, that’s why.
Sometimes, however — and this is as surprising to me as it is to you — I will encounter another cyclist who neither recognizes nor approaches me. At those times, it falls to me to talk to them, in order for me to share the important insights I am invariably experiencing.
I am certain you are interested in what I say, and in what circumstances, so that you can emulate me.
Your Saddle is Too Low
Something I have noticed about every cyclist that has been riding for more than six months is that they have become truly expert in bike fit. Of course, it irritates me no end when these cyclists try to instruct me on how I should position my saddle, how long of a stem I should be using and so forth, because I truly am a bike fit expert.
And of course I love to share this expertise. I am a sharing person, after all.
I like to start out with a friendly greeting. “Hi there, great day for a ride, isn’t it?” I will ask. This puts us on common ground (we agree that it is in fact a good day for a ride), establishes that I am interested in their opinion, and intimates that I am very observant (I have noticed the suitability of the weather for cycling).
Once my lucky patient (I think of everyone I help as a patient, and think of myself as a kindly doctor) has agreed that the weather is in fact good for riding, I follow up with, “I’ll bet your knees hurt, don’t they?”
Stunned by my perspicacity, my patient will usually agree. Unless, of course, their knees don’t hurt. In which case they will reveal, “No, not really.”
Undaunted, I will then reply, “Trust me (and how could they not trust me?), they will soon.” And then I will tell them that they need to raise their seat the correct amount, which I am able to discern simply by looking at them. This is easier than you think, believe it or not. Use the below guide to help you help others:
- If their legs never achieve an obtuse angle, they probably should raise their seatpost about 2″ (that’s 5.08 x 10^-5 kilometers for those of you who prefer metric units).
- If they have to shift their buttocks to reach the bottom of each downstroke, they should probably lower their saddle about 2″ (see above for the metric equivalent).
- If their knees keep hitting their chin, it may be time to consider a larger frame.
I believe this pretty much covers all the possibilities.
And the great thing about this technique is that I don’t need to be on a bike to use it. I have found it equally effective when shouted from a car.
I Want You to Know About the Awesome Ride I Am Doing
When mountain biking, I am often not actually on my bike. To the casual onlooker, it may seem like this is because I am pushing my bike up the hill, but the truth is, I am simply going at a slow enough pace to allow others to catch up with me, so I can tell them about the magnificent mountain bike ride upon which I have embarked. By knowing this, the person I am talking to can aspire to — someday — attempt a similar ride.
I like to begin by feigning interest (after, of course, I have cemented our relationship by commenting about the weather): “Hey, what kind of ride are you doing today?”
Naturally, this appears to show my interest in the other person’s ride, but in reality it is setting them up to reciprocate my question.
“Oh, I’m just exploring a little bit today,” I’ll reply off-handedly. “I started by climbing up Grove, connected that up to the Great Western to get to the top of Timpooneke. I rode that for a while, and now i’m riding to the top of the Alpine Loop. From there, I think I’ll take Ridge to South Fork Deer Creek, back up to the summit, then along Ridge to Mud, down Tibble, and then probably back home.
“Or I might add a little something to it if I have the time. Just depends.”
I especially like that last part — that it’s my available time that’s the limiting factor, not the fact that this ride would leave me completely cooked.
Note: I only use this technique when I am on a very long, impressive ride. And am pretty sure the other person is not. And I always be sure to say the route fast enough to make the other person’s head spin, and too fast for them to comprehend it.
I Am Considering Killing You for Your Food
This may come as a surprise to you, but there are times when I get hungry on the trail. Hungry enough, even, that I eat all my food and wish for more.
When that happens, I am always very happy to meet a fellow cyclist.
“How’s your ride going?” I ask, weakly.
I do not listen to the response.
“Yeah, I’ve been out for a pretty long ride,” I say, regardless of whether I have been asked how my ride is progressing. “I sure wish I had unnndndngngghh.”
I should point out that as I say “unnndndngngghh,” I let my knees buckle, and use the nearest tree to keep myself from falling over entirely.
“No, I’m fine,” I reply, in answer to the inevitable question of whether I’m OK. “Just a little hungry, I guess.” Of course, I’ll protest when offered food, but never for too long.
And I want to point out that I’m not exactly taking something for nothing, because I almost always offer a high-value item in return.
An autographed picture of me, for example.
Comments (44)
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