Riding into work today, it occurred to me: almost all my friends are in their 40’s now. This was followed by an even more shocking realization: I’m less than a third of a year away from being 40, myself.

I can feel it: I am rapidly approaching the age where I do little but sit around and tell stories of my glory days.

Come to think of it, that’s pretty much what this whole blog is for already.

Damn.

I Shall Briefly Attempt Honesty, Just to See What It’s Like

The problem with my glory days is that almost without exception, they’re only glorious if I leave certain key facts out.

Over the next several days — until I get tired of it, basically — I shall tell you of some of my most glorious moments on the bike, in much the same way I tell these stories to people at work, at parties, and on planes.

And then I will tell the part of the story I normally leave out: the part that makes my story of glory rather less glorious.

Any questions? No? Let’s begin, then.

The Day I Beat Kenny Up Squaw Peak

Riding mountain bikes up Squaw Peak road to Hope Campground is an ideal training ride. You peg your heartrate during the 4.3 mile stretch of paved road, climbing 1800 feet. Then, as a reward for your hard work, you get to descend on a straight-down stretch of terrifying singletrack, hanging your butt off the back as far as you can in order to not flip over the front, and releasing the brakes to the extent you dare. It’s a huge adrenaline rush.

The first person to the top gets to be the first person down, and that person was always Kenny Jones. Now, I have never been as light or fit as the years Kenny and I rode together. If you ride with Kenny, you just have to learn to be fast. No matter how much I improved, though, I could never beat him to the top of a climb. He has the ability to put his head down, dial up a massive gear, and then just hammer away, suffering like he loves to suffer, leaving me — and everyone else — in the dust.

But once, I beat him. I beat him bad.

We started the climb as we always did, riding together at a medium pace. We went along, slowly driving up the pace, ratcheting up higher gears and inching ahead of the other guy to test for weakness.

It’s usually mile three that Kenny would start to pull ahead. He’d never just shoot off the front. He’d just inch a half wheel ahead of me, and I wouldn’t pull up alongside. Then he’d be a wheel ahead of me. Then a bike length. Before long, he’d be 20 feet ahead of me, and I’d be fully at my max, trying to bridge.

Then he’d be 30 feet ahead of me, and I’d crack. Dropping several gears and reducing my cadence by half, I’d drift backward while Kenny shot ahead.

This time, though, was different. At about the point I usually started falling back, I instead stayed with Kenny. And then I inched ahead.

I listened for the inevitable sound of him shifting up two gears. It didn’t come. I shifted up a gear, stood up, and attacked.

He didn’t respond.

In fact, he cracked.

Victorious, I distanced him and rode ahead, getting to the top of Hope Campground a minute or more ahead.

This was my one and only victory over Kenny, and so I treasure it to this day.

The Part I Don’t Include

Of course, what made my victory possible was the fact that Kenny had just returned from a two-week vacation in Mexico, where he had:

• Drunk an awful lot of beer
• Eaten a lot of heavy food
• Exercised not even a little bit
• Contracted a stomach virus that gave him acute, persistent, intestinal distress

So the fact that I beat him isn’t really the story. The real story is that Kenny, in spite of all this, still very nearly outrode me.

In which case, you can bet that I wouldn’t be telling this story at all.

Bonus: Winner of the Banjo Brothers Bike Bag Giveaway

Karen sent me a picture and email that I just loved. I love that her husband actually has exactly the tattoo I’ve described. I love that he’s in his 50’s, is so fast, and has a tattoo. And I really love that his wife totally brags about her husband like this. Check it out:

I had to send you this pic of my 56 year old hubby, who has spent most of his life working and playing on various sprockets. He raced motocross for many years, taking the New England championship for three years. Now he is a radical mountain and road biker – rides with guys half his age, and usually kicks their butts (although he will tell you that he ‘rides a little bit’).  He’s participated a lot in the Vermont 50 and came in second in his class a few years ago, when there was not a separate class for anyone above 50 — so he was riding with the youngsters.  Now he would rather get up at 3 or 4 a.m. and pre-ride the course.  His trails are some of the most beloved and fun in Vermont….not that I am partial or proud of him….

He got this tattoo several years ago, and when combined with some of the grease off his sprocket, I thought it made a good picture.  And I love to tease  him about his Cat5 tattoo, while many have regretted assuming that the tattoo meant he’s a beginner.

Today’s weight: 167.6

Yesterday, I talked about getting a rookie mark tattoo, as a permanent acknowledgment that I am a permanent rookie. I always reconsider, though, thinking that it’s not something I’ll necessarily think is quite so hilarious when I’m living in a nursing home.

That, however, is not the only tattoo I have thought about for my calf. For years, I have privately promised myself that if I finish the Leadville 100 in under nine hours, I will tattoo my finishing time and the year I did it on my right calf, for all the world to see. Because that is something I’m pretty sure I’d be happy to talk about forever (whether I was asked to or not).

Since this year is pretty much my make-or-break year for getting that sub-9 time, maybe we’ll see if I follow through. I think I would.

Sure, I’d be laughed at for the rest of my life for getting my first tattoo at 40, the age at which most people finally know better and are looking into getting those tattoos they got at age 19 removed.

But I’d still wear it proudly.

Banjo Brothers Weekly Bike Bag Giveaway Question

What bike-related tattoo would you get, where, and why? Or better yet, what bike-related tattoo have you already got? Where and why? Bonus points if you’ve got a photo; email it to me: fatty@fatcyclist.com.

Oh, and by the way, congrats to the Banjo Brothers for getting some serious airtime on a local news program. Check it out here.

Today’s weight: 169.0

There’s an easy way to gauge another cyclist’s experience and ability: Check his right calf. If there’s a greasy chainring-shaped mark on it, be confident that you can outride him.

Unless, of course, you have a similar mark on your own right calf.

This mark — sometimes called the “Rookie Mark”  — tends to get pressed into your leg when you do either of the following:

• Stop  and rest while straddling your top tube, inadvertently pressing your calf up against your chainring, which is — sadly — lubed with an overabundance of greasy kid’s stuff. This produces a nice, sharp, tattoo-like rookie mark.
• Fall over while still clipped into your pedals. This produces a somewhat less aesthetically-pleasing rookie mark, because the grease gets smudged as you thrash around like a trapped otter.

With Experience Comes Wisdom. Usually.

As you ride more, you’ll find you get the rookie mark less often. You’re not overlubing anymore, you’ve learned not to lean your chainring against your calf, and you’re not falling over on your side like a keystone kop.

Unless you’re me, in which case you still come home with a rookie mark after pretty much every ride, in spite of the fact that you’ve been riding for ten years or so.

I Nearly Embrace My Inner Fred

In acknowledgement of the fact that I will likely forever be a clumsy oaf, I have actually thought about formalizing it, by having a rookie mark tattooed on my calf. I’ve never followed through, though. I always chicken out, thinking, “Will my sense of humor be the same when I’m 75 as it is today?”

I just can’t quite envision explaining my rookie mark tattoo to my grandkids, at least not without an accompanying vison of their parents later having a quiet talk about visiting the insane gramps guy a lot less often.

So, no tattoo. Yet.

A More Emphatic Rookie Mark

The thing is, as of last Saturday, a rookie mark tattoo may be beside the point. Nick and I were riding at Soaring Eagle Park, doing our three tries on log moves, as required by law.

We were trying a log I had never done before: it was about eight inches in diameter, but was not touching the trail. I’d guess it was resting about six inches above the ground where it crossed the trail.

That’s not what made it tricky, though.

What made this move tricky was that it was downhill, a much more difficult position to start the wheelie from. And the exit was an immediate sharp right turn, if you didn’t want to roll down a bank into blackberry bushes.

I missed on my first try; basically, it was nothing but a chicken-out. On my second try, I got high-centered and bailed out. On my third try, I went for it and very nearly cleaned it, then fell forward, over the bike. My chainring dug in.

I was wearing tights (very manly black mountain biker tights, mind you), which did not seem to be ripped. I dealt with the pain and we rode on.

When I got home, here’s what I found:

My fondest hope is that it will form a really cool-looking scar. Like a rookie-mark tattoo, but earned, instead of bought.

The details leading up to the crash are fuzzy. Was it five years ago, or seven? Was it spring, summer, or autumn? I don’t remember.

I do remember the crash, though. Perfectly.

Our riding group was pretty large: Dug, Rick, Bob (visiting from Seattle, turning the ride into an event), Jeremy, Gary, and me. There were a couple others, too.

We were doing a semi-epic ride: Begin the ride by climbing up Frank. That’s about 1800 feet, right there. Then, instead of hanging a left and going down, keep going up Francisco. That’s another thousand feet or so. And then the Five Fingers: Drops into and climbs out of five ravines of varying difficulties. That’s probably another 1500 feet of climbing.

Which brought us to the terraces.

Left or Right?

The terraces are strange. Created as part of the WPA program back in the 30’s (ostensibly to stop erosion, but really just to give some people work) these giant stairsteps are now a more-or-less permanent feature on the grassy slopes of several mountains in Utah.

When we got to the terraces, we had an option. Turn right, toward Little Baldy, keep climbing for another twenty minutes, then drop down into Pleasant Grove Canyon. Or turn left and begin descending immediately, riding the ridges of the terraces, eventually winding up in Dry Canyon.

Either way promised to be a fun ride, but when presented with the option of climbing now or descending now, well, what do you think the group decided?

Of course, we turned left. We’d ride the goat trail along the terraces, then hook up to Dry Canyon.

Unfolding Drama

I’m the acknowledged slowest descender of the group, so I generally don’t even volunteer to ride sweep; I just wait until everyone else has started. Ordinarily, this means I’ll watch everyone else disappear as they distance me.

This time, though, it meant I got to watch something extraordinary.

Just about the time I got a full head of steam, Dug — riding first — hit a dip that had been well-hidden by the deep grass. That dip wasn’t bad enough to knock him off his bike, but it was bad enough to throw him to the left, off his line. And since we were riding on the lip of one terrace, that meant he got shot suddenly and immediately down the steep slope to the next terrace level, at which point he endoed, flying high over his handlebars and landing on his back.

And then, a quarter-second later, Rick did the exact same thing. Ride. Dip. Jerk. Flip. It’s like they were synchronized swimmers. 

Then, as fast as you can read this, Gary, Jeremy, and Bob. Each person landed with their own special sound effect. Each separated from his bike in his own way. And they all went down so close together that things started getting crowded. One would be wise to pick one’s landing spot carefully, which one would obviously do if one were at all in control of oneself whilst being thrown keyster over teakettle.

I Will Not Fall Down

Of course, I’m writing this with clear hindsight. I now know what caused everyone to get flipped off their bikes. While it was happening, though, it was the strangest thing I had ever seen. When one guy goes down, it’s no big deal. But everyone was going down. I swear, it looked intentional.

I slowed down, cautious. Already, I was forming a plan. I would pull alongside all these fallen riders, shake my head in mild amusement, make a “tsk-tsk” sound, and then continue ahead, in a most dignified manner.

Then, just like everyone else, I hit the dip, jerked off course, flew off the terrace, and flipped over my bike. Just like everyone else had. To my relief, I landed in a clear spot.

I had made it unanimous. Every single one of us had crashed in the exact same spot. Lemmings on mountain bikes.

Back on Your Bike, Soldier

So now, like everyone else, I was lying on my back in tall grass. I sat up, startled to find I was completely unhurt. It had been the rarest of crashes: a no-cost endo. I looked over at Dug, who was just now stumbling to his feet, unaware — I think — of what had happened to everyone else. Then he looked around, seeing the around a half dozen bikes and riders scattered on the ground.

Dug sat back down, laughing. And within moments, we were all laughing, sitting where we had landed. A passerby — had there been even a remote possibility of passersby up in the terraces — would have certainly suspected substance abuse.

But it wasn’t. It was just a bunch of guys caught up in the moment of what was without a question the Best Crash Ever.

Eventually, we’d finish the ride.

You want to know the fundamental difference between mountain biking and road biking? If you crash frequently while road biking, you’re doing it wrong. If, on the other hand, you don’t crash from time to time while mountain biking, you’re doing it wrong.

So, if we take it as given that you will crash from time to time on your mountain bike, what can you do to get the very most out of the experience? How can you turn your wreck from a display of clumsiness and negligence into the kind of story that gets told around campfires and office coolers?

By following these simple steps, that’s how.

Plan Ahead

Think of some generic injuries you can claim when the moment is right. Here is a brief list, to help you get started.

• Internal bleeding: Keep this one in mind for the occasions when you’re hurt — no, seriously, you really are — but don’t have an injury that actually shows. Insist that you need to be taken to a hospital immediately. Once you’ve made this demand, however, you cannot back down. Follow through, even though you’ll probably feel just fine by the time you get to the hospital. When you finally get out of the waiting room, though, slip the doctor a $20 and say there’s another $20 in it for her if she’ll play along and tell your friends it is one of the most harrowing examples of internal bleeding she has ever seen, and that they’re lucky they listened to you.
• Ruptured diaphragm, preventing breathing: If you get the wind knocked out of you, you can claim that you actually ruptured your diaphragm, and now have only moments to live before you suffocate to death. Explaining later why you’re alive may be difficult. I leave that to you. (Thanks for the idea, Tayfur!)
• Torn ligaments: Good general-purpose, believable injury, and practically impossible to disprove in the field. Highly recommended.
• High Altitude Pulmonary Edema: Use this if you’ve been riding clumsily the whole day. It’s best not to say you have this ailment if you’re below an altitude of 500 feet.
• High Altitude Cerebral Edema:  Use this if you’ve been riding clumsily and saying stupid things.
• Total amnesia: Save this one for an accident you’d rather forget. You may want to consider downgrading this to Concussion, which allows you to say you don’t remember the events surrounding a certain time period. Which you choose should depend on how bone-chillingly stupid and predictable your crash was.

During The Crash

Sometimes, a crash is so instantaneous you have no time to react whatsoever. I once, for example, was riding along on my own when I suddenly found myself sliding on my face.

Other times, however, you may be luckier: you see a crash coming, and have time to add some theatrics. In this case, I recommend the following steps:

1. Unclip from your bike, if at all possible. Separate from it to whatever degree you can.
2. Flail. Wave your arms while you’re in the air. Flailing looks good on camera, and increases your chances on winning in America’s Funniest Videos.
3. Twist. If you’re in the midst of a good long fall, take a moment to try to do a 360.
4. Keep your arms and hands close to your torso. As your landing approaches, bring your arms and hands in close, so as to not snap them like twigs. It’s very easy for me to type this, although I have never successfully done it in my entire life. You would think that now that my right shoulder sometimes separates just for the fun of it, I’d learn. But no: I still reach out to catch my fall every time.
5. Roll. Roll once on impact at a bare minimum. If you feel you’ve got sufficient momentum, keep rolling. As you roll, ask yourself, “Am I badly hurt?” If the answer is “No, not really.” Try finishing the roll by standing up with your arms held high. Bow smartly.

After the Crash

Immediately after the crash, you have to make a snap decision. Will you go for comedy, stoic resilience, or drama?

• Comedy is a surprisingly good choice, if you aren’t badly hurt and you’ve got an audience. Try saying, “Nothing to see here, move along” in your best Monty Python voice. Or, “I was pushed! I accuse you!” Or my favorite, “Ladies and gentlemen, the candlesticks are still standing!” Your audience is likely to laugh, even if you’re not funny, out of gratitude that they’re not going to have to perform first aid.
• Stoic resilience is risky. If, after you crash — especially if it looked bad — you get up as if nothing happened, you will gain respect from your peers as being tough, though perhaps not especially bright. However, this severely reduces your options. If you start out as stoic right after the crash, but then discover ten minutes later after the adrenaline rush fades that the bruises, lacerations, and compound fractures are hampering your ability to enjoy the ride, you still must be stoic. You can’t go from stoic to drama queen. That’s ten times worse than starting out as a drama queen in the first place.
• Drama is my default choice. It’s the safe bet. For one thing, crashes really do almost always hurt. For another, if I start out acting like I’m badly hurt and then discover that I’m actually just fine, it’s not difficult to make the conversion to comedy. Just sit up and say, “I’m not dead yet…I think I’m getting better…I believe I’ll go for a walk (Monty Python voice again). Or you can grab for the brass ring and do a drama-comedy-stoic transfer: suddenly go from rocking and screaming to standing up, dusting yourself off, and deadpan, “I now choose to internalize my pain.”

If you decide to go for the drama option (good choice!), you have a few moments after a given fall to think about what you will say to your riding companions. Use this time wisely.

First, choose your injury. If you are unsure which injury you are going to trumpet, go into the fetal position. The fetal position is a good universal symbol of pain, and gives you time to think.

Next, play it up. Don’t trivialize your pain. Never ever immediately say, “I’m OK.” Make them wonder for a couple seconds.

As you lay, moaning and dying, memorize your surroundings. It’s best if the wildly exaggerated tale you will tell later has some basis in fact. Your surroundings can help you find a good external cause for your crash, which is almost always preferable to, “I’m a bumbling fool.”

• Ledges: Going over an unforeseen ledge is a great cause for an accident. Highly recommended. Unfortunately, if you did this, you’re probably really injured. Sorry ‘bout that!
• Roots: Roots are tricky things that cause your wheels to change directions. Nobody will ever dispute the root reason. A suggestion: If you’re going to use a root as the reason you fell, always intensify it. Roots must always be slippery, slimy, wet, twisty, gnarled, or knotted.
• Scree: Scree is dirt and rocks on the trail. Most mountain bike trails are constantly covered with dirt and rocks, so scree is difficult to disprove.
• Rabbits with big, nasty, pointy teeth. Monty Python again. Sorry, can’t help myself. I’m definitely going to watch the Holy Grail this weekend.
• Too much speed: You’re a victim of your own mountain bike prowess and bravery, not to mention your outrageous athleticism. Very good.
• Gear: Chainsuck or a blown tire are great crash causes. They are verifiable, however, so don’t use them if they aren’t real, or at least if you have witnesses present. My best gear-related crash had me thinking I had actually been shot in the chest. It was back when Rock Shox Judy SLs were all the rage. The Judy used an elastomer stack for damping, which was inserted through the top of the fork, then secured with a screw-in cap. Coming down Mud Springs one day, I suddenly saw a flash of red, felt a sharp pain in my chest, and then crashed. I was sure some kid had shot me with a paintball. It turns out that the cap over one of the elastomer stacks had come loose during the downhill, and the stack had ejected, popping me right in the sternum.
• Despair over the state of _________________. Hey, why not turn your misfortune into a political or moral statement?
• Ennui: “I was tired of being on my bike, and thought I’d mix things up a little.”

Afterward

Later, you’ll have time to craft a fine story about your crash. As you do this, remember: what was going on internally is as important as what happens externally. And it’s much more difficult to disprove. Say things like:

• Time slowed down.
• I thought to myself, “I am about to die,” yet remained strangely calm. I was at peace with the world, almost eager to meet the earth as it rushed to embrace me.
• The pain was exquisite.
• My spirit left my body. I remember hovering over my carcass, asking myself, “Do I want to go back into that vessel, to endure the suffering that comes with reuniting with my body? Believe me, it was not an easy choice.
• No, seriously. My diaphragm was totally ruptured. I’d be dead if it weren’t for my quick thinking and a fairly unorthodox use of a patch kit.

Winner of the Banjo Brothers Bike Bag Giveaway

Congratulations to Wonderdyke, who gave the most cogent reason anyone would possibly wear the Davitamon-Lotto Team Presentation shirt:

I’d wear it to the hairdresser to get my Flock of Seagulls haircut.

Yup, I think I’d wear it in an 80’s Flock of Seagulls video, too. Or maybe if I were Howard Jones. Wonderdyke’s blog is highly recommended, by the way. Whether you’re a harried lesbian mom or not.

PS: Today’s weight is 168.8. Next week’s weight target: 167.8.