Done in Douglassville, Pennsylvania: What Did It All Mean?

Distance: 3,458 miles
Saddle Time: 31 days of riding; 33 days total
Terrain: Various. 100,000 feet of climbing.
Weather: Temperature 33F to 108F. Winds Calm to Heavy; Tail to Head. Sunny to Thunderstorms.


It’s done. I did it. Every Fantastic Inch. That’s what you call it when you don’t spend an inch of the ride in the SAG wagon. I did it all on the bike. I was the only one on the ride that did. I take some pride in that.

Though I have to commend some of the accomplishment to luck, I am struck by how much was actually in my control. I never got sick, not even a sniffle (I washed my hands obsessively; Efferdent in the water bottles); my knees and ankles stayed intact (I stuck to an ice and ibuprofen regimen to manage pain and swelling); only two days did I have to ride through an acute and extended energy debt (I recovered well—got the legs up, ate quickly and well in my post-ride glycogen window, ate continuously while riding).

Some of the folks offering encouragement before I left were really kind about telling me they were sure I would make it but couldn’t imagine going that far that quickly themselves because they weren’t as strong riders as I. Well, folks, having done it I can tell you that the main strength component was consistently the least important. You don’t fail to make it because you’re too slow or because the mountains are too high or too steep or the day is too long. You fail to make it because you do not choose to hydrate or eat right, because you don’t take care of your joints; because your attention lapses and you hit something that takes you down; because you chose the wrong equipment or weren’t prepared for it to break down. It is all controllable and doable by riders across the range of speeds, which isn’t to say that anybody does it right 100% of the time. The wild card for me was the equipment, and in particular my wheels. I was lucky in not having a spoke break because I didn’t have any spares and should have. That would have put me in the van for some miles.

The other thing that I would point out to the daunted is that you can’t help but become stronger over the duration of the ride. Yeah, you get tired, but much of it is neutralized by the inevitable increase in strength that comes with the mileage.

All of this is not to say that it’s not physically demanding. It is, and intensely, but the greater demand is the mental one. It starts with acceptance. This particular ride, the 113 mile per day average means that it really has to be all about the ride. There’s not much opportunity for leisure or sight-seeing or beers with the boys. The people who didn’t understand that they had signed up for this and accept it struggled. There is also a mental discipline that comes with riding large distances. Nobody rides a 150 mile day; you ride three 50 mile stretches; you ride from SAG stop to SAG stop. This is especially important if you’re suffering. The day after Blythe and the day into Las Vegas would have encompassed too much cumulative suffering if I had focused on the daily totals, but I can put up with anything for 10 miles.

So, would I do it again? If the question is would I ride 3500 miles in 33 days again, the answer is no. I’ve tackled the challenge in just the way I wanted to tackle it. I know now that I can do it and can’t get that excited about tackling it again. If the question is would I undertake another long distance bicycle tour, the answer is an emphatic yes. I would be thrilled to ride across a smaller country fast, or do this country on a longer duration tour that allowed for some leisure.

By way of endorsement, the company that I used, America by Bicycle, and the ride leader, Mike Munk, are the first place I would turn to do another ride. They’ve got a Ride the West tour that looks intriguing for some time in the future.

Some other insights / endorsements:

Specialized are the only cycling shoes. Everybody on the tour rode them because they are the only ones that offer enough support to keep the ankle from over-pronating when you are tired and climbing steep climbs.

Pearl Izumi shorts are the best for this kind of ride—expensive and worth it—but varying chamois placement is also important, so I also rode a pair of Castelli every third day. I threw away a pair of Louis Garneau and won’t use Descente for a long ride again.

Bontrager wheels do not hold up. My Shimanos did, and many other had success with Mavic Ksyriums. No tires will not puncture from radial wires on the interstate, but Armadillos and Gatorskins did hold up well.

Gearing. People with the lower gears go up the hills faster and get to the top in better shape. Period. All the folks who thought they were strong riding a 39 ring and 21 cog up the hills on their 40 mile club rides proved to be strong only for their 40 mile club rides. They saw a lot of me spinning by them every time the road turned up. Now I am going to the bike store this week to get rid of my climbing ring and move to a 50/34 chain ring and 11/25 cogset. I would be keeping the climbing ring if I climbed a lot of mountain passes even now, though. The granularity in the shifting outweighs the weight penalty in producing speed in my humble opinion.

Well, that’s it for me. I hope you enjoyed hanging out. Now I need to find a publisher, or employer, or pimp, or really any way of making the almighty dollar. Stay out of trouble. If you find yourself in Richmond, let’s go for a ride.

Andy

Day 33: Keene, New Hampshire to Salisbury Beach, Massachussetts

Distance: 115 miles
Average Speed: 17.9 mph
Terrain: Hilly. 5000 feet of climbing. Don’t coasts usually have a plain?
Winds: Light and generally favorable. Warm.

First, sorry about the delay. I was busy late into the evening last night. Second, if you thought this was going to be the big “What Did It All Mean” final post, it won’t be that. That’s a bit more complex. A lot of what it all meant depends on what I do now, and I’m not up for thinking too deeply about that until after the Memorial Day weekend. I swear I will write it up and post it, though. That’s the real conclusion, and it should be a barn burner. I think it starts with a consideration of what happens when after spending 10 years of your life doing something that was hard for you only because you had to convince yourself you could stand doing it, you spend a month doing the hardest thing you could ever imagine loving.

Instead, I’m going to tell you about the day. After a 3 mile cruise through the town of Keene, we started climbing again and kept climbing. What the hell? This is no Carolina. Like 50 miles from the coast, and I’m doing a one mile 20% grade up the moronically named Joe English Road. Sounds more like a brand of undershirt to me. The lunch SAG came up in Manchester at about 70 miles. I was on my own off the front again so I was the first to discover that the road that was going to take us over the interstate no longer went over the interstate but instead terminated in a concrete barrier. I made the call to the ride leader, and he held everybody else at the lunch SAG until he could figure out a way to get them through. At one point, the following exchange occurred.

Mike: “Okay, you have to go north and find Candia Road to 121. Pull out your map and I’ll give you the turns.”
Andy: “Uh. That cue sheet you gave us today was like 5 pages long so I threw out the maps.” I was tired, and we were climbing. I wasn’t carrying anything I didn’t need.
Mike: “Gee. I guess that seems like a pretty dumb decision now.” Mike is good with wisdom like that.

Anyway, young first time mothers with baby carriages got me on a route that intersected me with the planned route. Being accosted by a man in lycra on a bike just isn’t that intimidating. I saw the tail end of the main group shoot through the rotary just as I was getting back on path.

Between getting unlost and it being the last half of the last day and sucking down gels at an unrationed rate, I was pure adrenaline the rest of the way. Well, almost. The route was still rolling like a mother through these lovely New England towns. I had passed everyone on the road and was feeling great. From mile 75 to mile 105, I think I averaged about 22 mph over rollers. I was out of the saddle with every rise and taking everything that went up as a power climb. I’ve never been this strong in my life. I was raging, and Sexybike felt light as a feather.

When I got to the rendezvous point, I had to wait 30 minutes for the next group in. We rode the last ten miles to the beach at tourist pace. And that is a fitting way to introduce the video.

Day 32: Amsterdam, New York to Keene, New Hampshire

Distance: 123 miles
Average Speed: 17.8 mph
Max Speed: 48.4 mph
Saddle Time: 6:51
Terrain: Mountainous. 7100 feet of climbing.
Winds: Light and generally favorable. Warm.

Oh, ladies. He just broke the news to me today. Tomorrow is our last day if you can believe it. Then he’s going to take me apart and put me in a box. He tells me that he’s going to check me as luggage while most of the other guys are shipping their bikes via ground transport. As if that’s supposed to make me feel better. And after all we’ve been through.

But we’ll still have these days. I’ll have these memories. There’s still tomorrow. It was just 32 days ago when he dipped my wheel in the Pacific Ocean, and I said, “Boy, what do you think you’re doing? That s--- is cold and corrosive. Get me out of here.” When he dips my wheel in the Atlantic tomorrow, I’ll know that it was all worth it.

We’ve bonded. We really have. When he had those down days between Gallup and Las Vegas, I think I made him feel better. I really did. And he kept me well maintained. He kept me clean (well, as clean as I like to be) and in good tires. He got me a new chain and cassette. And when your man buys you jewelry like that, you know it’s a special feeling.

Anyway, we’re about to get it done and get it done with class. I’ve never felt so strong. It’s like I’m a fine lump of high modulus potential energy. I can’t wait to get home to Richmond and show my fine form to the other ladies. Hell, I’d even do another cross country ride. But maybe a smaller country next time. This 33 day, cross-continent stuff is demanding. A girl’s gotta know when to say when.

He’s got this little video clip of the ride. All I can say is that it was one for the ages. Beautiful and huge. We rode up a few mountains. We went almost 50 mph down the other side of one and did an 11 mile descent down the other side of the other. We crossed the Hudson and Hoosic Rivers. We left New York, crossed Vermont, and wound up in New Hampshire.

Check out the video. I gotta put my boy to bed because tomorrow we’re gonna SLAY it! That is all.

Sexybike

Day 31: Liverpool, New York to Amsterdam, New York

Distance: 119 miles
Average Speed: 18.3 mph
Terrain: Mostly flat, a couple of good hills. 1900 feet of climbing.
Winds: Light and generally favorable. Started chilly.

Should you ever develop a hankering to visit the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame, you’ll find it right here in Amsterdam. I was curious so I walked a couple of blocks to check it out. It’s a storefront in a downtown block of abandoned storefronts with abandoned second and third floors as well. The Hall of Fame induction ceremony is coming up this weekend, but it will take more than that to bring this dead town back to life. It perished just north of Albany and Schenectady, as corpse cold as the textile industry that was its mainstay. We’re staying at the America’s Best Value Inn, which strikes me as an imprecise use of language. It may be America’s Cheapest Inn, but Value implies the return of something in exchange for your coin. This establishment is on a par with the Blythe, California Super 8.

We continued our journey eastward on the general path of New York Route 5 today, sweeping through some small towns on some flatter roads and then dropping into and out of the Mohawk Valley. The route paralleled the Erie Canal for some stretches. The Erie Canal, inland canals in this country in general, amazes me. The amount of effort spent on the public works projects to support a transportation technology that was financially viable for just a few decades is amazing. With perfect hindsight you would say, “Damn, man, double down on the steam locomotive and stop this silly digging of ditches.” I suppose the irony is that the canal tow paths made such great rail beds when it came time to lay track. And of course now they also make great utility rights of way as well, not to mention the occasional park and mountain bike trail. I wonder how the calculators of such things assess the economic return on that investment. If anybody knows anything about how the Erie Canal paid off, chime in.

Today’s ride was something of a mixed bag. The first two thirds was a bit ragged, sore knees from the return to climbing yesterday, and it just felt like I wasn’t getting much of a return in speed for my efforts until lunch. After lunch the engine room started answering bells. The climb onto the southern heights over the Mohawk shocked the old legs back into life, and then I had some tailwinds that let me wind up the speed even over the lifts for the last 30 miles into town.

I’m glad I could rev it up for the last third because tomorrow we put on the crampons and go climbing—7100 feet across the Taconic and Green Mountains of New York and Vermont before crossing into New Hampshire. 123 miles. I’m looking forward. I got back on my ice and ibuprofen regimen today to keep the knees from barking for the next couple of hard days. I had gotten lax during the middle of the country. It turns out this ride begins and ends with a bang.

Day 30: Batavia, New York to Liverpool, New York

Distance: 121 miles
Average Speed: 17.8 mph
Terrain: Rolling to hilly. 3,780 feet of climbing.
Winds: Chilly crossing ones out of the north at 10-15 mph. Generally adverse. Tights and jacket for the whole way.

The name of the game today was beautiful scenery and a bruising ride. I had chilly weather and an adverse wind along with a ton of choppy climbing for the whole ride, and I soloed the whole thing. But oy, the sun shone like a revelation over the beautiful Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.

Let me give you the place names. They sing the song better than I can. It sounds like the best work of Charles Ives. Le Roy, Caledonia, Avon, Canandaigua, Geneva, Seneca Lake, Seneca Falls, Waterloo, Throop. These towns look like oldsters’ descriptions of the Good Old Days that have you going, “Yeah, right, whatever.” But seriously, here they are, at least until you open the doors of the houses. What a place to raise kids, or flowers, or moss, or, shit, anything. I definitely need to do some more leisurely cycling in New England and upstate New York.

I turned a curve on the road and dropped into a deep blue panorama of Seneca Lake. It’s like it was competing with the sky and winning. The wind had whipped ripples that were hurling around sunlight like kids with sparklers on Independence Day. I can’t wipe it from my eyes. I had dropped off my camera to shed weight at the first SAG stop, but I’m only half kicking myself. It would have missed the moment, and I don’t need to own it to have lived it.

I’m just south of Syracuse now. Three more days. I know what I said, but it’s okay to count down now, I think. I’m planning on soloing from here on in, or maybe pulling one or two riders along if they want to ride for real, but I’m not sitting up for them. No sketchy pacelines. A wreck is the biggest risk to not riding every inch at this point.

Also, it’s gone beyond making it now. It’s how I make it. I hope you can recognize this as pride more than bombast. I think my surprise is the differentiating factor. I’ve ridden strong throughout. I haven’t limped through it. I haven’t sucked wheels. I’ve done my own pulling the vast majority of the time. I’ve made my own pace. I’ve ridden 3100 miles now at the edge of my capacity 90% of the time. That’s how I want to finish it. I’m not fading. That’s how I will finish it. That’s honoring the experience. That’s honoring my good fortune in being able to have it.

That’s all I’ve got tonight. Thank you.

Day 29: Dunkirk, New York to Batavia, New York

Distance: 85 miles
Average Speed: 19.9 mph
Terrain: 800 feet, but a hard 800 feet. Somehow, unfriendly winds seem to make the hills higher and steeper. I swear it’s not in my head. Little else is.
Winds: Seemingly swirling at moderate speed. On average neutral, I suppose.

A note on the Dunkirk Clarion Hotel: the place is rocking. The place is rocking in a really low rent kind of way. It appears to be the hub of social life in Dunkirk. We had a prom, graduation parties, and a raucous seafood buffet happening. Lots of drunks. Northern drunks are different than southern drunks somehow—all of the noise, none of the menace.

Today was pretty easy. It was two chilly club rides with a museum visit and lunch tucked in the middle.

Orchard Park, south of Buffalo, hosts a museum of the history of the bicycle. Pretty neat. It was similar to the museum in Kansas in that the gentleman that runs it may be the best artifact. He knows everything about his subject and possesses a wit whose flashier aspects he works to contain. You can see him working not to talk over everybody’s head or hurt anybody’s feelings with his barbs. The picture of the bike with a gun on it is from that place. What you’re supposed to do with it, I have no earthly. I’m envisioning lycra shorts with ammo pockets.

I had company today, which was nice. Sam has a nice burst of speed and wanted to have a go, which kept the average high and kept me warm in temperatures that started in the low 40s and never topped the low 50s.

Pulling out of Orchard Park I lost my temper with a chronically sketchy pace line rider who was in front and putting the rest of us at risk in traffic. I gave him a mouthful when we got to the edge of town and I finally had a chance to get past him him. Not good. Patience is key. Temper doesn’t work. It’s not like I’m going to change the way he rides. It’s judgment more than experience that he lacks. I wouldn’t have said anything, but I was feeling trapped with his clumsiness because of construction and traffic. It won’t happen again. I’ll just keep him away from me.

More importantly, it seemed symptomatic of a mode of thought and behavior from which I want to get away. Impatience, fluster, peacelessness. I’m kicking myself now for getting knocked off my rhythm by something of no real significance. He’s not even a bad guy, just a bit simple and impermeable.

Anyway, tomorrow’s another day, too hard for that kind of silliness. I’m beginning to look forward to driving, of all things.

Day 28: Warren, Ohio to Dunkirk, New York

Distance: 139 miles
Average Speed: 20.9 mph
Terrain: 2220 feet. An occasional rise that was flattened by the tailwind
Winds: Strong tailwinds all day

Today was the easiest 139 mile day I’ve ever done (well, it’s only my second 139 mile day), and I did it solo. We were headed northeast from Ohio into the Erie, Pennsylvania area and up the shore of Lake Erie and the wind was coming out of the southwest at a steady 15 mph. It rained, and I didn’t care. It just took away the rolling resistance. You dream about days like this because going fast is fun and riding 139 miles slowly is a drag.

I owe the residents of Warren, Ohio an apology. The north part of their little town is fine. I’m still holding a grudge against the mouthbreathers in Akron and Canton, though. Erie was a happening place today. They had a local bike ride going on, a bunch of yard sales, a nice central square. The route kind of meandered through the city before putting us right on the shore of Lake Erie for the ride into Dunkirk.

Some random observations:

A good friend of mine, Todd, once made the claim in an Exeter, Pennsylvania Burger King that, “Lake Erie. That f------ humongous.” He was right, and the nuns giving us dirty looks were way out of line. Now that I think of it, what were nuns doing in a Burger King anyway?

I’ve lost 3 pounds over the ride. That’s good. I started it pretty whittled down and didn’t want to lose more until right at the end. Some folks have dropped quite a bit, though. Supposedly this is the week where people start getting gaunt.

There are a ton of vineyards on the shore of Lake Erie. I wouldn’t have thought they could take the hard winters, but there are a bunch of them. I didn’t sample the wines. Sexybike disapproves when I drink and pedal.

I punctured at mile 135 right at the Dunkirk line, right after the SAG van went by. I did the same thing in Springfield. There’s nothing like fixing a puncture in the rain ten minutes from your destination.

Now some video with narration in my ongoing efforts to please everybody.

Later.