Vail Pass

Travelling for work can really interrupt a training schedule, especially when it is on a very compressed timeline like I am facing. Luckily my recent trip to Vail, CO for the Pearl Izumi Spring 2011 Line Preview worked out in my favor. Jeremy and Matt at PI were kid enough to hook me up with a rental road bike so I got up at 5:20 each morning to ride before breakfast. With Pearl being a cycling/running company there was a group of mountain bikers heading out each morning at the same time and employees about to hit the running trails stretching in the lobby. Luckily it was just Jeremy and I on the road the first morning or I wouldn't have been able to keep up.

This road only goes up...

The trip up Vail pass is steep and hard even if you are used to the altitude. I was breathing hard and looking for an easier gear even before we got to the start of the "real" climb. It was also cold, about 50 degrees or so, but I was working hard enough I didn't notice. We followed the frontage road next to I-80 up to a little park where a gate prevented cars from continuing but cyclists could follow the old pre-Eisenhower paved road up to the pass. I was moving pretty slow and Jeremy had to hang back a little to keep from dropping me. We had hoped to make it to the top but were only about halfway when we had to turn around to make breakfast and our first meetings in time.

Wednesday was the last day of our three day meeting and Jeremy was determined to make it all the way to the top of the pass. He had ridden up the other side on Father's Day and wanted to recon the Vail side in preparation for the Copper Triangle Ride he was doing later in the summer. Our attendance wasn't needed at the first morning meeting so we met in the lobby at 5:45 along with George, the New England sales rep, and headed out. George is a big guy but plenty strong and set a fast pace along the main road on the approach. Maybe a little fast for me because I could barely hang on. I thought once the road turned uphill I could catch back on but he kept a steady twenty foot lead on me even on the steep sections.

When we got to our previous high point George had to turn around so Jeremy and I stopped to stretch. From here the road turned into a bike path following a short twisting descent through the trees and under the interstate to the south side of the valley. A sharp left turn and the path took us on the steepest part of the ride. Did I mention it was even colder this morning than yesterday? Mid-40's today and Jeremy's hands were numb. My toes were cold but I had warmer gloves on and wasn't suffering too badly. We could see sunlight a half-mile farther up trail and that was great motivation to keep the pedals turning.

Finally we rode into the sun coming over the pass and the road leveled out enough to shift out of my easiest gear. We pedaled past a couple of small lakes being stalked by fishermen and then there was no more "up". We were at the top.

Jeremy and I at the halfway point

The descent was fast and fun but with some sharp corners I tried to keep my speed in check. It isn't hard to get over 50mph in the mountains if you tuck down to cheat the wind but on an unfamiliar bike with questionable stability that's just asking for trouble. Eighteen minutes from the top back to the gate (over an hour going the other way!) and then an easy roll back to the hotel.

The mountains in Oregon might be this steep but at much lower altitude so this was great training for the RGR. I'm getting ready!

A double rainbow with a storm moving in over Vail to end the day

RGR Portland

For those of you who aren't familiar with the event I'm doing I will explain a little about it. The Rapha Gentlemen’s Race, or RGR is a fox and hound style race where six person teams take off one after the other every 3 minutes with the slowest leaving first. First team back to Portland, Oregon after 137 miles of mountainous gravel and dirt roads wins. The race is unsanctioned, uninsured, and unsupported. If you’ve seen a bicycle race on TV like the Tour de France this bears no resemblance. There are no prizes, no bouquets or wreaths, no kisses from pretty podium girls for the winner. There is no team car to give you food and water, no support motorcycle to hand you a spare wheel if you flat or fix your bike if it breaks and no sag wagon to cart you home if you can’t finish. This is old fashioned hardman racing and people are begging to get in. It will be the hardest single-day race I have ever done, even ignoring that I haven't raced or trained seriously in seven years.

Rapha, who puts on the event, is a British cycling apparel company. They specialize in two things; exorbitantly priced clothing and creating an image of a hip lifestyle. They have been quite successful at both. The Gentleman's Race is an extension of the "Continental" rides they have been doing for several years where a group of riders cycles a great distance across scenic European or North American countryside. Photographers and often a film crew document these rides and the images are used on Rapha's website, catalogs, advertisements, Rouleur magazine, etc. The RGR Portland is the same thing with plenty of black and white digital images being snapped to create a feeling of some epic and classical endeavor. It all adds up to a strong marketing effort to justify charging $300 for a $75 jersey.

I am a participant in a "ride of pretentiousness" and I don't mind a bit. In fact I think it will be quite a bit of fun, at least for the first 90 miles. Other than Donnie I haven't met any of the other people on our team but we will have plenty of opportunity to chat and get acquainted as we roll across Oregon. I'm approaching this as a long ride with new and old friends rather than as a media event or a race. There will be teams there trying to win but I just want to finish. Finishing anywhere other than last place would just be a bonus.

I'm in.

“If Hurl raced it last year, you can at least finish it…”

Like so many colossally bad ideas before it, this one started with an email from my friend Donnie. He was telling me to come out to Portland for the Rapha Gentlemen’s Race, an invitation only cycling event that’s far too exclusive for an average Joe like myself. Donnie had secured an invitation and needed to assemble five more riders for his team. He asked our fit and experienced racer friend Darren (who wisely declined for “work related” reasons) to join and provide some needed horsepower to the team, and then included me for my gullibility and the ease with which I have been hooked into his schemes in the past.

With Donnie the next ridge “isn’t that far, it just looks like 5 miles,” you have plenty of time before the sun sets and the river ice is always thick enough to support your weight. A rock climb might look too unconsolidated and scary to attempt himself but Donnie will say “this will be easy for you” or “it could be a first ascent!” He always knows the magic words for me to put aside common sense and plunge headfirst into an epic. Not an epic in the literary sense I’m afraid. In cycling or climbing “epic” is synonymous with pain, length, and suffering. And most of my epics featured Donnie as a central figure.

I told him I was too out of shape to keep up, I was retired, I no longer raced, I hadn’t even ridden more than 50 miles in a single day in over three years. Donnie explained that it would only be 100 miles (the first lie) of gently rolling terrain (the second) and I had enough latent fitness to keep up without any problem (lies three through four). Besides, there was a girl on our team so we wouldn’t ride that fast. Never mind that the girl, Donnie’s girlfriend Suzanne, had just been competing in the Tour Divide; a 2700 mile long non-stop mountain bike race stringing together barely mapped trails and fire roads along the Continental Divide from Banff to Mexico. She was beyond tough and likely the fastest, fittest member of the team.

Telling me Hurl had done the race the previous year was the half-truth that hooked me in. Hurl Everstone, AKA Tom Everson, is a legend in the Minneapolis cycling scene. Half punk rock star, half fictional character, and all force of nature Hurl is maybe five years older than me but looks far more. He has lived a Keith Richards lifestyle and it’s starting to show in his face if not in his half-cocked smile or eternally puckish eyes. Almost as gifted a natural athlete as he is a raconteur, Hurl rides his bike as a lifestyle rather than a pastime. He doesn’t train, he simply just rides. It was pure hubris on my part but I felt that if he could compete in the RGR in his current shape I could come off the couch and at least complete it.

After only one day of thinking I ignored common sense and emailed Donnie two words, “I’m in.” His response was one word, at least the way Donnie says it, “F**kyeah! And so begins an eight week crash course (Get Fit In a Hurry 101) of progressively longer rides, stretching, and trying to eat healthier.