Stoutheartedness

Ryanne started Race Across America last Saturday. The week has gone by so quickly.

For me, anyway.

As for her, I can imagine it's going a little slower. But, she only has a couple days of riding left. After which, two years worth of preparations will culminate and come to a close. I'm sure she'll be relieved.

As she set off last weekend, I set off on my own adventure in the woods.

Saturday night found a cool chill and a slow-setting sun.

The crowd was small. The fire was large. The laughs were aplenty. Hours passed.

The sun, long-since set. The moon was bright and peerless. My lungs were filled with an unearthly air.

The trees stood taller that night.

Hazes of semi-befuddlement burnished our faces. They, brought to us by the satiation of nightly spirits and food cooked over the glowing pit that drew us together.

I pulled my Marmot out of its sack and its loft breathed in the air of dying embers. As the fill came alive, I clambered inside, and it warmed me to unconsciousness.

Stoutheartedness would come in the morning.

Riding with Metal

We spent Saturday and Sunday at the cabin.

Dahn Pahrs and Stik were coming up early Sunday morning to ride the trails. I knew I'd have to be extra rested to hang onto Dahn. He's been putting crazy miles in, despite terribly separating his shoulder in June. He'd also never been to Kennerdell, so there was some excitement to show him some new trails.

Birch and Chase stayed up super late beating all the girls at Sequence. They seemed pretty confident in their abilities, and I'm pretty sure if there were a Sequence Strava, they'd have all the KOMs.

Some time after midnight seemed like a good time to turn in. Ian, Gotch and I slept outside on the porch. I figure every hour of sleep in fresh air is equal to about two and a half hours of inside sleep. By sun-up, I'm Rip Van Winkle in a down bag. Washington Irving tucked me in, kissed me goodnight and read me a bedtime story. Now I'm awake. Refreshed. Loose. Ready.

Ian's back has been bothering him quite a bit lately. He moved a bunch of stuff into a new house, and now he moves like he's 85. He woke up on Sunday morning in an incredible amount of pain, so he was out for the day. I made plans to fly back south with Big Cat after the ride.

Jason decided to do the ride on his Fargo. Flat pedals. Generator hub & light. $300 bamboo fenders. No one should be surprised by this.

Pahrs and Stik show up at 9:00 sharp. Pahrs is decked out in his Twin Six Metal kit.

We climb Blunder, then continue along North Ridge. Windows is next, then Strip Mine. After a bunch of descending, we start the gated, unnamed quad climb. We have a head start on Stik, because he's spinning out a little more than everyone else on the flat prelude.

The climb starts. The ruts and loose rocks are there, but it's in better shape than usual. Gotch burps his front tire at the beginning and stops to pump it up. Pahrs rode 70+ miles the previous day, so I try to take advantage of his partially-weakened state. It kind of works, and I manage to stay within 15 feet or so for about half a mile. I have another half mile to go, and I realize I have no way of keeping up with him the rest of the way. He's climbing way too well, so I bid him adieu. The Metal glimmers away. Stik catches up soon after, ripping up the hill pretty much in the same style he ripped past me on a ride we did in Laurel Mountain a few months ago on gravel roads. Another minute or two, and I'm at the top. Probably my fastest time on that climb. Riding with Metal will do that.

We continue the awesome day doing Fisherman's Cove, more Windows, more Strip Mine. Climbed Goat. More climbing, more descending. More rocks. More Pahrs nervously watching my steripen in his stream water-filled bottle. More fun times.

In the end, we were all worked over. I think those guys got a ride in that was well-worth their drive. We climbed back out to the cabin, and Ian was waiting for me, which was super nice. I knew it was a big bummer for him to miss the ride, and he was still in a ton of pain. I guess I really didn't think of this until now, but I should probably buy him an Americano tomorrow.

Not an Americano. But this would suffice.

Diabolical Debacle

If my blog were a volleyball match, the previous entry would be the set.

Now, for the spike in the face.

Oddly enough, being that this is my blog and negative things happen to me in the ensuing paragraphs, I guess I'm both the spiker and the person who gets pelted in the face.

Me. Only tall and blonde. And female.

Ryanne and I left after work on Friday for Maryland. We planned to do a double metric century with a bunch of climbing on Saturday. We stopped to get some food on the way down, then settled into a hotel room, not too far from where the ride was starting at Wisp.

Before the debacle. Relaxed.

It's a benefit ride in the Gran Fondo format with GPS-timed KOM climbs sprinkled throughout the route. Ryanne seemed set on hitting those pretty hard to contend for QOM, but I figured her over-ambitious attitude would take a turn back to reality somewhere around mile 60-70.

The alarm sounds off, and I'm awake...

The morning is bright and clear. We start to line up a few minutes before 7:00, and make our way past the guys and gals waiting out in front. Pro kits, $8k road bikes, matching helmets and socks. Greater than 3% body fat need-not apply. I keep walking.

About 400 people later, I find myself near the back. I stand in the shadow of a chubby guy wearing a 7-Up jersey, and who like the pros out front, also has a super-expensive bike. Perfect. I suspect he'll be the overzealous one to run me off the side of the mountain on the first descent.

A minute later and we're off. The first descent lasts about eight miles. Ryanne and I work our way up and down a bunch of rollers and through a good bit of the field. I'm too used to the 35's on my commuter bike. I react to every little pebble on these hard and narrow tires, but it feels nice to be able to ride somewhat fast on the road.

We hit the first major climb and Ry moves through the bottom timing station for QOM. The grade steepens, and I drop to my lower chainring. She stands up and keeps moving. I look up and can't figure out where it all tops out on the winding ridge. There's an elevation profile taped to my top tube, but I'm too busy looking at tree lines that I forget about it. I keep moving.

Still climbing. Sunglasses are starting to sweat up, so they come off. I feel a guy creep up on my back wheel. We're on a 20% grade. I'm going about 6mph, and this guy's trying to draft me. I wish I was on my mountain bike somewhere else.

I stand up. Sit down. Stand up. The grade isn't letting up all that much. Patches of fine gravel. The guy behind me is coughing. Still on me though. He grunts and asks if those are wine corks in my drop bar ends. I nod. He seems offended and asks for what purpose. I tell him if he pulls me up the rest of the hill, I'll tell him. He falls back, and the mountain munches on another soul.

The grade relinquishes a little, and I down shift. The timing station at the top of the climb beeps as riders roll through. I hit the quick descent and see Ryanne, who looks like a giant sweat-ball on a bicycle. She says that is the only QOM she's going to go for. It's too hot and far of a course to go hard every climb. I predict otherwise.

Fast-forward another 15 miles, and we're at the bottom of the second QOM hill. She takes off.

I'm halfway up the second climb. Easy gearing. There's a really cool fence lining the field to my left. It's half wire and half white picket. The day is nice. Sunny. Not obnoxiously hot. I keep looking over at the fence. Really, really cool. Unfortunately, this is the same time the shit hits. And by shit I mean my rear derailleur blowing up on itself.

Loud, bad noise occurs. The cage around the lower pulley snaps and pings off the asphalt below. The tension on the drivetrain causes the derailleur to go 180 degrees vertical, while snapping in two. Not wanting to be the only broken thing on my bike, it takes a hard left turn into my spinning rear wheel and shears through a few spokes. Cracking my frame was the coup de grâce.

Mini Park multi-tool and orange Pedro tire lever not going to fix this one.

The exasperated riders all check if I need anything. I ask if they have a rear derailleur and some spokes in their pocket. They laugh. I'm too frustrated to come up with a funnier line, but it seems to be enough to entertain my suffering, hill-climbing audience.

Eventually, I feel like a touring comedian with overused material. My audience gets older and less physically fit as time passes, and this results in fewer laughs. I know my quip's dumb, but they can't complain. It's a free show.

I sit on the road for about twenty minutes. My act is washed-up by now, so I contemplate nap-time. As I start to lay down, my sweat-ball partner rolls back down the hill. She had waited at the top after crossing through the timing station, and after realizing something was wrong, rode back down. Now, she's resigned herself to suffer in the sun with me. I tell her my joke. She doesn't laugh.

A super friendly local drives us a half hour back to Wisp. I offer her ten bucks. She refuses. I decide I'll use the money on my planned after-ride burrito reward, which I still intended to purchase and devour.

We get cleaned up and find the nearest local coffee house.

Cheers to a job well done.

We drive down to Deep Creek State Park and go out for a six mile hike. It's 90 degrees at this point, and I question my decision to pack only bike shorts and corduroys.

After the hike, we go back to the same coffee house for more espresso, then hit the road back to PA.

After the debacle. Still relaxed.

We stopped in Morgantown on the way back and met up with a bunch of friends who were doing the Hilly Billy. Joe gave me his sticky beer jar and I proceeded to drink away the bad thoughts of the afternoon's events. He had a broken hand. I had a broken bike. Almost the same, but not really.

We all left after an hour or so, and it made me feel a lot better to see everyone. I had almost completely forgotten about my crippled road bike in the back of the car, until I saw it again.

On Sunday, Ian and I went up to Kennerdell to meet Gotch to ride. Jason and J-Pok were going down to the watering hole to swim. They made fun of us for not swimming. We made fun of them for not riding.

The three of us hit most of the trails. We held a quick pace and didn't have any issues, so the ride ended up being really great. In a rare moment of useful thought, we had remembered to bring our Steri-pen, and it ended up being a life saver over the course of a few much-needed fill-ups at the stream crossings.

We climbed back out to the cabin, where our friends were waiting and so kindly cooking food for us. Again, they made fun of us for not swimming.

I'm losing the Junedoggle to Gotch, now. I said earlier the Diabolical Double was the "one" in my one-two punch. I never really had a "two". Maybe I just thought he'd knock himself out and not ride for a week.

OK, so my old one-two didn't work out. So, what next? I'm not sure, but I have a week left to counter, and in the boxing world, that's a lifetime.

I'm planning my next move, and either way it'll be all glory.

Hiking in the Wonder of Winter

A Preface: The Franklin Incident

I spent a lot of time in Kennerdell last summer. Probably more time than I had any other summer. Jason has a nice cabin near the top of Kennerdell Road, and it's a great place for friends to gather. Lots of riding, and lots of good food. Generally speaking, lots of good things that I'm super appreciative of.

We traveled to Breckenridge in August, and that was more or less the end of Kennerdell summer. As the fall season fell upon us, the temperatures declined and unfortunately, so did the health of Jason's dad. As he spent more time away from Kennerdell, so did everyone else.

However, on a frosty Saturday in early October there was a break in the lull, and we infiltrated the A-framed abode. The cabin was just as we left it. Clean, cool and filled with the smell of the great outdoors and mountain bikes.

The day went quick. We loaded a couple panniers with beer and hummus then spent the afternoon riding to Franklin to celebrate the annual Applefest. After many hours of eating, drinking and dancing, our caravan started the twenty mile passage back to the hills that cradle the cabin.

A few miles into our journey, the Allegheny was on our right and darkness was ahead. It wasn't a minute after 1:30 in the morning, and what transpired next fell to legend and came to be known as the Franklin Incident.

Bad luck. Blood. Broken bicycle. That is the result of a steel fork collapsing on the front wheel as you're riding along at 20mph. A little worse than a stick in the spokes.

After we rescued the injured and returned him to the cabin, our sleep was short. Morning brought a sense of "we should get the hell out of here before something else happens". We had all overstayed our welcome in the land of big rocks and bigger hills. We had pushed our season too far. It was time to retire south until the spring...

Bringing it Back

Ian and I made a trip up to the cabin this past Saturday to meet Jason, Ralce and Dolby. No one had been there in the four months since the Franklin Incident.

We made spinach pasta with meatballs atop sauteed garlic and pesto, then talked at the table for a few hours. With snow dumping outside, we had no real plan for the morning...spontaneous adventure, I guess. With a stomach full of Labriola's, I climbed into my down bag on the futon and breathed in the cool air. Sleep came quick.

The next morning, we went out for a four hour hike. At one point or another we all took bad falls on the icy hills, but none so major that I'll preface a future blog about.

I wore thinner gloves so using the camera would be a little easier. The day was super nice though, so I forgot about my cold hands pretty quick.

It was nice to be back.