Hearnwife is very fond of reality TV, particularly the “Find Some Exploitable Talent”-style shows like “American Idol,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” and “The Next Great Fluffer.” I don’t find them all that interesting, usually, but I always get sucked into the first few episodes of any given season, when they have the laughable idiots on to embarrass themselves.
The “Idol” contestants are particularly hilarious; some of the hopefuls have all the singing talent of a recent tracheotomy patient. And yet every one of them firmly believes that they are the best thing to hit the world since the discovery of bacon. How can this be, I wonder? How do they not realize how painfully bad they are? I have discovered the answer: blind spots.
Everybody has blind spots. Jacqueline Kennedy simply looked the other way while John F. dipped his wick into every bombshell that wiggled into the Oval Office. My wife ignores the fact that I have no child-rearing skills (seriously, it’s a wonder I don’t diaper Charles’ face more often than I already do). My friends ignore my mild alcoholism. It’s endemic to society. Most of the people who get in line to audition for American Idol just manage to ignore all the evidence saying that they are painful and embarrassing (all the good crystal shatters when she reaches for that high note; he was once asked to leave a Rolling Stones concert because when he sang along it threw Mick off; etc.), and embrace all the evidence indicating that they have talent (which usually turns out to be idiot friends and parents who couldn’t carry a tune if you installed a handle on it). And the results are hilarity for the viewers, and utter humiliation for the singer.
Or would be, if the singers were capable of being humiliated; most of them are simply unshakeable when it comes to confidence in their abilities.
I bring this up because I have realized my blind spot. (Or at least, the first blind spot I’ve found to which I’m willing to admit.) I have a hard time grasping that I am a HORRIBLE athlete. I have the hand-eye coordination of someone who is blind and handless, and also uncoordinated. And yet periodically I think to myself, hey, I’m not in such bad shape, I oughta do something athletic. I’d probably do better than I think!
This is how I happened to find myself riding in a mountain bike race for the 2nd straight year. You might remember last year’s event, in which my left-hand crank came off the bicycle after a few miles. Well, I had gotten the bike repaired, and even added a few upgrades (trigger shifters, bar-ends, new cassette), so I figured I would have no problem getting through 16 miles of hilly terrain.
After last year’s experience, I learned four important facts. Let’s revisit them:
- Get plenty of sleep the night before.
- Carry plenty of water.
- Use quality equipment.
- Snort a lot of crystal meth before setting out.
Did I learn? Let’s see:
- I got about 7 hours. It couldn’t be helped; I had rehearsal the night before, and was required by law to go out for beer afterwards. (Seriously, it’s like a Chester County regulation or something, you could look it up.)
- I remembered to pack my CamelbakTM-like water backpack. I’ll explain how well that worked shortly.
- I used the same crappy bike, but repaired all the faults and added the aforementioned upgrades.
- I couldn’t get my hands on any meth, but I did have two delicious beers on Saturday night.
How did I do, you ask? Well, let me tell you, everything went great. Until I started pedaling. Then things went downhill, literally and figuratively.
My strategy was to let everybody surge on ahead, so that I didn’t have to worry about a bunch of people passing me and screwing up my mojo, but unfortunately I forgot they do a staged start. My group was going off first, followed by the kids, the women, and then the old people, by which I mean people over 45, who in any normal situation would barely be middle-aged, but when surrounded by hundreds of lithe 23-year-olds look positively decrepit. Even if most of the ancients were in FAR better shape than I’ll ever be.
The race started with about a mile over flat dirt path, so I let everybody in my group ride off while I took a nice turtle approach (slow and steady, baby) and chugged along at medium speed. The ground was hard and easy to ride on, and I had plenty of water, so I was comfortable. I got to a small hill, and muscled my way up it, then a nice fast downhill.
Then I hit the mud, and my average speed went from 10mph to about 2mph in a heartbeat. I could get through the mud okay on flat ground; it wasn’t fun, but it was doable. Downhill, however, I was terrified to go at any high speed, for fear of sliding off into a tree and leaving my family without my important influence. I basically gripped the front brake and carefully slid down. Pedalling uphill was out of the question; the back wheel just spun, so I had to walk the bike up most of the slopes. It was treacherous and tiring, and I started to develop a blister on my heel because bike shoes are NOT designed for walking. But I soldiered on, because I am the BOMB.
I assumed there would be a water stop at the 5 mile mark, like last year, but after I’d been riding for roughly 45 minutes, I began to be concerned. When it got to be an hour, I said “I still haven’t gone 5 miles yet? And this race is 16 miles? I’m going to be out here for 4 hours!” The seeds of doubt had been set, and I’m pretty sure my eyes welled with what my wife likes to call The Tears of Unfathomable Sadness. As it turned out, there was no 5-mile water stop, and of course I had drained my water supply around mile 2. For the second straight year, I was going to risk dehydration and heat stroke! Simply splendid.
The course had been set up to be pretty damnably technical (which means “difficult, dangerous, and ball-bruisingly bouncy” in trail-speak). Apparently there weren’t enough roots and bumps for the organizers’ tastes, so they’d added more. At a normal mountain biking speed, between 10 and 15 miles per hour, I could have simply stood up off the seat and bounced over the bumps with great glee. My speed through the mud, though, was about 4 mph on flat ground, so when my front tire hit a significant bump it would just stop, slamming my yambag and its tender contents onto the seat, the bar, or the handlebars.
At one point, I came to a bridge that consisted of a nearly 40 degree climb, a flat portion over a roadway, and then a 40 degree drop. The bridge was, I kid you not, completely paved in cobblestones. I actually considered following the road back to the starting line, finding a race organizer, and just punching him in the balls.
When I bought my road bike back in April, it came with what are described as “clipless pedals.” This is a bit difficult to understand, because what they do is basically clip your feet to the pedals so that they are always in the right position and you can get a more efficient transfer of power from your legs to the drivetrain. They’re called “clipless” to differentiate them from “clip” pedals, which you’ve probably seen around; they consist of a big bracket thing that you stick the toe of your shoe into so you can’t pull your foot off the pedal easily. The clipless models use small cleats installed in the bottom of bike shoes that “click” into the pedals. They hold your feet in exactly the right place, and are easier to get out of than the clip pedals.
Unfortunately, when they are caked with mud, they are pretty much useless. Difficult to get out of (and if you can’t get your foot loose, you can’t put that same foot down when you stop, meaning you just topple over to one side), and basically impossible to click into. By about mile 4, the mud had completely encapsulated my shoes and pedals. Every time I had to stop to push the bike up a hill or carry it over some 6″ tree root, I would clamber back on and try to click back in, and I couldn’t, so I spent most of the ride trying to pedal as my feet slid around on the pedals and periodically slipped off. This is how I found myself flying over the handlebars into a pricker bush at around mile 6.
I was actually fairly lucky; the only damage I did was a series of scrapes and bruises to my shins, and my front shifter twisted around on the handlebars. I just had to twist it back, and bite my lip to hold back a womanish scream of agony.
Of course, everybody else in the race knew what they were doing and were in phenomenal shape, so I was constantly having to get out of the way so people could fly by. This didn’t bother me until I realized that the men passing me were my father’s age, AND had started 15 minutes after I did.
Around mile 7, sweat was dripping into my right eye, so I wiped it off with the only thing I had available: the front of my shirt. Which was caked in dirt. Suddenly finding myself monocular, I had to stop and walk the bike for what was probably 45 minutes, which made the blister on my foot even bigger, and also caused me to curse all that is holy.
At around mile 9, I came upon a collection of bicycles resting against trees, with no riders nearby. Usually this means that someone has been injured, and unfortunately it was no exception. A few hundred yards further, I discovered the missing bikes, who were helping bundle a poor young woman onto a stretcher to carry her to a truck that would take her to a hospital. I didn’t find out what happened, but the injured rider didn’t appear to be conscious. My first thought was, “Wow, I hope she’s okay.” My second thought was, “I’m not doing any more mountain bike racing.”
At mile 9 (or so), a Race Marshal caught up to me. His job was to make sure that no stragglers (like me) were left behind. Basically it meant that I was so far behind that they had sent out a rider to make sure I wasn’t dead. That fixed it for me; I got to the water station at mile 10 (they hadn’t had one at mile 5, which pissed me off no end), loaded myself up with moisture, and packed it in. I got directions back towards the parking area, and started off. Then I came upon a big hill, and I realized that I simply had no energy left. It was 2pm on one of the hottest days in recent memory, I’d been exercising as hard as I had ever done for the better part of three hours, and just had nothing left. So I got off, and started walking up the hill. I got to the summit, climbed back on, and pedaled on flat ground for a little ways. I turned a corner around some trees, and discovered yet another enormous hill. I sighed, and started pushing the bike up the next hill. Then, my blister popped, so I sat down in the dirt and had myself a good cry. I wish I was kidding.
I considered my options. I could carry the bike to the road, and try to ride back to my car. I could leave the bike, and just walk towards the road in my socks (wearing the shoes rubbed my blister, which was now completely open), hoping that I made it back to my car before I passed out from heat stroke. I could sit by the side of the path and rest, and then when the temperature had cooled, ride back to the car. I could call 911 and mutter “Fair Hill Mountain Bike Race…heat stroke…track the GPS in my phone…I’ll be the guy crying in the woods in the yellow shirt.” Or I could just lie in the full sun and hope that the angels would take me to meet Jesus.
Just then, Fate, and/or Jesus, smiled upon me: the people who had been packing up the water station came by in their SUV. They threw my bike atop it, and drove me back to the starting point.
I was supposed to inform the authorities that I’d been picked up, so nobody at the finish line would worry about me. I went inside the building they were using to administer the race. Inside, it was chaos; people milling around, vendors selling food, a woman with a microphone announcing winners, and not one person who looked like they gave a rat turd if I’d finished the race or not. “Screw this,” I said, and left.
I hopped back on my bike (as best I could; hopping was not my strongest suit at the time) and rode back to my car. I loaded the bike on the rack, got in, turned the A/C on to “Arctic” mode, and left. There was a Shell station on the way home, so I stopped in for a fill-up and bought:
- A double-size Twix bar
- A cinnamon roll
- A gallon of water
- Peanuts
I ate and drank all of it before even getting out of Maryland.
Post of ‘teh year’.