Not Even My Wife Reads This

My favorite road bike was sometimes making a funny creaking noise that sounded like handlebars but wasn't (because it continued when riding no-hands).  And it had a slow leak in the rear tire that I didn't feel like fixing.  And my rear brake pads were pretty worn and I didn't have any replacements handy. So I decided to ride my touring bike, which I hadn't ridden since last August.  Hey, it's got a triple, so the climbs would be easier. You probably already know where this is going…

The night before the ride I installed a new chain, and a cyclocomputer, and lights.  This should have taken 30 minutes but it ended up taking longer.  I packed everything in my car then went to bed, so I could wake up and drive to Frederick for the 5 a.m. start.

I woke up at 3:30 and somehow wasn't at full speed on 5 hours of sleep, and managed to get to the start at about 4:58.  It took me a few minutes to get my bike ready, and then the big pack had already left.  The volunteers at the start checked my lights and gave me a brevet card and a cue sheet, and I was off into the darkness about ten minutes behind almost everyone else.  At the first turn I caught a guy (Chris, I think) on the lowest tadpole trike I'd ever seen.  First time I've seen a trike on a brevet.

Since I still had delusions of catching the pack, I kept going without slowing to chat, checked my cue sheet and computer for the distance to the next turn — and noticed that my newly installed bike computer was set for kilometers rather than miles.  Now, I've got nothing against kilometers.  As a matter of fact, I'd be thrilled if the US would go 100% metric tomorrow to avoid the inefficiency of needing to constantly convert stuff between the US and the rest of the world, making our imports cheaper and our exports more competitive.  But the cue sheet is in miles, and constantly multiplying and dividing by 1.6 in my head is not much fun.  Worse, I knew that switching the computer to miles involved hitting some micro-button on the back a bunch of times in a sequence that I'd probably not guess without the manual, and would also end up resetting elapsed distance to zero.  So I just left it in metric and navigated without really using the computer all day.

I kept riding into the pre-dawn darkness, and eventually met up with Hank from New York.  He'd forgotten his water bottles and had to go back to the start.  Neither of us were going really fast so we just rode and talked until we started catching the slower riders who were off the back of the main field.  As we started the climb into Catoctin Mountain Park, Hank caught up with his friend Tom and slowed to his pace, and I went ahead.

The first climb of the day through Catoctin was not very steep, but it went on for a long time.  And it started raining.  Our route didn't actually go up Park Central Road (probably because it gets closed whenever the President is at Camp David or the Secret Service just feels like inconveniencing people) so we took the loop around.  With the rain came some wind and dropping temperatures.  I had arm warmers and a cycling cap but no tights or jacket or heavy jersey, because the forecast hadn't called for cold and I was momentarily too stupid to remember that weathermen are often wrong.  So I was a bit chilly, but it wasn't too bad as long as I kept moving.

Eventually the climb ended and we had a secret control.  When I'd plotted the route on Google Maps I'd noticed that the known controls allowed completely bypassing Catoctin Mountain Park and skipping a whole bunch of riding and climbing, so I'd figured there'd be one.  George and Tyler were there and they had food. I didn't take any because I'd stopped to eat a banana and some Vanilla Bean Gu one corner before the control.  I said hello, got my card stamped, and took off.

A bit later I caught and passed Dave from Potomac, riding his first brevet.  And then my helmet light (a cheap Princeton Tec 4-LED AA-battery model that I use as a secondary light for reading cue sheets) fell off going down a hill.  I reversed and picked it up (right in the middle of the lane) and it still worked.  LEDs are a lot more durable than bulbs, but I still think I got lucky.  That's why you always bring at least two headlights and two taillights.  It was light by then so I put the helmet light away and just used the one on my handlebars for the rest of the early morning.  I eventually caught up with Lowell and Cheryl on their tandem, riding with Cliff.  I said hi and then passed them but then a downhill came and my poorly-adjusted cantilevers (oh yeah, now I remember why I never ride this bike on brevets) scared me so I descended even slower than usual and they descended faster and flew away from me.  I caught them again at a store around the 30 mile point and we'd continue to pass each other all day.

Then there was a big climb which turned out to be Big Flat in Michaux State Forest.  I climbed it last year on the 400, but I guess I'd suppressed the memory, because I forgot about the false summit.  So I climbed a lot (and it was much easier with a triple and only 40 miles in my legs than with a compact double and 150 miles), and eventually reached the top and started tearing downhill, only to see the real summit up ahead.  By this point the rain had stopped, but the wind had started to pick up.  The wind wasn't so bad on the climb, and I got to the top feeling pretty good, but on the big descent the combination of badly-adjusted screeching cantilevers and occasional 30 mph crosswind gusts was a wee bit scary.  I was happy to reach the bottom, even though it meant I had to pedal again.

The first control at mile 67 was a Uni-Mart convenience store in Shippensburg.  It had a clean bathroom and food and drinks for sale so I give it an A.  I ate a gigantic Rice Krispies Treat bar and a Macadamia Nut Clif Bar (my new favorite flavor) and probably some other stuff, and drank a big Gatorade (now that they have low-calorie G2 Gatorade, the "sports drink" for drinking while you watch sports on TV, you have to be careful to get the real stuff if you're trying to fuel up and avoid bonking) and filled my bottles with the rest.  I saw a bunch of people who had been ahead of me at the control, but I didn't manage to get through fast enough so I ended up leaving alone.  I got confused by the cue sheet leaving Shippensburg and ended up making a bit loop back to the Uni-Mart and trying again. And a young man in a Mustang decided to blow through a stop sign right in front of me and test my brakes. There's a reason not to ride through college towns.

I got back on course, and then suddenly my pedals refused to spin forward. I coasted to a stop off the side of the road and found my chain outside my rear derailleur. How the heck did that happen? There's a little tab that's supposed to keep it from slipping out but somehow it had. I jammed it back in there, but the chain starting skipping once per revolution, like I had a bad link. So I pulled over again and got out the chain tool and removed the problem link and replaced it with an extra SuperLink from my bag. Surprisingly, that didn't really fix the problem. The brand-new chain continued skipping for the rest of the ride. I decided it was good enough and that I'd rather ride than continue working on the bike, and I found that it didn't happen as much in the big ring, so I rode most of the ride in the big ring.

After zipping through Newville, the next control was at Young's Deli in Bloserville. No bathroom and slow service, so I give it a D, but they did have sandwiches. I ate one and took off again. A bit later the ride went down Creek Road, a beautiful low-traffic road that was actually right next to a creek, and more importantly with the wind at my back for a change. A 25-mile-per-hour tailwind is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately the road turned again and it was a crosswind or a headwind for most of the rest of the ride.

I stopped again at a Subway in Mount Holly Springs, because they had a bathroom. While I was there I got a footlong BMT and two cookies. This was probably the biggest meal I'd ever eaten on a brevet, and it did a great job keeping the bonk away. The time I spent at Subway let Hank and Dave catch me, and we rode together for a while. We eventually reached a decent-sized hill that I wanted to climb faster than they did, and I pulled away. We met again at the Rocco's Pizza control in East Berlin at mile 129.

Rocco's had okay pizza, but I only ate one slice since I'd just had a big sub. I hung out at Rocco's for a while, then left with Dave and Hank. Riding as a small paceline helped with the wind a bit, though it was often coming from the side and it's not always possible to ride echelons if there are cars about. Then we just kept riding as it slowly got darker and colder. It started to rain a bit, but not too bad. The wind never went away. We stopped twice more, once at a Getty in Bonneuville around mile 144, and once at a 7-11 in Thurmont around mile 168. I didn't get anything to eat at the last stop, and so I finally started wearing out as we rolled into the last control at the Motel 6 in Frederick. The ride took us 18 hours.

So I had a decent day legs-wise (not fast but never really in any trouble), a great day nutrition wise (eat before you're hungry, drink before you're thirsty, repeat), and a lousy day equipment wise. Riding a bike I hadn't written in months on a 300k brevet was dumb. So was not bringing enough warm clothing. So was not securing my headlight very well. So was arriving late and missing the big group, maybe. It may have been a blessing in disguise, by removing the temptation to waste energy chasing the fast people early. Anyway, the 400k is coming in a couple of weeks, and I'll be going back to my usual reliable bike (but with new rear brake pads), and I'll be sure to be prepared for colder-than-expected weather.