D2R2 2009- HARDEST. RIDE. EVER.

And here's why:



1. Gearing. I don't know if somewhere along the lines I thought I morphed into Jan Ullrich or something, but my 34x27 minimum quite frankly was not enough. Yeah, I made it unscathed and Patten wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it honestly made the ride alot harder than it needed to be. It basically ended up being a 7.5 hour visit to a very unpleasant placed I like to call Anaerobia. I should know by now that I am a "slow-twitch freak". Somebody please punch me in the face if I show up next year without a pie plate in the back.

2. Heat. For some reason, I have this thing in my head that I actually like riding in the heat. I don't know where it came from really, but I apparently think I'm good at it. Well, I wasn't Saturday. Maybe it's because this was the summer that wasn't and I haven't had a chance to ride much in the heat but let me tell ya, by around 10am Saturday, the heat became downright oppressive. I believe I consumed/dumped on myself well over 400 oz. of water on the day.

3. Road quality (or lack thereof). I know there seemed to be some differing opinions among the riders but I believe overall that the roads were worse than last year. Also, I think that some riders thought they were the second coming of Paolo Salvodelli (got the makings of a pro peloton here) and perhaps that made already sketchy descents even sketchier. (More on this topic later.) I found myself being overly conservative on the descents and then had to drop the hammer to catch back on with people that knew where the hell they were going because as you guessed it, I neglected to bring the damn cue sheets. Though some of the roads had been recently graded, I personally am of the opinion that grading doesn't necessarily make things better. Yeah, things get levelled off nice, but you still have alot of loose stone to negotiate. The tough climbs (notably Hillman, Archambo, and Patten) were also quite dry so I was really searching for solid ground on the edge of the road for my tires to bite into. This segues nicely into:



4. Tire choice. I honestly thought I was overthinking this one going in and almost brought along the Michelin Jets I have hanging in the garage. I wish I had. I believe they would have been perfect. I had at some point put flat protection above bike handling so I was left with descending like a wuss and ascending praying that my rear tire would grab onto something. It seemed at times (notably Hillman) that approximately 1/4 of my pedal stroke would result in forward movement. So yeah, it hurt. Alot.

5. Blown Free Hub Body. Well, nearly blown. Seeing that I was rockin' the 34x27 I figured I'd get out of the saddle any chance I got to save my seated climbing muscles for the loose steep stuff later in the ride. It seemed that as the ride wore on, every time I got out of the saddle the noise got progressively louder so I stayed in the saddle from about mile 65 onward. I found myself counting down the miles from that point, praying that my wheel would stay together. Luckily it did.



We lined up at 6 but I don't believe we started until after 6:15. I didn't sleep particularly well the night before in the cornfield- two stalks jabbed me in the lower back/hip area all night. The jury is still out as to whether driving to venue morning of is the better choice. Dave, I think you had the right idea.

The pace was easy to the first stop at Heath. I actually kind of wished it was a little harder as to weed out some of the guys that were descending like idiots. It was pretty nuts. Now, I'm not the greatest descender but I'm no novice and people were ripping by me, sometimes within a couple of feet, on some hairy ass roads. I've always been one to hold my position on descents because honestly what do you have to gain on a descent anyway? All you're doing is endangering yourself and others around you. The last thing I want is a broken bike/body part in the middle of nowhere. So I noticed that Jay Gump would go to the front for each impending descent. I began to follow his lead in order to keep myself out of trouble. But sure enough, they came whizzing by and I quipped to my buddy Brian that there's probably going to be carnage. So sure enough on yet another sketchy descent this guy blows by me and ends up in the bushes, ass over tea kettle. It was like slo-mo as he came in hot into a sketchy corner and just couldn't save it. Thankfully, I wasn't part of it.

The climbing on this ride is downright brutal and remember, I actually like to climb. Perhaps I made it worse because of my gearing and tire choice, but I can tell you one thing: For all the heroes out there who think that this ride can be done with a 39x23, good luck to ya. I remember Hillman Rd. was an absoulte ass grinder and I suffered like a dog. It was particulary difficult because the dirt was loose so you had to keep your line to maintain traction. I think Dave and I were climbing at somewhere around 5.5 mph for 15 minutes and I tell you, I never had some much envy for those extra 5 teeth Dave had in the back. As we crested the climb and came out from under the trees, it was like opening the door of an oven as the sun was beating down hard on us. So as you can imagine, trying to pull oxygen out of super-heated air when you're pretty near maximum ain't much fun. Dave gave me a "Phew, that was tough" at the top. It was nice to know that I wasn't the only one suffering.

Another highlight of the ride included a rather splendid (if I don't say so myself) cleaning of Archambo Rd., which from the description, tops off ~27% grade. That, my friends, is pretty effing steep. Dave and I were in the back of the group going into the climb so we were left with following wheels and maneuvering around riders who gave up and walked the climb. I flat-out resorted to yelling at people to get out of my way (in a very tactful way, of course) as "this was my only goal for the ride this year." Probably a little dramatic but it was honestly alot easier than I thought it was going to be. I'm thinking all the mountain biking is paying off.



The herd was gradually culled with every prolonged climb and ensuing white knuckle descent. I believe we rolled into the lunch stop at Green River maybe about 8 or so deep. It was here after over 4 hours ride time that I consumed my first solid food, a pb & j on wheat and handful of peanut M&M's. I guess the heat had something to do with my lack of appetite. It was also here that I noticed my Garmin had shut off. It must have been from when I bunny-hopped one of the moon craters coming down into the stop. Seeing that I'm a metrics junkie, I was not too excited that the data for the ride was effed up. Oh well, it felt like we were going at a decent clip to this point anyway.



The 10 minute climb out of the lunch stop is a real ball buster. For me, this was the second hardest climb on the day (behind Hillman). I probably should have brought the sandwich for the road but we were all hanging out and I figured I'd just down it there and deal with the discomfort later. Not the greatest move. My stomach was churning like no other and about 1/3 of the way up I wanted to hurl. Note to self: Do not eat solid food at lunch stop next year.


Most of the rest of the ride was uneventful with the exception of my free hub body getting progressively worse and me contemplating quitting. Yeah, you heard right. I felt horrible for 30 miles following the Green River stop. I'm not sure what was going on but the combination of the heat and not being optimally geared was taking its toll. To top it off, not only was the free hub body getting louder, but it also started to slip at random when I shifted; I'm guessing that one or more of the pawls was completely shot. As the miles ticked off, I prayed that both my constitution and hub would stay together.

By the time we decided to hit the optional stop at mile 80 I was starting to get my second wind- if you can imagine that happening with nearly 6 hours in the saddle. There were only 8 in our group at this point- Tim Coleman (local and one of the fastest finishers last year), Jay Gump (another local and VERY strong Masters racer), Steve Weller (20-something Cat 1 from MA), Matt Surch (Cat 2 and DH'er from Canada), an older CCB rider on a Cervelo R3 SL (had me wishing I brought mine), Brian Cantele (Cat 1 mtber & frequent riding partner), fellow slow-twitch freak Dave Penney, and yours truly. I was the last to fill my bottles at the stop and the group took off without me leaving me to chase for about a mile or so. (There's a little more pressure to stay with the group when you don't bring cue sheets.) The pace picked up a tad from here and Brian's temperature gauge was soon approaching thermonuclear meltdown. I looked over at him and I swear his face looked purple. He said his legs were good but I'm thinking that the distance between Heath and Green River stops earlier may have put him in a bit of a dehydration hole on one of the hottest days of the year. Had I known, I would have offered him one of my large bottles. Anyway, he made the wise decision to stop in Colrain to cool off and pick up some fluids. He later hooked up with a guy that knew the way. The seven of us forged ahead.

The pace eased up along the stretch before Patten Hill and the peloton was noticeably quiet. I suppose that's what the impending pain of a mile of 20% grade will do to a group of (already) battered souls. We hit the climb and Matt ups the pace a hair and gaps Jay, Dave, Steve, and I. I normally would have been out of the saddle for the first stretch of pavement on Patten but I didn't want to press my luck with the hub. Instead, I churned away in the saddle at about 50 rpms. (That's about 5 mph for those keeping track at home.) Steve took off in pursuit of Matt. Dave and I rode tempo together and Jay was just a few meters ahead of us. The road was in decent shape and fairly hard-packed as most of the climb was shaded. I welcomed the shade and smooth road surface with open arms. As the road came out of the woods, I decided to bridge up to Jay but when I did my freakin' left hamstring cramped up something fierce. (I thought to myself, "There, you happy, Doug?") I nearly went down as I essentially pedaled with my right leg. I got out of the saddle very gingerly in order to use some different muscles and luckily it went away. I ended up cresting the climb just ahead of Jay with Steve and Matt just ahead of us.

We made our final stop at Little Big House just past the Patten summit. I wish I had taken a picture of this place. It looks like a life-sized dollhouse. Pretty cool. I'll have to get it next year. The remainder of the ride went by like a blur. It was probably a product of fatigue and pace, which picked up yet again. I nearly got blown off the back ascending South Shelburne Rd. We were now catching alot of the 100K riders. The pace kicked up again when we took the left onto Hawk's Rd. which should really be renamed Hawk's Jeep Trail. I should say it wasn't that bad but after 7 hours of riding, anything is. My feet, which had been throbbing for the last 20 miles, were now KILLING me. The descent down the other side of Hawk's was pretty nasty. I'm trying to keep the group within sight while passing a bunch of the 100K riders on marbles. By the time we hit pavement Dave and I had gotten unhitched a bit and so we worked together to latch back on. The seven of us (along with a very strong female 100K rider) soon got a nice paceline together probably averaging somewhere ~25-27 mph to the finish.

I don't have any Garmin data but ride stats were ~111 miles and ~13K of climbing. Final elapsed time for the seven of us was 8:16 according to ride organizers. I swear we left at 6:15 but they had us at 6:02 for a departure time. Whatever the case, this ended up being 4 minutes faster than last year. Factoring in the optional stop at mile 80 and a longer than last year stop at Green River I would venture to guess that actual ride time was somewhere ~7:20, pr-ing last year's effort by ~25 minutes. If not for the heat, I bet a sub-8 hr elapsed, sub-7 hr ride time would have been possible.

This was far and away the most difficult ride of my short-lived cycling career. It's not too often I think about quitting but I most certainly entertained the thought on numerous occasions on this ride. Again, I'm thankful I'm healthy enough to tackle such an epic event as D2R2 and live to tell about it, albeit a week plus late. Thanks for reading.

I would like to send out a sincere thank you to all the ride volunteers as this ride is extremely well-orgainzed. I also had the pleasure of meeting ride creator Sandy Whittlesey. D2R2 is growing and I suspect there will be even more riders next year with the ride date moving back to the 3rd week in August so as to not conflict with Mt. Washington hillclimb.

Additional side note: It was nice to finally meet the one and only solobreak. I've been a reader of his blog for some time. We talked for a while after and he had the "luxury" of riding with two national champions, Jonny Bold and Kevin Hines. I'm jealous.

Rejuvenated

After a little over 4K miles and nearly 360K ft. of climbing on the year, I was getting mentally and physically burnt. I more or less took the month of July off- well, I was doing maybe 100 miles a week- mostly of the mtb variety. Of course, the shit weather and my road steed blowing off the top of my car on the highway (more on that later) had a little to do with my mid-season break. I guess everything does happen for a reason.

But I'm feeling better now and that's all that matters. As you can see from the photo, I crossed another one off the Bucket List. Em was staying with her parents in Waterville Valley so I drove up to surprise her and took her to Kingdom Trails. All that I can say is that I really don't want to mountain bike around here anymore. The place is basically singletrack Nirvana. I'm sure that there are places out West that are better, but I believe when people say that Kingdom Trails is the best mountain biking on the East Coast. I did actually meet a guy from Durango, CO that said KT was the real deal.

I particularly enjoyed Tap and Die and the pictured Sidewinder. Sidewinder was everything it was billed to be- the first run was like Whoa! Of course I had to do it again and my 2nd run was like Yeah! Sidewinder is basically a half pipe down the side of the mountain. You just let go of the brakes and let the physics of the "pipe" bleed your speed before your next drop down the ridge. Of course, I'm a mountain bike wussy so I may have hit the brakes just a little. Ok, maybe more than a little. Em was behind me and I could have sworn I brought her to an amusement park the way she was hootin' and hollerin' all the way down. Good fun. This was basically her expression the entire 4 hours we were there:


I can honestly say I don't blame her. It was one of my most enjoyable days ever on a bike- even when Em got tired after 3 hours in the saddle and we may have bickered just a tad. Well, at least Mike from Maryland (pictured behind Em who rode with us for 2 hours) enjoyed our exchange of "pleasantries". Ah, I love ya, Em. All I can say about Kingdom Trails is that if you've never been, go, and if you're going back, give me a call; I'd love to join you.





This sucks, right?








So yeah, back to Black Betty taking a flyer off my car on Rte. 8 North. I remember it was a particularly hard group ride and I just wanted to get home. In my haste, yep, you guessed it, I forgot to STRAP DOWN THE REAR WHEEL. It was like a nightmare, really. I was on the phone with Em driving down the highway for maybe all of 2 minutes when I hear a clunk. I look in my rearview and Betty is spinning in the middle of the highway putting on a spark display that would captivate any five year old at 4th of July. I just kept saying, "Oh my God, Oh my God" over and over again until I finally yanked the car over, ran up the highway and snatched her up before she got run over to boot. It was almost like cutting yourself on your hand; You know it's bleeding and you know it's bad but you don't want to look. So Betty sat in the back of my garage for a day or so before I got up the nerve to assess the damage. Like with anything, it could have been worse, alot worse. I escaped with "only" a damaged fork, stem, handlebars, and saddle. Luckily, the frame was intact. This is unusual as heavy impacts to the fork usually result in a head tube fracture. There's only some chipping of the clear coat where the chain was driven into the BB area so it only ended up setting me back about $900. It's a good thing I'm independently wealthy. Not! Big thanks go out to Josh for the help in getting Betty back to working order.

The day after Kingdom Trails, I figured I'd take advantage of being so far North and hit the Kangamangus Highway. I originally was hoping Em would join me, but she made (what would be) a very wise decision to hang around the pool while I rode. I wasn't sure of the details of my route, but I figured on riding the Kank East to Bear Notch over to 302 West and then down Rte. 3 back to the car. I parked at the Visitor Center just off the exit and away I went. I was really surprised how cool it was up there. I'll bet it was all of 65 at the start. Once you leave Lincoln proper, the Kank gets really nice. It starts to kick up ever so slightly as you make your way up the pass. This went on for miles. The grade got progressively steeper the higher you got. The last 3.5 miles. at least according to the sign when I turned around at the summit, were 9%. My legs were feeling good despite 4 hours at KT the day before and I was hitting the climb at a good pace. There's something about these long mountain climbs that I just love. I really had no idea of the length of the climb so when I saw the sign pop up I was pleasantly surprised:




Ubiquitous summit pic. I believe from the car I gained roughly 2100' over 13 miles.

Once the climbing's done, you know what's next. I think I averaged nearly 45 mph on the descent to the flats before Bear Notch Road. Because I'm not used to descending for such long periods of time, my freakin' neck, back, and arms were starting to fatigue about 2.5 miles into it. I guess I've gotta climb more big mountains so I can work on my descending muscles. I'm OK with that.

Bear Notch is where the fun started, that is, fun in the form of wind and driving rain. It was probably about 75 degrees when I made the turn off the Kank onto Bear Notch. As I began to climb, the temperature plummeted and in came the black clouds. Wonderful. By the time I reached the crest, I was thinking a little about a thing called hypothermia as I was soaked and it was probably low 50's at this point. Talk about a great ride turning sour in a hurry. My hopes were that it would at least be warmer at the bottom where I made the turn for 302. My legs and arms were absolutely frozen and it was at this time that I was at least thankful that Em wasn't with me. That would have been really swell. The rain let up as I descended and by the time I made the turn onto 302, the sun was back out. Weird. I guess that's the mountains for ya.

Heading West on 302 proved to be no picnic. It was long exposed roadway with 20+ mph winds right in my grill for oh, about 27 miles. I had all I could do to hold 18 mph on the flats. It kinda sucked. At least the wind dried me out. The only good thing was the climb up Crawford Notch past the two cascades and the double chocolate muffin I inhaled at a store in Bretton Woods.

Looking back down Crawford Notch. Pretty.






Rte. 3 was pretty much the same story with long exposed road and driving wind in my face. Things got interesting when Rte. 3 ran right into 93 at Franconia Notch thus relegating me to a bike path for about 10-15 miles. (No bikes allowed on 93) The bike path was a pleasant change though as it got me out of the damn wind. The path meandered back and forth under 93 through Franconia Notch and the scenery was quite extraordinary. I was getting tired at this point and not really knowing how much farther I had back to my car was starting to wear on me mentally. I finally ended up picking up Rte. 3 again at the Flume State Park and flew back to the Visitor's center in Lincoln. It felt like I rode 115 but I ended up with 80 miles, 6300', 4:25 ride time. Not bad considering Mother Nature wasn't of much help.

Looking forward to D2R2 again this coming Saturday. I'm feeling very fit. I've been doing some VO max intervals over the last 4 weeks and a couple sub-5 hr centuries without burying myself so I'm way more confident going into D2R2 this year than last. I've also (finally) dropped 7 pounds so I'm hoping that'll help get my ass up Patten Hill. We shall see. It should be a blast.