Davis double, Auburn half-iron

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The short:
Sat: Davis double century, 202 miles, in 14 hours and 20 min. Over 100 degrees most of day.
Sun: Auburn half-iron triathlon (swim 1.2 miles, bike 56, run 13.1), DNF after 6 miles of run d/t near heat exhaustion, nausea, dehydration.

The long:
I now fully understand what it is like to be dehydrated. Am also now familiar with heat exhaustion, nausea and intense cramping. This is good. Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go? My approach to whatever you call the things I do (adventure? fun? extreme? athletic?) has been simple. If it’s there and has a draw, do it. A little naivety is healthy. Curiosity is a sign of intelligence. You won’t know until you try. Et Cetera.
I did the Auburn ‘World’s Toughest Half Iron’ in 2006 (second triathlon ever) and in 2007 (third triathlon) . Both years I had a blast and actually placed in my age-group. This year the Davis Double Century happened to be the day before. Why not? Bike touring is all about waking up after a hard day of riding and then riding again. And on PBP I rode 325 miles in one day, slept 7 hours, then rode another 200 plus without much problem. And it’s not like I’d drive all the way up there just to do the double, so why not save gas and do both at once. I talked to Brian ‘Emperor Moth’ Davidson and he didn’t flinch (note to potential bad-asses: If you want to look badass for some crazy thing you are doing don’t invite the strongest athlete you know to come along).

What we did not calculate was the heat. Over 100 degrees both days. 109 at one point on the double on Saturday. That’s hot. About how hot it was on the drive up (and back) in the car with no AC. That probably did not help our preparation (but runs up quite a few punk points). But we did all we could and Davis is a great bicycle city to do it in. We park the car at our friend’s house. Ride half mile to bike shop. Closed. Ride around corner to other bike shop. Score. Ride half mile to ride check-in. Ride half mile to a Co-op. For real. Got to love that shit. We ate a nice meal (you can make fun of raw-foodists all you want till they make you the most kick-ass salad you’ve ever had). Asleep by 10-ish for the 5am wake-up call (from Nextel).

(to be continued manana)

Don’t invite the FBI to your vegan potluck

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I know it is that time of year and everyone is all stoked on Spring and being vegan and spreading the love, but you have to be sure not to invite the FBI. I know you want as many people as possible and that your hummus is bangin and that you have just the right flyer to convert each and every person to veganism. But remember, the FBI wants to come to your vegan potluck. A vegan FBI agent is still an FBI agent.

project

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What am I up to on the day-to-day? I am never really sure myself. I need to make some motivational and organizational charts for my desk to keep all this in line. Here I am laying it out for the first time outside of my head.

Work– I have two part-time jobs, one doing nutrition education through a grant that originates with the Food Stamp program and one teaching two college courses. I have about 100 students, which significantly increases my workload. I’m just about full-time. Classes end the end of May.

Bikes– I am working with Alex Thompson on what is tentatively named the 5% project. It’s going to be a mass public education campaign that is not as specific as the Ride to the Ride stuff (which I am slowly distributing when I go on road rides). The Bike Writers Collective is going to help with this project and I am honored to work with them.

Swarm!– With the help of Chris we got the stickers to the printer, hope to see them this week.

Vegetarian– I work with the Vegetarian Nutrition Dietary Practice Group in a number of ways including as a student member coordinator and a co-coordinator for California. Am also heading up a media group to work with the ADA’s Spokespeople who unfortunately have continually given poor information regarding vegetarianism in mainstream articles. I just got back from our Spring meeting in Utah, so the work pile for them is pretty large.

Vegetarian Bikes– I am starting to help Organic Athlete with some more vegan diet plan stuff for some projects they have coming up this summer. Am slacking here so have recruited someone to help out.

Being smarter– On paper I am a graduate student in an MA Anthropology program. My current course is a directive study in Nutritional Anthropology. It is very difficult to do school work when you are not actually attending school.

Living– Our house is coming along quicker now that Morgan moved in. He’s on Team No Job, but thinks getting up at 630am and working on the house is some how not work. My new project is clearing the gigantic backyard. Will try to post photos soon. Some friends saw our house for the first time the other day and had two amazing quotes: ‘This isn’t LA, it’s Mississippi’ and ‘The world without us. That’s what your backyard looks like. How everything would look without humans.’

Being a Sporto– I’m still trying to keep this training schedule. But I like to skip both runs each week. Not good, considering I have a half-iron race in a week and a half. I am down to 187 pounds though!

In between all this I try to cook most of my meals, be social with people I don’t live with, call my friends in other cities, read books, etc, etc. But it’s real easy for any of that to go out the window when I get home at 8pm and am exhausted. Is anyone else this busy? Do you enjoy it?

for the love of…

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bikes of course.
So my boy Steevo, who recently (re)posted some of the great photos from our 2006 Great Divide trip, just wrote an article for Urban Velo called Riding Is My Religion. For those of you who don’t ride bikes often or at all, you may miss the subtleties of what makes riding so beautiful. And what I’ve always said is that it is not the actual act of bicycling that brings so much joy (though that does too!), but what bikes open your life up to. It’s a medium. It’s metaphorical. It’s often unbelievable. Steevo captures it well in this piece. Read it!

I am 29 and have been riding bikes as a part of my life for 25 years. Ever since my mom took me to Louise Moore Park to sign up for BMX racing because I was too young for baseball at 4.

ride to the ride, but best not the race

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‘No, Morgan, I don’t think riding 60 miles to a 32 mile race will affect how I do. I’ll be warmed up. I’ll drink some water, eat a little and in the race I’ll just stay in the pack.’

Mt Emma Rd, Northside of Mill Creek Summit


The next morning I woke up at 530am and rode over the San Gabriel Mountains. It was suppose to be over 90 degrees (unseasonably warm for even Southern California), but I was in the mountains early and feeling pretty good. Then I hit the headwinds. Damn. After about an hour of 4-5 MPH uphill into the wind my main concern was getting there in time. By now I was one a new road and didn’t know just how far off Mill Creek Summit was. What was cool was that I was riding the last half of Stage 7 of the Tour de California.
Finally I hit the 5000ft pass and hit the descent, which is always scary in the wind, and then I was within a few miles of the start of the Devil’s Punchbowl road race.

I saw (Emperor Moth) Brian as soon as I got there. He was stoked. I had 45 minutes till the race started. I drank some carrot juice, ate a little food, drank some water, took a healthy piss and headed to the start line with two full bottles and half a banana. Stay in the pack, stay in the pack. No problem. Dropped on the first climb. Fuck. Then I saw a dude with a full-facial tattoo in the feed zone. Dave Clinger? Is it that hot out? Bombed the huge descent, caught some people and convinced them that working together in headwinds is a wise move. Picked off a bunch of people. Rode past the start/finish into the second lap. Then it hit me super hard. I was starving and just about out of water. Miserable. Hot. Blah blah blah. ‘Bonked’. I went as far as to pick up bottles from the earlier race off of the road and drink what was left. Ugh. Another miserable finish of 2008! I am on a serious streak.

How’d Brian do? Well, he hit the turn after the huge descent and was waved forward (or so he thought), down the hill. The course turned right. He figured out no one was behind him, turned around and CAUGHT THE LEAD PACK. In telling the story to me he was complaining that no one was working hard. And that he pulled most of the way around the second lap. Was beaten out in the sprint. 2nd place. Sick.

South Pasadena with the San Gabriels in the distance

Looking South. The other side is ‘high dessert’
Joshua Trees!

Wheel Suck(er)

Bicycle Man is what I am

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I just filled out an application for a race and it asked for ‘the highest age I would reach in 2008’. The answer for me is: 30. I’m not one of those people who is making a big deal about being 30, but I do recognize it as some sort of marker in my life. When I think about being thirty I get that feeling that you get when you wake up in your tent somewhere far from home and just can’t believe that you are where you are. Like getting there and being there is some sort of secret that you discovered. Like you’ve somehow fooled the world by getting away with what you are doing. Which reminds me, it has been awhile since I’ve spent some time in a tent or bivy sac.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XsNrKSQmes&hl=en]

I came to spin, battle me that’s a sin

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Not many ways I can spin (haha) a post about a 3-hour spin class to make it sound cool. Or even that interesting. But come on, my local YMCA organized a cycle-a-thon, how could I not participate? I tried to not, but then was told I didn’t have to raise the full $250, but only ‘what I could’. So why not? I’ve only done a couple spin classes cause they are too hard.
They can’t all be like Steevo’s spin class in Pittsburgh.
The girl next to me asked if I was a ‘street rider’, which means that, unlike 75% of bike shoe owners, I use bike shoes on a bike outside of the gym. I did almost crash once when I stopped my pedaling abruptly, to go from standing to sitting, and the momentum of the wheel sprung me forward and lifted the rear of the ‘bike’ off the ground. Oops.
Thanks to everyone who donated money, which was mostly my workout partner Mike T and my co-workers. And Chris and Megan for stopping by.

Chris! (hates exercise)

Cute blonde? Fit? Be a spin instructor!

Sweating so much my sleeves fell off

A band was playing in the front
(not really, but it looks like it, right?)

And it is Earth Day so check out this Humane Society ad.

2008 Mulholland Challenge and Double

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A jersey appropriate in many ways for this ride


Planet Ultra’s Mulholland double century and Mulholland Challenge are epic cycling events that take place in the Santa Monica Mountains behind Malibu (and beyond). Last year I rode the Century Challenge which was one of the best days on the bike I’ve ever had. I just hammered for the entire 100 miles, which I can’t say I had ever done. In 2006 I also did the Challenge and in 2005 I rode the double. This year I volunteered, which makes four years in a row I’ve been involved in this event!

My checkpoint was at the top of Decker Canyon, a brutally steep, long, hot climb into the mountains from PCH; one athlete said the cyclists strung out on it ‘resembled a battle ground of despair’. At the top I was most often greeted with elation, ‘Is this the top? I did it? Wow!’ or slight anger, ‘That was so damn miserable! This is ridiculous!’ First the fastest riders come through. They are quietly suffering and do not hang out long. Then the ‘rush’ and the middle group makes it way to the top. Some move on quickly in order to get it over with. Some hang out as shown below.

The search for shade

The last 10% or so of riders tend to look ghostly. Often some food and water will get them on their way, but some are just in over their head. This is one of the hardest centuries in Southern CA (anywhere?)!

Putting water and calories back in the participants

This guy crashed on the infamous Deer Creek descent
(which has claimed many carbon wheels),
but pushed on to finish

I love this photo. It makes me think of how in many parts of the world the search for and acquisition of water (and food) takes up a significant percentage of people’s days. In modern-day Southern California we punish ourselves on our bikes to intimately know the need for water and food. This could be in an Anthropology textbook under ‘Cycling Culture’.

The SAG wagon was a party van: 25% of century riders DNF’d

I noticed this sticker on the back of another SAG vehicle

This cyclist took it literally.
I am not sure if a requirement of getting into this SAG was actually pedaling to you puke.

A sick bike. Worth a year’s rent in Los Angeles.


Soon after the century riders, the double riders started filtering through. They were at mile 162 of a long, difficult ride. The climb took a toll on a significant number of these hearty souls as well. Our cut-off time was 6:30, but many riders had yet to arrive and pick up their lights. It was getting dark. What to do? We packed up the van and I drove down Decker to find them. The first guy was done. Said it was the worst day of his life and he wanted to be SAG’ed back to the start. Later he told me he has ridden over 100 double centuries. Down the road further I came across a guy walking. He didn’t want his lights, he wanted to get in the van. No problem. Within five minutes we were pulled over so he could get out and puke. I gave him a bag cause I didn’t want to stop again; we were low on gas and I wanted to get off the mountains.

Back at the start/finish hotel around 10pm and double riders were finishing up. Century riders who earlier looked like zombies, were now fed, showered, and changed, giving the impression of normalcy. I was slightly concerned about getting back to El Segundo, I had ridden up from raw Brian’s earlier in the day. Ends up that Raoul, the puking in the van guy, lives in Hawthorne, which is right next door to El Segundo. We packed our bikes into his Sentra and on the drive he told me how he got into riding doubles. A great story of widening horizons and dedication. Back at Brian’s at 1130 in time to catch the end of Jenny’s b-day party and eat some of Kiecker’s famous vegan fudge.

If you stare into the abyss long enough the abyss stares back at you.

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Our friend Stephen Krcmar, who obviously has an advanced degree in English or some other field where you read a lot, organized, again, Thus Climbed Zarathustra, the cyclocat alleycross. What a great concept for a race: you ride to staircases, you hoist (Stephen says ‘portage’) your bike, run to the top, then get back on your bike and fly through the neighborhood to the next set of stairs. There were nine in total throughout Echo Park and Silver Lake. About 20 of us raced; everyone else missed out.
To me, an event like this symbolizes so many of the things I love. Out on my bike on a beautiful day with some friends, exploring areas of the world I’ve never seen, even though they are in my own backyard. There is also the physical aspect where being somewhat fit increases your enjoyment and your experience: everything is better when you are slightly out of breath and sweating. When the flowers of spring are odiferous and friendly competition keeps you all a little sharper while dodging cars and reading a route slip. But really, everyone just wants to know who won. It was Morgan. I caught him between stair set 7 and 8, we rode together a bit, then I blew up trying to beat him on the last set while he drank the complimentary sangria. He scuttled past me onto the glorious win.

The South Bay crew ran into this guy while they were riding to Silver Lake. He asked where they were going and then he came along to the race! He finished 7th or 8th and won some Patagonia underwear.