This is the email I got from Mark Pittman earlier in the week.
More info. Sounds like a climb fest!
When : Saturday May 2nd at 8:00 am
Where : The Landrum Ingles located at Exit 1 on Hwy I26 West
Ride info : We're planning on heading up Saluda Grade to the Watershed and up to the Tuxedo area where we will make our way over to the climb up Caesar's Head and then work our way back . I think the route is about 90 miles with plenty of climbing . Climb at your pace and regroups as usual at the top of climbs and as necessary . Figure on about 6 hours total ride time . This ride will be a steady pace ride and we would like to keep moving as much as possible so come prepared to work as a group. Store stops : one for sure and possibly two quick stops.
For some reason after getting the specifics of the ride, I was still game for giving it a go. The thing is, I am supposed to be training for the Mt Mitchell Assault later this month. Like most people doing the assault, I haven't gotten enough miles in.
The group got started a little bit late, because there were 2 girls inside using the bathroom. I was kinda annoyed that we were waiting on them, but as we waited I realized that I needed to take a leak as well... I was just too proud to say so. We headed out of town with a group of 21 riders, and just thinking bout going to the bathroom had made my bladder swell. We turned down a road then went along some railroad tracks, and some yeehaw behind us in a car started laying on the horn like a real jerk for us to get over. Went he went by, we realized that he was a fellow cyclist, just a little late for the start. He sped by us and park in a small lot up ahead and unloaded his bike. We stopped for less than 30 seconds to allow him to get his bike off the car, and I took the opportunity to run into the woods and relieve myself. The guy in the car waited on me, but the rest of the pack went on. Fortunately he is a strong rider, so we were able to pull the pack in within just a few minutes.
The first thing I noticed as we chugged along on the flat, was that there didn't seem to be any weak riders. The 3 female riders, who I had expected to struggle throughout the day, were at the front of the pack. I typically cruise on the flat around 18-20mph. This ride was going more like 22-24. Things might get tough! Mark and I stayed fairly close to one another, but didn't talk much because it was becoming evident that there would be work to do!
Our first real climb was the Saluda Grade. This starts in Tryon, and climbs forever up into Saluda. We were about a mile in, when one of the females attacked! She stoop up in the pedals and completely left us all. I tried to pick up my pace, but there was no way I would be able to compete with her speed. I was incredible! I felt pretty good all the way up the climb, and arrived in Saluda within the top 6-8 riders. I knew that I may have pushed it too hard early on. Mark was not near the front like I expected, and when he arrived a few minutes later, he was red in the face, and shook his head in disgust when I asked him how he was feeling.
I have inserted a video of a guy climbing the Saluda Grade in an Audi. He is doing 60+ mph at times. Imagine struggling up this thing at 6-10mph.
We picked up a few additional riders from the Bakery in Saluda, and climbed out of town on what I know to be the return path for the Bakery run. Most of these riders were getting away from the roads they are familiar with, but I was beginning to feel comfortable, because section is part of where I have ridden often. After a long, fast descent back to the base of the watershed, I felt strong. Here is where Mark decided to call it a day. We would be climbing into the Tuxedo area, then on to the worst part of the day climbing Ceaser's Head. He decided to head back from here, go over Hogback Mt. then return to Landrum. All in all, I think he did 70mi... which is not too shabby of an effort.
As I climbed up toward Tuxedo, I still felt strong. However, I was a little concerned to be out with all these riders, none of which I knew personally, and none of which seemed to be easing off at all. We all lined up to go down Hwy 25 for a stretch, and really flew once we turned down Gap Creek Rd! There were times we were even getting over the 50mph mark. It was here that we dropped someone named Ralph, and lost them all-together. This shook my spirits again, because I really did not want to be left out there alone with a really long ride back. We took a break at a gas station near the base of Ceaser's head, and at this point we were around 50miles into the ride.
I drank 2 more bottles of Gatorade, topped off my bottles again, and rolled on out. This is where my ride went bad... really bad. Apparently, the combination of too much Gatorade, not enough water, and too much effort early on had done my body in. Early into the climb I felt my left leg begin to cramp, then a few minutes later, the right leg. I knew I was in trouble. The females I had been concerned about holding us back all beat me to the top. I had become dehydrated, and the rest of the day I would have to spin as lightly as I could to avoid overexertion. The hill is 6miles straight up, and I barely made it under an hour. I was the last one to arrive at the rest area.
The nice thing about doing these rides is that everyone is willing to wait for you. The problem is, the strongest riders get to rest the longest, and the weakest one (me) don't get to rest at all! The rest of the day is a blur for me, because I had my head down and focused only on keeping up with the pack. To my credit, I don't think I made them wait on me at all through the Dupont forest, or on into Flat Rock. I suffered silently. One of the guys asked me, "Are you feeling ok? You look salty." Sure enough, I had begun to look salty because of the amount of sweat my body was producing in order to cool down my core temp. (It was an overcast day. I would have not made it if the sun had been out.) I spoke up next time we were near a gas station, because I was out of fluids, and we still had 25-30 miles to go.
I was able to get my bottles filled, and away we went again. I was able to get my speed back as we left Flat Rock, but when the climb came to get back into Saluda, I was toast once again. The riders regrouped at the Bakery and headed on DOWN the Saluda grade. This was a ton of fun! I have ridden a motorcycle for years, so taking some risks on the downhill didn't intimidate me too bad. We had two motorcycles pass us on the small hill before reaching the decent, and two of our guys PASSED the motorcycles on the way down. It is just way easier to maneuver a lightweight bicycle than a car or even a motorcycle. I stayed with the leaders all the way down.
Then the road flattened out again. I was fine until the climbing began, and again I felt as though I was on the verge of major muscle cramping episode. With some pain, I reached Tryon, and headed towards home. We came to a T in the road, and the ride leader said we were to go left. There was a ton of complaining, and half of the group turned to the right instead. Apparently the left turn would require even more climbing. Reluctantly I turned left and gritted my teeth all the way home. At the base of each major hill I found myself hating my decision, but when I finished I would be able to say I had ridden the entire route.
I got back to the parking lot with a ride time of 5:50, just under the 6 hr mark like promised. Our actual time out on the road was closer to 7 hours, but I needed every break we got. During the day I had consumed nearly 2 gallons of Gatorade in all, and 1 bottle of water. Even drinking that much, I had lost 3.5 lbs in sweat. I won't drink so much Gatorade next time. I will get more H2O in me. By the way, only one rider decided to do the additional 10 miles round trip up hogback mountain and back to get over the century mark for the day. Yep, you guessed it!
It was a girl.
I read about the ride at http://www.greenvillespinners.org/ Here is the description:
The ride heads north from the BiLo start/finish toward Lake Robinson. We then cut over to Packs Ridge Rd and ride the ridge of Packs Mountain. We will have a light break set up at Lake Robinson so you can enjoy the great view across the lake while you refuel for the climbing at Packs Mountain. We will have a SAG vehicle to support the riders on this route. We plan to have pre-ride mechanical support provided by The Great Escape of Greenville. Now best of all this is a FREE event sponsored by the Greenville Spinners Bike Club!
Now when I saw the big word FREE, I was instantly interested. I arrived at the Bilo parking lot 20 minutes early, unloaded my bike, and joined the group of 50-75 riders at the start line. I rode about 20 miles yesterday pulling my little girls, so I didn't want o go out to hard and find out I didn't have any gas in the tank.
After a few minutes of formalities, the ride was off on its way. I had decided t try to stay with the 1st 20 riders or so at the start, so that I wouldn't have to work so hard to stay with the pack. Problem was, I found myself in the front 3-4 riders within minutes after leaving the Bilo plaza. This could not be good. Had I gone out too hard again? 5 miles in, I found myself all alone, I had taken my turn pulling, but no decided to take my wheel. I looked back to see the other riders in a loose pack behind me, content to let me go.
Because I can ride alone every day, I decided to ease it of, and drop back into the pack. I slowed to a crawl, to let the group catch me, but when they swallowed me up, it was all I could do to accelerate back up to speed and stay with them. I soon found that this ride did not contain any "team" riders or jerseys. For whatever reason, maybe because it was a free ride, the big boys had not chose to join in. Sp today was like a JV ride then. If that were the case, perhaps I could finish fairly high.
(This was not a race let me remind you, it was a ride... but anyone who has ever been on one of things knows that the word "race" is implied)
We reached Lake Robinson at 1the 10mi mark, and because of some confusion with the way the arrows were painted on the road, the entire group pulled in to the parking lot. Very few of us wanted to stop, so after a loop around the parking lot, we were on the way. It was at that point I decided that I wanted to finish in the top 10 for the day if I could. There were about 5 riders that I could see pushing the tempo. I decided to lead out again, and see if we could break away with 5-8 riders. When I hit it this time, 4 other riders joined me.
We each took turns pulling strong, although one large rider (I heard him say he was on a 64 frame) was definitely doing more work than the rest of us... I knew I would not be able to out ride him at the end of the day... and I didn't.
Someone complimented me for my trailer hitch attachment on my bike. He also pulls his kids around for a good training workout. I thought this was pretty cool, because I am usually pretty self conscious about having the attachment on my bike. Most of the time, I take it off when going on an organized ride. This morning I forgot to do so.
Just before reaching the base of Pack's Mountain we went through a series of fast downhills, which we took to casually as a lead group. As we began the big climb, our group of 5 had grown to 10-12 riders.
Now for the climb. The big boy I was keeping an eye on had seemingly no problem going up this thing. often, the taller riders suffer on the hills, and make it back on the flats. This was not the case for him. He climbed very strongly as well. The same group of 5 of us pulled pretty quickly away from everyone while going up the climb. Don't get me wrong, we were all suffering, but apparently the fellas behind us were having a worse time of it. Basically that was the last time we saw the rest of the pack.
We reached Lake Robinson for the second time at mile 33. This time we stopped for the SAG, and hung around long enough to see a few riders begin to straggle in. The heat, now 75 degrees, was beginning to take it's toll. 2 of the riders we had spent the day with decided to wait for a friend, so we went on without them, picking up a few guys who decided to make the stop a quick one.
At the next stop sign, we came up on a rider who was not part of the day's ride, and the poor guy fell over at the stop sign, because he was too busy looking back at us, and forgot to un-clip. I felt sorry for him, because I have done the exact same thing. He insisted he was fine, and went on our way.
Fatigue began setting in around mile 40, because another guy fell over at a stop sign, this time nearly taking me and the big guy out when he went down. He also told us to go ahead, he wanted to check his bike before continuing. To his credit, he caught back up to us a mile or so later, which is not easy to do at all when riding out there all alone.
We pulled back in to Bilo without a sprint to the finish, yellow jersey ceremony, flower wreath, or a milk jug for the winner. We rode in together, I guess I finished third, but we had succeeded in staying away from the pack all day, something I had never done before.
Granted, this is like a JV ride for cyclists, but it still felt pretty good nonetheless. Now I am going to take a nap!
Click the link for a panorama view of Packs Mountain
Here was today's ride.
I got to the park, unloaded my bike, and jogged over to the bathroom to change my clothes. It was cold, way colder than what I had brought riding gear enough for. Nonetheless, I decided that once I began to sweat, I would be plenty warm.
Here is a side note: while changing, a woman in the bathroom on the other side of the building flushed the toilet, and the floor drain on my side let out a sonic explosion that scared the mess out of me.
I took my normal route up mountain creek trail, and headed out towards the Hincapie challenge. This climb was particularly miserable today with no gear shifting possibilities. It is weird how your mind fights with itself, and I started making excuses why I might need to stop for a moment...is my seat set too low?... is my shoe coming untied?... do I need to stop and check the crank arm that fell off last week?
As I told myself to keep going and not quit, I spit over my left shoulder, and suddenly found myself off the road and in the ditch on the right side of the road. This was stupid mistake. Why would anyone be so idiotic to lose control of their bike while spitting? Now, I had ridden into the ditch, and because of my pep talk with myself earlier I refused to quit. This meant I rode up the hill in the ditch for about 15-20 feet before I could get back on the road again. What a momentum killer!
Now some of you might be saying: "So what, it was only 15 feet, what is the big deal?" The deal is, this Hincapie Challenge is a horrible hill. It is like riding up the trunk of a redwood tree. So, 15-20 ft is a huge deal!
Fortunately I made it home with no broken bones or bike components... it was a great ride.
Moral of the story: Keep your eyes on the road. It is a painful return when you get off track.
What ways are you getting distracted from the goal you have before you?