One day, 201.6 miles - Amherst, MA to Burlington, VT

I made it.

I honestly cannot believe it, but I made it.

All my life I have put myself into physical situations that I had no business being in: Hiking the 26 mile, 15,000 vertical foot Presidential Traverse with basically no training; attacking Mt. Ascutney, a notoriously steep and difficult climb with virtually no such climbing experience; scaling Mt. Marcy in -20 temperatures on three hours sleep and the flu. The list goes on. I never doubted I would finish any of these physical tests. Saturday's bike ride - 100 miles further and hillier than any ride I had ever been on - however, was designed for failure.

"What do you mean, designed for failure?"

Well, the logistics of a hilly 200 mile bike ride are quite difficult especially when it's going to be sunny, humid, and a scorching hot 90 degrees outside. For me to complete the ride, someone other than me would have to make a huge sacrifice and as it turns out that someone was Lauren.

I didn't want her to make this sacrifice. She would have to give up her whole Saturday to stay with me in a support vehicle. That is a frickin' lot to ask. So, I designed the route to be exceedingly difficult and impossible for me to complete with over 8,000 vertical feet of climbing. I figured I would ride about the first 120 miles and then hop in the Jeep with her and we would have the whole afternoon to explore Vermont. It would be the best of all worlds.

After a monstrosity of a Turkey Grinder friday night I decided that the route was set and so was my alarm clock. For 4:40 A.M.

"EEEEET EEEEET EEEET".

(Do they purposely design alarm tones to be the most heinous sounds imaginable? If so, cruel on you, Alarm Clock Maker Guy)

I felt OK waking up, if not a little out of it - Certainly not ready for a 200 mile human powered ride, but who ever really is?

The morning rush was a blur and before I knew it we were out the door; myself all shirtless with a half-on skin tight bib dangling from my back and a banana hanging out of my mouth, hair all over the place. Quite a sight to behold.

"Man the one thing that I love about waking up and going for a bike ride is a nice Dunkin Donuts Iced Coffee."

Closed. Hah! Good start. Luckily the gas station not too far down the road had a small Dunkin's but this meant hard bagels and less than perfect coffee. So be it. I couldn't think straight anyway and my taste buds wouldn't know the difference. My jaw would, though. Ouch! Rough bagel.

I suited up rather hastily because we reached the starting point in Amherst, MA a few minutes later than I had hoped, at about 5:25. It's hectic trying to put yourself together for a big bike ride. It's always a question of what you're going to forget. Shoes, iPods, Gu's, Tires, Levers, Pumps, PowerBars, Water, Gloves, Sunglasses, Sunscreen, HRM straps. I should take up barefoot running. You just go, man - Stuff be damned.

The tentative plan was for Lauren to just do her thing and stay ahead of me. If she was around, she’d give me some water and maybe a high five. Key word here being ‘tentative’.

Annnnd, we’re off.

“This is great, things are going good, I feel OK, hey look a cow, awesome!”
(This is my inside voice. I will shift elegantly from my inside voice to my outside voice and you will magically be able to tell the difference. Try to keep up)

It’s quiet. It’s humid. It’s damp. It’s overcast. The roads are wet. Lauren is... “Awww, MAN, where’s Lauren?”

“Shit!”

Out comes the cell phone two miles into the ride. Because I didn't want to stop, I had to look like 'that guy on a phone riding a bike' as I talked Lauren back on track.

“Do I go North or South on 116?", she asks.

Mind you we’re going to Burlington, VT which is very close to Canada, our great neighbor to the...

“North”

“...”

She’s adorable.

Phew, that was a close one but we’re back together again and I’m cruising over the Connecticut River. It’s still very foggy. I can’t see Mt. Sugarloaf. I definitely can’t see Burlington. Damn. What the hell am I doing?

The next twenty or so miles are pretty mundane and flat as my thoughts range from which GU to eat next to “I wonder what the mostly sane people of the planet are doing right now?”

Almost immediately I had to pee. This is where my love/hate relationship with bib shorts comes in. You have to basically perform a self strip tease every time you need to go. This isn’t a problem on a short ride because who gives a damn. On a long ride, however, it’s a pain in the ass because I have to pee a lot and because I’m rocking the iPod. Getting the iPod’s ear buds to your ear typically entails a vast array of intricate cabling through ones jersey to the ear. Fellow cyclists, you know what I’m talking about. This does not jive with taking your jersey off every 90 minutes. At any rate, I stopped in Greenfield at the McDonald’s to pee. I came out to find a nice older gentleman enjoying a cigarette and making a home on my bike seat.

“What the eff, man?”

Sigh, back in the saddle. Lauren was now nowhere to be found. That was OK though, because I was enjoying the lovely road side scenery of rusted cars and broken down gas stations along RT 5 in Northern Massachusetts.

It really was a nice morning. The fog still had not lifted and the day was quite still. The temperature was moderate and there was no wind (yet). I enjoyed this stretch as I rolled along mostly effortlessly.

Until... “Motorcycles use Caution - Road Construction, next five miles”.

Damn you, Brattleboro, damn you. For the next five miles I was a cyclocross rider on air light rims and what are basically track tires. Good times. Not. It's a bloody miracle I didn't flat.

After that tooth rattling goodness, Lauren nailed the turn onto Route 30 (YES!) and quickly I found myself on a nasty 1% false flat. Such roads have a tendency to really take the fight out of me, especially when they roll along for thirty miles. The gorgeous scenes of the Rock River made this stretch quite tolerable, as did the fresh pavement. After the shockfest that was Brattleboro, this was like heaven on wheels.

As the scenery continued to improve the road continued to steepen. About 70 miles into the ride I entered the Green Mountain National Forest and began one of the days larger climbs into Jamaica, VT. This climb was quite enjoyable as it weaved through lush deciduous forests on great pavement. I still felt fresh and my legs were like pistons hammering away at the 42/24 gear. LIKE PISTONS!

And then it happened. I crested the Jamaican climb and turned onto Route 100 in earnest. The first ten miles were relatively flat but pavement was suspect. And by suspect I mean there were gaping holes that would completely swallow a lesser man. Holy crap.

I used this section to fuel up in a big way. I dreaded bonking so I knew I needed to eat, eat, eat, and then eat some more. As I quickly learned, I needed to pace myself eating, too.

I hammered down a whole PowerBar in about thirty seconds and washed it down with a few big swigs of Accelerade. This gave my stomach about 350 calories to digest and digest fast. Massive mistake. In the endless struggle for blood supplies both my legs and my stomach were the losers for the next ten miles. I kept regurgitating the PowerBar and my legs were absolutely screaming. I thought I was done. This was it, game over.

I have read countless stories about the trials and tribulations athletes face during endurance events. They almost always speak of unthinkable pain and suffering at some point in their ride only to be magically transformed into a different person just thirty minutes later. I convinced myself I would have the same luck and gritted my teeth, put my head down, and attacked the hardest climb of the day with all my strength. After a short period of blacking out, I reached the top where Lauren had some fresh water and a smile for me. Perfect.

What followed was the scariest descent of my life. The road into Ludlow Village approached 14% and never crept below 10%. This meant I would either have to wing it at 50 + or risk heating my rims up to the point of explosion with my breaks. I chose to meet these two outcomes somewhere in the middle because the road was full of those massive, cow eating lateral cracks I was talking about before and descending at high speeds was downright reckless. I gave myself partial paralysis ramming the breaks on the way down but I made it through unscathed.

“Motorcycles use Caution - Road Work Next 5 Miles”.

Oh come on. Give a brother a break. The road through Ludlow (Near Okemo Resort) was a nightmare. It had been cold planed to high hell and many sections were simply open gravel. It couldn’t end soon enough.

I exited the Ludlow dirt fog feeling fantastic. The two mile, 1,200 climb and descent took my mind off of my stomach for a little while and gave it a chance to catch up. I fell right back into my rhythm despite the crap Radiohead tunes blaring into my ear.

I had no time to catch my breath as the climb to Killington would begin shortly. I needed to pee quite badly, AGAIN, and could not for the life of my find a pull off. So I basically winged it in an open field to the delight and dismay of many RT 100 passersby. Woods? A tree? Some sort of something to block my private parts? Screw it, I’m on a two hundred mile bike ride, this’ll do.

After putting my uniform of intricate shoulder straps and iPod wires back together I was at it again on a 2% lead into Killington. This is where the wind started. Dammit, nobody likes wind. Who the hell likes wind, anyway? Sailors? Screw those guys. Screw the wind. Damn. Did I mention I don’t like wind? Screw it!

I digress.

I soon forgot about the wind as I was on the 6% and steeper slopes leading up to Killington. I passed a couple of weekenders in sneakers on the lower slopes who vowed to “Catch my draft” on the way up. They stayed with me for a while and when I turned around a second time they looked like ants. Woops.

I felt good cresting Killington and stopped briefly for water. I also reapplied some saddle cream. God bless that stuff, man.

The next thirty or so miles were uneventful. I cruised along at about 21 mph, which seemed to be the preferred speed of the day on flat to slightly uphill roads. I popped the day’s first Ibuprofen before heading up the mountain to Granville State Reservation.

I’m not sure what combination of food, Accelerade, ibuprofen, and crack cocaine made me feel so good on this climb, but something did. I was literally hollering out joyful obscenities at Lauren as smashed my way up this coniferous lined, brook laden, beauty of a road. The climb was over as soon as it started and I finally got to enjoy a substantial section of 2% downhill grade over which I maintained about 30 MPH. I really flew through this section and I was feeling good until I hit mile 167 and the worst climb of the day began.

The combination of different pedal rhythms and a different angle of attack really hit me on this climb, as did the fact that I was ONE HUNDRED SIXTY EIGHT FRICKIN’ MILES and TEN FRICKIN’ HOURS into a bicycle ride. The climb was 8% or better for almost three miles. I shifted into the baby chain ring for the first time all day. I really didn’t want to do that but I genuinely had no choice. Good thing I had it. Then I blacked out. I don’t remember much other than the sounds of critters walking around haplessly in the woods without a care in the world.

The descent into Waterbury was scary because a passing shower had coated the road with water and made it like ice. Slow going. I made the left hand turn onto RT 2 after 100+ miles on RT 100 and I was in the home stretch.

I had told Lauren if I made it to Waterbury I had basically made it to Burlington. “All downhill.” What an idiot I was. RT 2 was flat to start but the wind was discouragingly smack in my face. At this point I just put my head down and plodded. And plodded I did. Until I reached the absolute Most Discouraging Climb Ever. It was short, just .5 miles, but it nearly broke me with it’s 12% pitch. Just nasty, nasty, nasty steep and at the worst possible time as I had just passed my first sign for Burlington, “Burlington 12”.

“I’m going to sprint it, Lauren.”

HA!

You will sprint nothing, said the nasty little hill that could.

After another period of blackout I was finally, truly and seriously, in the home stretch. I could see the Adirondacks which I knew were just across Lake Champlain. The traffic was picking up as were the stop lights. Planes were flying into Burlington Airport overhead.

“Burlington - 5”

“Entering South Burlington”.

“Burlington - 3”

There were a few decent rolling hills entering Burlington but at this point it didn’t matter. I was out of the saddle and pounding away at the pedals like I had just started riding.

“University of Vermont - Admissions”.

I had been to the UVM before and knew Lake Champlain and my finish line was right down the hill. At last, it was actually “all downhill from here.”

A red light brought me to a stop in traffic as soon as I caught my first glimpse of Lake Champlain. What a sight. What an incredible, beautiful sight. I remember being awed by that view when I drove to Burlington for the first time. But to ride my bike to the same view? I choked up, right there in traffic. People must have thought I was crazy. How great is that?

I coasted through a bustling Burlington with my face and legs covered in grime and sweat that had accumulated over the last 12.75 hours. I couldn’t wipe the shit grin off my face. I rolled onto the dock and Lauren chased behind me with the camera. I stopped pedalling. I took a few deep breaths and collapsed on the boardwalk in front of hundreds of people who again, must have thought I was crazy. I dreamed up a more elaborate plan during the ride that consisted of me riding straight into the water but there was no such path so I had no such luck. Maybe.... next time.

I was there. I made it. 201.6 miles, 11 hours and 45 minutes in the saddle later, I had finished what I set out to do. It’s something I will never forget and cherish as long as I live. I am totally humbled by the whole experience. Thank you so much, Lauren. I couldn’t have done it without you. :)

...

Random Ride Thoughts / What I learned

-You have to eat a ton on a long ride. A TON. The key is to time it right and to do it slowly. Don’t inhale or you will suffer. I guarantee it.

-Rubbing Chamois Creme INTO your bike shorts = the most clutch thing ever.

-Endurance events are 90% mental and 10% physical. Your mind is the only limiting factor.

-Ride within yourself. My average heart rate was 139 and my max heart rate was 159. This is quite low for me but it is essential to stay aerobic for this type of event.

-Drinking chocolate milk is not so good for recovery after a huge ride. I nearly lost my cookies in a Holiday Inn Parking Lot.

-Regular Coke is not nearly as delicious as Diet Coke.

-Hotels - Call ahead or get burned. I already knew this, I was just stubborn and paid for it.

-Moose Crossing - Next 'X' miles = Steep road coming.

Random Facts About the Ride

-Calories Burned: 8971

-Powerbars Consumed: 8

-GU Energy Gels Consumed: 11

-Plain 22 Oz. Water Bottles Consumed: 20 (Not the water bottles themselves. You’re so silly to think that)

-22 0z. mixed Accelerade Bottles: 8

-Ounces of Gatorade: 64

-Times Puked In Mouth: About 50

-Blackout Miles: The last 40

-Total Mileage: 201.6

-Average Speed: 16.7 MPH

-Maximum Speed: 48 MPH, backside of Okemo on a 12% descent.

-Minimum Speed: 0 MPH (I had to pee, dude)

-Times I Got Choked Up: 1, upon seeing Lake Champlain

-Times Lauren Was Amazing: 1,000,000,000.37

-Best Riding Music: Thievery Corporation. Radiohead sucks to ride to, come to find out.

-Flat Tires: Zero

-Mechanical Failures: Zero

-Cows: 553

-Naked Hippies: 1

-Biggest Asshole Driver: New Jersey Plates. Seriously.

-Best Road: VT Route 30

-Worst Road: The descent into Ludlow on 30/100. Grand Canyon-like lateral cracks that could slay you in an instant if you’re not paying attention.

Times Honked At: 0. This is something of a miracle.