So even though I’d never ridden farther than 55 miles, I didn’t feel nervous the morning of Levi’s GranFondo, a 103 mile ride with 8,800 feet of climbing. I knew that no matter what happened, if I had to walk my bike up some of the hills, take my time at the various rest stops, or happened to get multiple flat tires, I knew I wouldn’t give up and that I’d make it home that night feeling accomplished. I just knew it. I don’t know how or why, but I did.
James and I rode King Ridge in the winter of 2010 to both have an adventure and see what we were getting ourselves into. Well, he’d already ridden the 2009 GranFondo, so he had a pretty good idea. But just like I’m planning to take my new cycling buddies up King Ridge this year before the GF, he was trying to get me prepared. I won’t post the video he took of me at the top because it’s filled with naughty words and doesn’t make me seem very ladylike (I also mooed at a cow), but here’s a photo:
That January ride was probably the hardest ride I’d ever done. By mile 55, I parked myself at a gas station in Jenner and made James go get the truck. I never quit. Rehab is for quitters. But I quit that day, and I consoled myself with Kettle Chips and a chocolate chip cookie.
We rode to the start and I was pretty amazed by all the people. As we got closer and closer, I got more and more amazed. We didn’t leave ourselves a lot of room in the timeline, so when we got there, we kind of snuck into the “pro” staging area, heard the national anthem played on an electric guitar and blasted out of enormous speakers, and then we were off. It was elbow to elbow on the start, 6,000 riders all packed into several blocks of a small town street and starting to slowly take off.
It was…such a rush. The hot blonde in the front is Odessa Gunn, Levi’s lady (and a kick ass cyclist).
As if all this hoo hah weren’t enough, there was also a helicopter flying above the crowd with a guy taking video. Local residents and their children and their horses and their cows were flanking the sides of the roads jingling cow bells, waving signs, and cheering for everyone. Guys on motorcycles carrying photographers made us feel like we were on Le Tour, and CHP were helping keep all our roads clear.
I’d been given two pieces of advice that I planned to listen to this day. Johnny Watts told me to keep my heart rate under 160, and Randolph said “just keep the pedals rollin’.” As in, don’t loiter at the rest stops. I pedaled, and I pedaled. Because I’d started near the front, everyone passed me like I was a slowly rolling traffic cone. On the way to Monte Rio, a cheerful man pulling a peloton behind him shouted to me, “hop on the train!” As if I could even stay in their draft, I logically concluded it best to stick to my 160 heart rate plan and not push it.
Climbing heartbreakingly slowly up King Ridge, my pedals hovering around a cadence of 35 rpm, me and the riders around me were swearing. “Fuck this hill,” I heard a guy say. To make myself feel better, a few times I talked some friendly shit to the people passing me on the climbs. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll see you bitches again on the descent.” And a few of them I did.
Every ten miles the ride organizers had mileage signs. I was partially living pedal stroke to pedal stroke, sightline to sightline, but then also craving that ten mile sign each time it came around. It was somewhat painful, but what am I going to do, dwell on it? That only makes it worse. I just kept the pedals rollin’ and sang to myself. At one point I might have spent a full hour trying to remember a random person’s last name, just some friend of a friend who popped into my head who held no interest for me other than the repetitive and distracting challenge of trying to recall the name. Some time later I found another glorious mileage sign and moved on to some other topic.
We were blessed with incredible weather. Blue skies, dry roads and mild temperatures.
Coleman Valley Road was another ass kicker. I’d heard riders gossiping earlier about the climb and saying it had portions of road with a grade over 20%. I’m not sure it was ever really that steep, but it was tough keeping my heart rate under 160 like Johnny Watts said. At one point I was going so slow that a rider walking his bike up the hill passed me. I laughed and and talked to him about it, but he didn’t think it was quite as funny. I think he was cramping.
Around mile 80, filled with bliss and coasting at around 30 miles an hour towards Occidental, I rounded a corner and saw a bunch of guys waving their arms at me. A rider was lying in the road, unresponsive, facing away from me. I decided it wouldn’t be helpful to stop because there were already about eight people standing around the rider. As I passed, I looked, and there was blood on the pavement in front of his face. I started hyperventilating, which turned into sobbing, which turned into crying, which, by mile 90, turned into some sniffles and an occasional head shake: “I can’t do this. Cycling is not for me. I’m done.”
The last 13 miles were very painful and I dwelled on it. Everything ached. Nothing was cramping, thank god, but my back, my neck, my legs and my ass were all aching. I was sad about what I had seen. I was worried about the rider and was sure he was dead. I was fantasizing about unclipping from my pedals and lying down in some sweet smelling grass. I had very detailed conversations in my mind about what I might like to eat for dinner.
When I crossed the finish line 8 hours and 45 minutes after I started, I quickly found James. He gave me a hug and I started to cry all over again. I sat down on the grass in the park and cried some more.
Is it weird that I don’t remember what I ate for dinner that night? After all that purposeful time spent dreaming, and planning. I think we might have gone to Cafe Citti, an adorable little dining room in Kenwood with lasagna that tastes like a pasta, cheese, tomato and sausage filled cloud.
The injured rider spent several days in intensive care and will likely make a full recovery. It was a hit and run crash, check out this angry Press Democrat article about it. I’m not sure when or why I changed my mind about continuing the slow beginnings of my someday illustrious cycling career, but in the three months since the big ride, I’ve ridden 1,576 miles.
And, if we hadn’t made the gearing change at the last minute, I would have been “that guy” walking my bike up the hills and making ill-tempered remarks to passers-by. I probably wouldn’t have been very stoked to ride again. But I did the ride, I finished the ride, and I probably couldn’t have done it any slower. Nothing like setting a low bar; it’s going to be a piece of cake to finish that ride in under eight hours next year.
