The Crap eating dog

This was not "the dog"
I didn't have a camera with me at the time.
(This dog will have to do as a stand-in.)

***

When we are really training hard for something in particular there is noting better then looping around the Island multiple times. This was the case when a friend (Ann) and I were looping around the Island three times. The net effect from this ride is about 90 miles and 9,000’ of climbing.

About halfway through the ride we wanted to stop at Battleground Park for a bathroom break and to refill water bottles. It was a very cool surprise to find the horse-show going on when we arrived. In addition to all of the cool riders and horses—there were a lot of great food booths—which we sampled most of.

It was about this time when our blood sugar was bubbling happily after all the food and our stomachs were telling us to lay in the warm grass—but our heads were telling us we needed to keep on peddling.

The scene of all these elegant horses and riders also included a lot of horse crap everywhere. Inevasible I suppose. We were just lounging around in the sun trying to make the next move—when out of the corner of our eyes we saw a pretty dignified guy with some kind of a smallish dog pulling the guy on a very tight leash. Really looked like the dog was walking the guy. Ann was talking with this guy about the horses—and the dog—and the guy was going on and on and on about this special breed and the demeanor and the characteristics and who knows what else. It was sort of bla bla bla.

Then after a little while Ann asked the guy what kind of a dog it was. Immediately (as if on cue) the dog jumped hard against the collar and leash and landed on his target—a not too fresh pile of horseshit. I watched with horror amazement that this dog started grinding his head into the pile and eating huge mouthfuls.

I had been pretty quiet to this point—where by I answered Ann’s question by saying that this was a Shit Eating Dog. The guys face had this sort of twisted perplexed and sort of disturbed look--Ann was about to explode with laughter when I suggested we peddle on—now.

Travels

Traveling is simply the best. If I had the chance to create a national policy for the school system--I would require kids in schools to to spend a year in any foreign country. This would give them the opportunity to see life from a totally different perspective where family, work and life is generally very different. This might even give them a fresh viewpoint on their own country.

Deer Encounter

5:30 AM / Park Street

The fog and mist hugged the ground—and the smoke from the fireplaces from the houses enveloped you.

This morning was like so many, many others. Kind of like on remote control. Cruising up and down hills. Listening to all kinds of crazy music. Singing along on old songs. Just having a lot of fun. You get in this weightless zone where you don’t have any obligations or have to say or do anything.

At this hour it is perfectly quiet—and the only sound you hear are your tires, your breathing and your (well my) bad singing. Turning a bend in the road at about 20 mph I saw directly in front of me a huge deer. It was simply standing there looking directly at me. I wasn’t very far away from him. I frankly didn’t know what to do—so I just stopped and looked at him. This is what we did for several minutes the deer and I. It was just surreal—in this dark, foggy road absolutely silent this huge creature was trying to figure out what I was all about—just as I was trying to figure out what he was thinking and was about.

The Tree on F/U hill

Sunday 6AM

F/U Hill isn’t very long-probably only a few thousand feet at most-what it has going for it is location—location—location. You come screaming down a hill at about 40 mph do some very fast banks and you see the hill—and you always think that your built-up speed will ricochet you over the top. Once you hit a certain point of the hill gravity puts a lock on you and you need to really work.

This isn’t a big—huge deal. Bainbridge has lots of hills. There are long hills and some really hard hills. The fact of the matter going over this hill only one time isn’t such a big deal. When things get interesting is when you start looping around the Island more then one time. This is when some of my companions have dubbed this special hill F/U Hill.

One Sunday morning—I was supposed to meet a group of cyclists for an early morning ride. The weather was sketchy. OK it was raining and it wasn’t sketchy and all the riders made the decision to stay in bed. It was their loss. Being that it was a Sunday morning—and raining there was nobody at all on the road. It was very exceptionally beautiful. The rain wasn’t bad—nothing crazy-nuts or anything—just heavy, heavy mist.

There is something very spiritual riding through mist and rain when it is quiet. Everything has an amazing smell. I wasn’t too disappointed riding alone.

I wasn’t too concerned about going downhill in the rain. The fact of the matter was you had no brakes—so you simply knew not to hit the brakes—you would skid. The bigger issue was retaining traction going up the bigger hills. You couldn’t climb out of the seat as this caused you to loose traction on the rear wheel. You just had to stay seated—and dig in.

This was my state when I flew down –and approached F/U hill. I was digging in and grinding my way up. All of the sudden without any warning—and without any sound what so ever a large tree flopped down across the entire road in front of me. The tree was about 500 yards in front of me—so there was no immediate danger. I slowed down and got off the bike. And really wanted to say to somebody: Did you see that?!  It was just completely crazy. Apparently all the rain from the preceding few days weakened the trees roots—and it was simply too much for this tree—and it was time to come down.

There was nothing to do but ride up to the tree climb over and carry the bike over the tree to get to the other side of the road. It occurred to me that cars would be flying down that same hill towards the fallen tree—so I waited at the top of the hill stopping traffic and turning them around. One driver had some flares and we put them down. We contacted the fire department—and somebody came with a chain saw to start fixing the situation.

You couldn’t help but wonder the what- if’s. The one that went around my mind the most was what if the whole group of riders actually had shown up? Always going up a hill—especially a steep hill—there is always a stretched out group of riders. Who knows what might have happened. Crazy-lucky.

Nutrition / Hydration

Steven's Pass

Cancer

Everything you can ever imagine.

Cancer

I have been told just how great it was—and how good of a job I did when it comes to my beating cancer. The truth of the matter is I was simply lucky.

Don’t get me wrong—I was willing to do anything and everything to fight—but many people who fought just as hard just weren’t as lucky. I always told my doctors that I would be happy to double the dose of any medication and treatment—and do if for twice the prescribed time period—if it would give me better odds of beating this sickness.

It has been about six months since the doctors have given me a clean bill of health. This comes after a lot of work from a lot of people—and they all did a great job.

The funny thing is that I remember three odd events during the treatment periods. These events were mini vignettes. The first thing is embarrassing—not because they were poking around in funny ways or anything like that—but funny in the way you see yourself—and then feel ashamed about what you were thinking. It went like this:
One of the things you do very regularly is get your blood taken. Everybody wants some of your blood. It happens so often that you never ever get rid of the bruising from the needles. Most times the nurses do an amazingly great job poking you—but once in a while you get someone who should be in a different line of work. They keep sticking you and not getting to the right place---and you are trying to be and stay calm—but you can’t help but being really tense.

So I am sitting a waiting room waiting for my name to be called and for some reason things are really backed up and it is taking a really long time to get inside. There is this guy and his 2 and 4 year old kids in the waiting room with me. His kids are going crazy. They are running around knocking tables over—making lots of noise—laughing and the dad isn’t paying them any attention at all. All I can think of is what a lousy parent this guy is. I am assuming that he is waiting for someone who is inside getting poked—or perhaps—he is waiting to get poked. This makes me feel a little bad—because if he is waiting to get poked—he probably has a lot on his mind and I should cut him some slack. But I don’t—not really. His kids are really just going nuts.

As it turns out they called us all in at the same time—and I was very surprised to see the phlebotomist (the person who takes your blood) being ever so gentile with the younger of this guys two kids. Turns out that the two year old had leukemia—and was the patient. I didn’t see that coming. The father was so freaked out—about what was going on.  I had imagined that he didn’t know how to discipline his kids. But he was only trying to cope with an unimaginable situation.

The second event was when I was in the “vault” Deep in the basement of the cancer center they have a room dedicated for radiation treatments. They keep everything very clean and tidy and everything is very clean and high-tech. But none the less is is a very strange place. You enter the room through a thick vault door which is lined with lead. Inside the room looks a little bit like a recording studio. The room is very large and at one end of the room there is a very large and thick glass window where all the technologists, physicists, radiologists and oncologists look at the equipment—and control the machines remotely while you are alone in the room.

The process if fairly interesting. Based on your problems and diagnosis’s the team create an electronic three dimensional model of your body on the computer. They design a computer program which makes the gigantic electron particle accelerator beam move in a special way to move in front of you—and around you and in back of you. The table also moves around in the dance. It is actually quite amazing.

Before you ever start the treatments the doctors tattoo you with eight black dots all over your torso. They do this while beaming a test “spray” of electrons on you. This is calibrating you to the machine. By doing this—they can precisely position you each time you come back in perfect registration—so when the machine is turned on it can do it’s job of killing all the cells. The goal is to kill everything good and bad cells alike. They keep beaming these high powered radioactive particle bursts at you over and over, day after day—and week after week in the goal of killing everything in the localized area where you have the cancer. The idea and hope is that only the healthy cells will grow back. The process makes you sick and very tired.

The business end of the gigantic accelerator beam gun is very intense. In reality it is a supper-powered x-ray machine with a magnitude of several million times the power output. Because of the servo motors which control this huge machines movements—it is really something to see in action. I began to wonder what the other end of this monster machine looked like. I only say the part coming out of a clean smooth wall. So one day I asked the technologist who was finishing up with me—what was on the other side of that wall. Nobody had ever asked him before—so he looked kind of funny—but took me through a lead lined passageway door to where the gut of the machine was housed.

The inside of “this” room was a lot different then my treatment room. Here metal panels had been removed from some part of the beams control access panels to reveal circuitry and controllers. Apparently these machines have to be serviced all the time. The scene looked like something like a horror film in the land of the Xerox machines. There were wires and lights everywhere. The difference between those two rooms was unbelievable.

The final event I keep remembering has to do with a woman I would see regularly at my appointments. Generally speaking you have a lot of appointments—and they are regularly scheduled. You start to see familiar faces right away. You know who goes in before you—and who goes in after you.

The process and procedure is always the same with everybody—you are led to the back room just in front of the vault door where they have two dressing rooms side by side. The rooms are basic and the instructions are always the same: you take off all of your street clothes and put on thin flimsy and funky hospital gown.

I had heard that this one woman who was coming in after me wasn’t doing very well. She apparently had to do a lot more therapies then I had to do—and she had several of the procedures repeated over and over. Things weren’t working out well for her. She wasn’t lucky. One day I was in the dressing room on the left side completely naked in the process of changing into or out of clothes. Just then the door swings wide open and the woman who comes in after my treatments who was so sick mistakenly went to the wrong dressing room. She of course was totally mortified that she had disturbed me in some way. I thought that the scene was just so ridiculous and crazy that I had to laugh. I told her that this was the funniest thing that had happened to me in months—and then she started laughing too. It was just plain stupid—but funny. We were just laughing our asses off.

I hope that her luck changed for the better. I just have a bad feeling about it.

Friends

Cycle friends are the best friends. In time we all make the connection and get the feedback, which shows you the importance of close friends. If you are lucky you see this early and see how rich your life can be.

Training

The image in your mind.

I hate to say it but because of my background in music the notion of training for sports isn’t too big of a deal. In music—especially classical music—there is always this very big expectation that is put on you that no matter how good you are that there are many, many other people much better then you are. As a result only the most foolish and the most arrogant musicians with large egos ever presented themselves as great talents - because they knew the truth.

No one can get you to practice longer or harder then you can make yourself practice. In music you get a sound or an idea in your head and it is your unwavering goal to try and replicate that sound, that technique or that idea.

Focusing on training skill set goals in cycling isn’t too much different. Once you have in idea in your mind you can try and figure out a schedule of skill drills, training routines, methodologies or coaching to help you move in the correct direction—or get you back on track when you are off track.

The difference between professional musicians and professional athletes compared to armatures is in degrees. If we amateurs slack a little—or break training routines it isn’t such a big deal as it is with the pros. It might take some time—but you can make up lost ground.

Early Mornings

Pre Dawn:
Everybody has their own best time of the day when they are in their best mood, their best functioning time and their best zone. For me it is very early in the mornings before the sun comes up.

It is all about that three hour window when no one else is around--it is generally totally quiet and thoughts, ideas and connections between have room to work themselves out.

Those days when I am able to cycle for a few hours before the sun comes up are always the best days. There are virtually never any cars or people on the streets--just moon light, animals and the sound of the wind. As you get closer to dawn everything starts to change--the world shifts gears and begins the conversion process for production, function and reactions. It never fails to amaze you to start to see the sun begining to appear. Sometimes while you are riding and happen to be facing the East looking at the water and are lucky enough to see the light levels build. It is always the same-yet never exactly. You realize that the magic time is about gone--and those thoughts and ideas in your head need to be buttoned up or writen down. It's exactly like those few minutes when you wake up and remember your dreams--if you don't write them down--they simply slip away and disapear.

Food

Once the first person speaks--the party os over...

STP (Seattle to Peoria, Arizona)

12 Bicycles / 1,800 Miles / Eight Days
Ride from Seattle to Phoenix

It was an odd series of events that brought me to meet to Kelly White, the organizer of the ride-idea-fundraiser, who had the notion of cycling 1,800 miles in eight days from Seattle to Arizona.

Three years ago I was very surprised to find strange physiological symptoms, which led me to my doctors office. After a series of tests I was told that I had testicular cancer and had to have surgery within the next twenty-four hours.

Three months prior to this I had just finished reading Lance Armstrong’s book “It’s Not About The Bike” so I had fresh in my mind a powerful, deep knowledge of the disease, treatment options and the reality of treatment options for cancer care. The community of doctors said that I needed to have my right testicle removed surgically immediately then follow up with daily radiation treatments for a month at The Cancer care Alliance – a consortium of The University of Washington, The Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center and Children’s Hospital. Lance’s book helped me to know what to expect—what questions to ask and an idea of how things might go.

I was never scared about the procedure—in fact I elected to stay awake for the surgery. I went home and realized that everything had changed. For the first time I realized that I was not bullet proof as I had previously believed, and that basic human physiology and future could no longer be simply be taken for granted.

Up until this point I was athletic and was determined to get back into shape ASAP and not let this slow me down too much. The very first thing that I did was to communicate with my friends about what was going on. This really helped to build a strong support network. I learned that the more I openly communicated my feelings about what was happening to me—that others responded in kind. People shared their experiences. Apparently I made some very fundamental changes in the way I dealt with everything. I tried to not be too concerned with the small stuff and issues that consumed my mind and bothered me in the past. I choose to simplify my life as much as possible. Stay extremely healthy, always eating right and to be as mentally focused on removing as much stress as I could in my life.

I ramped up my cycle training and began training in a big way. I rode 5,000 this past summer—and knew that I was getting stronger. I was starting to have some real fun. I was climbing mountain passes on the bike—and then doing them again. I was starting to ride longer—and harder—and faster then ever before

A few months ago I read an article in the paper about Kelly White. It described her as someone whose husband had died a few years ago from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

Kelly is athletic and young. She had a really bright son, Conner from her marriage. She had a support network of friends who were like-minded—they all liked baseball and had some connections to The Seattle Mariner’s. Someone had one of those free association ideas moments saying something like—wouldn’t it be cool to ride from Seattle to spring training in Arizona for the Mariner’s?

These kinds of ideas usually just disappear wherever they came from—however many of Kelly’s friends were athletes, runners, cyclists, swimmers and tri-athletes. Some of these people thought out loud and did mental extrapolation of what would it would really take to make such a thing really happen.

Kelly had subsequently married Tom—a hysterically dry and funny—really thoughtful—solid and decent guy. Tom and Kelly had two adorable and really fun loving small boys: Teage and Finn. Tom and many of the other people in Kelly’s support network all worked at Microsoft. These were all very unconventional thinkers. Individual, pushed, directed, motivated and goal oriented. These people helped to organize this initial idea into a box of a product we can call ride to Arizona v 1.0. It was like a product development creation—then later a product launch. Over the years of this processing, fantasizing and refining of Kelly’s original notion—the idea of turning this event into a fundraising opportunity to benefit the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center in Seattle. This is one of the leading cancer research centers around the world for research and patient care. You can say that this modification turned Kelly’s original idea into v 1.2.

There was communication with the Seattle Mariner’s, sponsors and individuals who wanted to make this thing actually happen.

This thing now had a life of it’s own. It was no longer an merely an idea—it was a growing and maturing plan. The idea was out of the box and had a spirit.

Kelly’s life with the kids is like everybody else’s life; crazy, hectic, racing—never enough time. However the idea of a 1,800-mile ride had legs and had some really dedicated planners who kept working the idea and their vision of the event until it couldn’t be put back in the box.

One of Kelly and Tom’s friends—Paul (another Microsoft employee) took the responsibility of being ride director: planning stages, day routes and overall reality checking. Paul’s calm and deliberate manner and knowledge of cycling made his role in this endeavor invaluable. Paul is a very strong and athletic. Very competitive and viewed the challenge of a 1,800 mile cycle ride as a great opportunity to train for more Iron-Man competitions, which he had already done well at. Paul used charts, graphs, mapping software, metrics and detailed the rider’s strengths and figured out the overall day to day of the ride. We were supplied with communications equipment, GPS navigation hardware and software as well to facilitate the planning and ride. This is when the idea became v1.3.

The small core group set a date of March 3rd-11th because Kelly got a commitment from The Seattle Mariner’s that they loved the idea—and wanted to participate and the original plan grew to have the Mariner’s Moose (The Mariner’s mascot) throw the cyclist team a baseball in Seattle’s Safeco field—and carry that ball all the way down to the Peoria Sports Complex—where the Mariners practice and play spring training games. We were to arrive in the stadium on Saturday march 12th—the biggest game in the spring training schedule—a game against The Texas Rangers—we would be walking up to the pitching mound and throwing in the first pitch with that very same ball.

That ball would be signed by many of the Mariner’s and be auctioned off—all the funds raised from the auction—the fundraising and the donors benefiting the Hutch.

All that was left was to add the third dimension of public awareness, media coverage and interviews.

This is how I first become of Kelly White and her original idea. I read about her and the idea in a local Seattle newsletter. There were just a few lines about the idea and her e-mail address. I was curious who this person was—and how real the plan was—and how they envisioned doing it. It seemed pretty nuts—kind of impossible—but intriguing none the less. I e-mailed Kelly asking her to call me—and the phone rang ten minutes later. We talked for about a half hour and I heard in her voice how passionate she was about this idea. Her emotions were on her sleeve. Watching her husband die from Hodgkin’s was very hard on her and young son. She wanted to do something to transcend this experience into something positive—a way to use these experiences she had into a long lasting way to assist cancer research in the hopes of providing early detection via biomarkers through blood testing.

I liked what I heard but was really skeptical that this thing would actually happen. I didn’t know Kelly or her husband Tom at this point or her friends from Microsoft. I told her that I’d need to think it over and call her back. I called my wife Mary—who is the University of Washington “official” photographer—and told her about the idea. I totally related personally to Kelly’s plan. After going through cancer diagnosis, treatment and recovery to once again being strong—I too wanted to do something to raise awareness, raise money and to specifically thank the UW doctors, The Cancer Care Alliance for helping me. The CCA allowed me to be actively involved in my own care, treatment plans and they were totally compassionate. I completely got what Kelly was trying to do and decided to commit to the plan—and to my surprise and delight my wife Mary wanted to come as well to photograph and document the entire adventure. Mary’s three favorite things are photography, road trips and driving—a perfect fit.

I called Kelly and said that I was in.

It is really fortunate for me that my cycling training buddies Ann, Monica and Mark were training very hard prior to this. With these guys—cycling really hard—doing difficult climbs—doing long rides was fun. That was the lesson. Riding & training when these three helped me to learn what was needed to succeed at high level endurance training, proper nutrition, proper hydration and most importantly the proper mental attitude. With these guys is was always fun.

Physically I thought I was ready—mentally I had no idea what to expect. First I was doing something so completely out of my comfort zone. Agreeing to spend nearly two weeks riding across Washington, Oregon, California and Arizona with a complete group of strangers. I had no idea what to expect.

E-mail’s between the riders began to fly furiously between people as the leave date came closer. Questions, thoughts, answers, ideas—what to bring—what to wear. The magnitude of what we were about to attempt was sinking in. A week prior to our launch date we all met for the first time in Kelly’s house for a pot luck for dinner. We all talked tough and thought we had some idea of what we were doing—but the reality was that, as with many adventures it began to take on a life of it’s own.

The weather for the route out of the blue completely spun out of control. The worst thunderstorms, rain, mudslides, landslides, sinkholes and road closures in 100 years pummeled Oregon, California and the Southwest. We were freaked. The images of CNN of flooding communities—hill slides, massive snow in the mountains along with unpredictable highly fluctuating temperatures made you question your sanity for continuing the planning for this kind of a trip. We really had no choice—we were committed to the leave date—as we needed to arrive in Arizona for the ballgame. The media were all notified—our friends, coworkers and family all knew. There were no alternatives. So we prepared for everything: hot, cold, wet, dry, snow, rain, high altitude and low altitude. This was like a mailman’s version of combat commando training. It was on all of our minds. It was the number one, two and three thing that consumed my thoughts. Screaming down wet mountaintops bat 40-50 mph was insane and dangerous under bad weather conditions. Up until 4AM when we got on our bikes and started pedaling—we actually had no idea what the weather Gods had in store for us. We had brought tons of gear—and were braced for the worst. We got lucky—the storms broke wherever we went and had blue skies everywhere we rode. As soon as we were through a city or a state—the rains started again—but always places behind us. We kept dodging the storms—and by the time we got to California the storms had all disappeared and the weather couldn’t have been any better if we ordered it from the weather.com catalog.

Riding down the Southern Oregon and Northern Californian coast was the most amazing cycling experience any of had ever experienced. That says so much—especially if you consider the combined experiences of this group who have ridden all over the US and Europe. It was impossible to even a more beautiful coastline anywhere in the world then the place we were now riding. The coastline was an amazing series of cliffs, climbs and coastline beaches for as far as the eye could see. There were boulder formation jetting out into the Pacific that were amazing. It was like riding on an amusement ride at Disney—only tons better. We just wanted to repeat those sections again and again.

When we hit San Francisco we were amazed at our own progress. We stayed in a huge Holiday Inn Hotel—where my worst hotel fear came true. I woke up at around 3AM and wanted to go to the lobby to find some coffee. This hotel resembled the corridors of the Pentagon: hallways connected to other corridors leading to patios and more hallways—all-looking exactly alike. My trick is that I leave the hotel room door open an inch or two—so that the door won’t lock. This way when I forget the room number—which I ALWAYS do—I’ll see the semi-open door and know that I’m back again. This hotel was so large—and so confusing—that I got totally lost—and never did find the lobby. I was damn lucky to have found my hotel room—which I pushed in and suddenly realized I was in Kelly’s room—that she was in her PJ’s working on her laptop on the floor. We’re both just screaming….Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!

Logistics.
We were lucky to have several support vehicles donated for this trip. A 20-foot Mini-Wini (Winnebago) RV acted as our mother ship. Whenever we needed transportation—or a place to put tired riders who were spent—or a place to get a massage when they weren’t riding the RV was it. Mary W who accompanies us for the entire trip is a massage therapist—and was there to help keep us going. Mary had wanted to give riding a try—and one day did a 30 mile ride. We were all making jokes about her needing a massage, and that she wouldn’t be able to walk the next day—stuff like that. But the next day came—and she was fine-and wanted to ride some more. She did—and never complained—had great natural form and became another strong asset to our riders. She helped us rack in miles.

The RV had a tiny kitchen with a tiny refrigerator and freezer. The latch door of the refer was funky and had a habit of not locking whenever we were making wide turns dumping the contents of the highly over-stuffed refer everyplace. The main contents of the refer belonged to one particular rider—Bethany. Tough-as-nails and totally strong. Bethany had a thing for Lucerne dairy products. It was an obsession. It became hysterical just thinking about all the cottage cheese, yogurt, soy milk—dumping out and flying everyplace—bouncing into people—jugs of water and whatever might else be in the way. When we rode past the town of Lucerne, California we all laughed and cheered. Bethany is so great. Fierce / direct / and always in your face. She is the kind of person who you want on your side. She was and it turned out that as we learned—she also had one of the biggest hearts.

The RV turned out to be like a test-lab for roommates. With so many people sharing so little space, everybody’s personal habits, issues, needs, hygiene and cleanliness was always a presence. We quickly found that to make the needed miles each day—we needed to be on the road longer then we had originally anticipated—and then late at night finding a hotel—and a place to eat everything in sight. The nights got longer—and we never got much sleep. Never more then three or four hours. Mental fatigue helped to mix it all up—and we just bounced and rode and kept moving forward.

Our second support vehicle was a large van outfitted to hold six bikes comfortably, a driver and a passenger. The passenger’s role was to mix Cytomax (energy recharge drinks) and grab the empties from the riders and exchange them for full bottles. The passenger—also known as the shotgun seat would hand out tubes of Gu (a highly concentrated carbohydrate liquid the consistency of toothpaste) and energy bars of every shape, color and flavor. They would also be taking photos from this position—and yelling all kinds of encouragement to the riders.

We would occasionally loose a rider, or the support van or the RV. We were all moving targets and whenever this would happen—we would waste a lot of time—and loose mileage that had to be made up. It was frustrating.

When we would find a lost rider—and it was too late for them to ride to a prescribed location—the van would have to pick the riders up. As the van was probably already loaded with six bikes and the driver and the shotgun—the additional two or three bikes would need to be jammed and stuffed into the back somehow—then the two or three cyclists would need to be crammed into any space that they could squeeze into. Then they would have to sit in this position for many many miles until we would make it to the town we were going to sleep in that night. It was hugely uncomfortable. There were bags of trash, a million jugs of water, camera gear,spare wheels for the bikes, bike repair tools, and food. Being jammed back there was like having the Heimlich maneuver being done to you repeatedly. Somebody must have accidentally stepped on a packet of strawberry GU in exactly the place where Bethany sat down one day. She had strawberry GU on her butt all day long. It was a total crack up.

The support van was very much like the lunar module on a Nasa mission to the moon. It kept us alive, fed and hydrated.

For the final four days of the ride a third support vehicle was rented to provide additional support—transportation—coordination and to help us in an assortment of ways. The three vehicles all had laptop computers loaded with GPS navigation and mapping software, walki talkies, (that never ever worked) cell phones and other communication gear. The scene was a little surreal. When a rider would get off course and be lost or stranded—the support vehicles would try to triangulate the riders position to find them and pick them up using things like road markers, position of the sun, mountains that either did—or did not have snow. It wasn’t perfect—but #1 it all looked really cool—and at times it saved our butts.

On the fifth day of the ride Tom moved from the navigation / communications seat in the RV to the bike saddle. Tom’s focus and intelligence are apparent in everything he does. He wanted to do a small stretch—perhaps 20 miles to get some feeling back in his legs and to get some sun. Tom was scheduled to be the first rider of the day. The way our morning routine worked was that the first rider (or riders) generally left when we were still eating some breakfast. They would get a several hour head start and we would catch up later.

When the group had packed up the RV—cleaned our chains—filled the Cytomax bottles—conferenced on he daily ride assignments and made decisions on any route changes we were off. After about an hour we hadn’t heard from Tom so we tried to call him on the cell. Many times cell service was bad and we couldn’t reach riders—but this time the service was OK. Tom responded that he was doing fine—on the correct road—and riding out of town. We checked on him again about forty-five minutes later—and the situation had changed. Tom said that he wasn’t sure where he was—that he appeared to be lost.

He gave the names of the roads he was near—and they sounded correct—he mentioned that there was a mountain range with snow on his left side--however the landmarks were all way off. Nothing seemed correct. The day was getting very warm—and we didn’t know how much water Tom had with him. Finally someone asked him where the sun was. He said at his back. This told us immediately that Tom made his first turn wrong out of the parking lot and went in the opposite direction he should have. It turned out that there were two mountain ranges with snow—and we had assumed incorrectly that we were all referencing the same mountain range.

By now several hours had gone by—and we still weren’t sure where exactly Tom was—we had a suspicion that he had ridden past the poppy fields—and was on route to Edwards Air Force Base. We contacted Tom again—and told him to stay put where he was—and we would get somebody to him. He said that he couldn’t stay put—that two of the three screws holding the cleat in his riding shoe had apparently fallen out—and when trying to click out of the pedals—his left foot would just slide. So Tom was riding around in circles and riding around the block waiting for us. After a while he tried calling us again—to see what our progress was—and tried to click out while on the phone. We heard the yell—oh crap!! He couldn’t get his foot out—and we had heard him fall—while laughing. Twenty minutes later he was in the RV and we were all talking with him—very glad that he was OK but very amused that this navigations and communications whiz got so off course. Then Mary L asked Tom about his stuck shoe. She said—how come you just didn’t take your foot out of the stuck shoe—and leave the shoe on the pedal? He just had that look on his face—and we all had a real good laugh over that. Tom said he was thinking of a way to cut his foot off at the ankle.

Very occasionally we would get into a final days destination early enough to find a hotel—and eat a decent dinner—take a shower and sit around the table—drink beer & wine and go insane. I remember several folks drunk as skunks sincerely thinking that it would be great to organize a sailboat race from Mexico to Europe with bikes on trainers with the riders wearing kilts—riding side saddle and all bare breasted.

My favorite ride from the trip was in the Mohave Desert. I was schedule to do a 70-mile ride—and it was going to be a scorcher of a day. By 9AM it was already in the mid 80’s and I was scheduled to start at around 12:30 when the temperature was hovering around 90.
Starting the night before—I was drinking a lot of water and Cytomax. Two hours prior to the ride I drank about two gallons.

When I was finally released I had two water bottles on the bike with Cytomax, in my jersey pocket I had a bottle of water and two bottles of Energice—along with a lot of GU and some Land Yager sausage.

The support van was supposed to stay pretty close to me on this ride—but something must have happened with one of the other riders—or a vehicle got lost—or something as I didn’t see the van in the first four hours. The road I was on was called 29 Palms. It was in great shape—and the desert was simply beautiful. As I rode through Joshua Tree through smaller and smaller towns until I was out into the dessert I felt great. The heat wasn’t bothering me at all—I was making excellent speed averaging around 20 mph and I didn’t have a care in the world. There were very few cars on this road—perhaps I’d see one every half hour to every hour. What I mainly saw was rabbits, lizards and amazing desert flowers—from all the torrential rains from the preceding week.

As I was approaching the 70-mile mark I saw the support van come up from behind. They were freaked out. They said that they thought that they had lost me—and that they had gone up and down the entire length of 29 Palms twice—and could never find me. I guess the sun must have gotten in their eyes or something because I never got off the road.

I was feeling so good that I made the decision that I wanted to try doing a century—a hundred mile ride in the Mohave. There was something so cool about the idea. I had already climbed two mountain ranges—and I could see that there was another in the distance I’d need to climb. I asked Bethany and Dave (Paul’s amazingly sweet brother) if they would mind if I attempted this. If I did this—they would be responsible for staying close with me for the final 30 miles and I was feeling really guilty about making them stay out later then they needed to—making them late for checking into the hotel—and late for eating dinner. They said that they had spoken with the others— that everybody was behind me and supportive of the idea of doing the century in the dessert.

I did the final 30 as the sun was going down in the most beautiful sunset I may have ever seen. The final mile or two were in total darkness—but Dave and Bethany had the support van behind me with their bight’s on so I could see just fine. On the final mile—Al Green started playing on my I-POD and as I finished the 100 I just coasted. I clicked out one foot to stretch it for a while—then stretched the other foot and leg—all the while just coasting. It seemed like I was coasting for five to ten minutes—all the while listening to Al green at sunset in the Mohave. It was so great.

When I got the bike and myself into the van for the ride into some small desert town – I just felt so elated—and strong and supported. Dave and Bethany and I talked about a lot of stuff as we drove in. it was a great talk. Dave talked about his kids in a way that made me have an insight to just how great a father he was. He so obviously cared about these kids more then anything else in the world. It was cool to see it in him. We drove for about 40 minutes into the tiny town where we would be drinking beer, eating pizza and sleeping for a couple of hours. That night before I went to bed I took my bike into the shower and spent a good 20 minutes washing all the sand, and dirt and grime that completely caked all surfaces. I used the hotel towels and hotel shampoo to give the bike a total bath—then held the bike up—as if dancing to shower all the dirt and soap away. After lubing the chain—the towels looked pretty bad—a quick look around the room showing the pizza boxes, beer bottles, black greasy towels and food all over the floor—made me think that we were like rock stars trashing hotel rooms. Things were looking up.

Amazing Statistics.
I’m riding up front of the RV with Tom—who is driving with the open laptop on top of some sleeping bags and coats. He’s checking out elevations, and routing information—all while driving. He is currently looking at a elevation map showing the peaks of the next route’s climb—and I wonder if he can calculate the total elevation gain (only uphill portions not including any down hills) He gives me that of course look—then surprises both of us with the amazing number of 180,000’ of total elevation gain. That number is simply astonishing.


On the very final day of riding Kelly came up to me and said that she wanted to try and ride more then she had ever rode before. Up until this point Kelly’s highest mileage for a ride was 30. She made it clear that she hadn’t suffered enough on the trip—and wanted to do more. I told her that I’d be happy to take her for as long as she wanted to go. It was a really windy day—so I told her to stick close to my rear wheel and we started to pedal. We were making some decent speed into the wind—and we rode past the old dilapidated vacant motels—the yard sales full of dusty crud and the desert flowers. When we approached thirty miles she said that she thought that she could do more—to forty. We put our heads down—hunkered down and kept pedaling. She had done more then ever before—and as we approached the forty mile mark—she said that she thought she could do fifty—we drank a ton of water—ate some GU and pedaled on. We talked and she was happy about the ride—she said that she had never had such a good ride before. At the fifty-mile mark she said that she thought that she could go to sixty—and joked to me that she might want to try 100. I told her that I wouldn’t take her to 100—because she’d probably end up in the hospital—and Tom would kick my butt. Bur still Kelly peddled on—I told her that as we hit the 59th mile—that I would swap positions with her—and make her pull on the last mile. Of course—that final sixtieth mile was up a hill. She was feeling the mileage and the hill and the exhaustion. She was so happy—she cried—and gave me a huge hug. It felt really great.

When we finally did arrive in Peoria we were elated that we actually made it without any injuries. It was a beautiful afternoon. We circled around the Sports complex—took some photos—then ate a lot of food and drink. Then realized that we needed to find a hotel. Because of spring training—there simply weren’t any rooms available—anywhere. We tried all the on-line sources—ad friends of friends—finally a travel was able to hook upp up with what they billed as the last motel room in the city.

It was very late at night—and it took about two hours before the taxi came to pick us up—so we were really tired. The cab driver asked us if we were sure that we wanted to stay in “that” neighborhood. He seemed like a decent guy—and wanted to alert us that the motel was across the street from the men’s maximum security prison (with double rows of razor wire) 1/2 block away from the women’s correctional facility, kitty corner from the state’s mental hospital and bordering one of the runway’s of the airport. He also made a point of saying that there was a good topless bar across the street. We also noticed a men’s revue club nearby called Dick’s as we pulled into the driveway of the motel. At least the room was clean. The next morning we were starving—and like the mirage in the desert—one block away was the best restaurant in the entire world. Bill Johnson’s Big Apple You eat ‘em restaurant. It was dark—it was cool it was western—the waitress’s all wore guns on their belt and the food was incredible—nothing fancy—just great American food. We came back and back and back again until we were stuffed. All we did was sleep and eat. It was so great to not ingest the GU’s and the drinks and the bars. The next day we hung around the pool and rested. Everything was very cool.

The day of the Mariner’s game came and we had to do some interviews for TV and radio—and we all had to go up to the pitching mound before the game started so that Connor could throw in the first pitch. We were worried that he’d blow it – or take out the catcher (Dan Wilson’s) eye. But Connor threw the ball straight—right down the middle—and we all joked about Dan Wilson having a hurt hand.

The game was great and the Mariner’s won—beating the Texas Rangers. And still some amazing things happened where there were lesson’s to be learned. At some point in the 6th inning Connor went up to get yet another hot dog—he was alone—and a little six year old girl came up to him and wanted to thank him and us for everything we had done—because she was a cancer survivor and it really meant something personally to her. Connor came back to where we were all sitting in the grass and was shaking—he was obviously moved and affected by what the little girl. It also had a profound effect on the rest of us.

Incidents

Cars, People, and Animals...

The Jacket

How can anybody have such a bad day--this was my worst.
I challenge you: Have you had a worse day?

It all started out so simply--with such good intentions...I sort of had a little bug. A flu thing. I didn’t think it was a big deal or anything.

I had this experiment I wanted to try while riding. The weather had gotten very cold—and my feet were really getting frozen. I had this one pair of riding shoes that I liked—not the regular racing shoes—slip on jobs. The problem was that they were just too large to fit any standard neoprene booties. So I had what I thought was a great idea—and thus necessitate the need for “The Experiment”.

I was trying to find some kind of a waterproof bootie wanna-be that would fit over these huge slip on riding shoes. One of the knuckleheads at the REI cycle department suggested dipping the shoes in liquid rubber (the kind you mark your tool handles with) an even dumber solution then my solution.

I remember seeing (on TV) those black rubber slip on booties that men used to wear in the 50’s when it was raining and they covered their wing tip shoes. Seemed like a great idea—they were big—thick and waterproof. It took forever to find a pair of these ugly ducklings. Apparently only 80 year old questionably fashion challenged men are still looking for them—so there isn’t a huge demand. Once I found them—I cut out the bottom to reveal the cleat slipped them over the cycle shoes—batta bing, batta boom—I thought this was pretty easy. Ready to try them out.

I figured that to really make this experiment more interesting I would add a few layers of complexity. I wore very thin sock layers, covered by thick wool socks. To make this even more interesting I decided to stick on a chemical heater pad (the same kind used for the hands) on the feet between the sock layers. I suited up cracked the chemical seal—put the shoes (with their ugly booties on) and began the ride to the Seattle ferry terminal.

Despite the flu-bug thing--on that short ride my feet felt fabulous! I was thinking that this idea was looking pretty good. Once on the boat it was time to get rid of all that coffee in my system. There wasn’t a shelf available anyplace I could see—so I set my helmet down in the nearest sink—unfortunately it was fitted with one of those infra-red sensors which turn on water as you approach. With the helmet cover over on—it acted exactly like a large salad bowl. Once I dumped all of the water out—I tried using the electric hand dryer do dry out the insides—but that didn’t work at all—and the looks I was getting from the guys in the men’s room was something else. I decided to bag it—and just wear the wet helmet.

Once on the Island everything was fine—for about five minutes. There was some kind of a temperature inversion and it got really cold—and very damp. Just then the bottom part of the zipper of my jacket opened up from the bottom. The zipper had screwed up and I looked like a circus clown riding with this jacket opened from the wrong end. I kept messing around with it—kept riding—and kept fighting it. By this time I was far enough from the ferry terminal that turning back wasn’t an option—I told myself “screw it!” and opened up the jacket all the way. At least it wasn’t bunching up around my face and driving me crazy. By this time I was really getting very cold. It was around this time that I realized that I had a fever and I was pretty sick—at about the same time my feet were starting to feel very strange. The rubber booty / sock heater experiment was running it’s course and we now were in phase 2—the phase where your feet are so warm (from the cycling and the heat and the insulation from the multiple pairs of socks) that they were starting to sweat profusely. Bad news was that the thick rubber booties were not even a little breathable. So from a start of having toasty feet to phase 3, where my feet are freezing took only a few minutes.

By this time I am approaching the total miserable state. The wet helmet, wet cold feet, broken jacket zipper and flu fever was starting to rage. Just then my iPOD battery died. I said screw it—I was going to phone someone on my cell phone to come and get me—but there was no service where I was. Arrrgh!

By the time I did make it around the Island and back to the boat all I could think of was getting this diabolical jacket returned to REI ASAP. I couldn’t stand the thought of looking at it.

The next morning at REI the salesman—looked at the jacket and showed me that the zipper actually didn’t have one of those bottom openers (that I had thought & assumed it did) All you needed to do was to reinsert the metal into the holster—and it was OK. I was so pissed—off that I hadn’t had the presence of mind to see it the day before. I have to assume that the fever I had clouded my judgment—but brother—did I ever feel stupid.

Peeing

Peeing!

4 Laps / 12 hours

30 miles/lap. 3,000' elevation gain per lap
120 miles / 12,000' elevation gain.

Coffee Shops

Pegasis & Treehouse