Hawk Mountain 200K - Digging the well

 "We dig the well of our personal reserve to the depth

and breadth of our experience"

My uncle Frank used to call it digging the well. Back in the 80's, when I was a teenager, uncle Frank introduced me to long distance cycling. He used the phrase to describe hard training, pushing back limits, the process of building of a deep reserve of strength and will to draw upon when things get tough, when you needed to go to the well.

The image stuck with me. I picture shoveling dirt, doing the hard work, again and again, to create a space to store that something extra to call upon in times of need. The well must be dug deep enough and big enough to meet the needs of the event. I also knew that an empty well is just a hole. To make it useful, you have to dig it far enough in advance so that, while you rest and recover, it can fill with the reserves that you may one day need. With the 768 mile Paris-Brest-Paris ride just over six weeks away, now is the time to dig the well.

January 2015 - A moment of warmth and light.

January 30, 2015.

Soft afternoon sunlight fills her clean spacious bedroom. Drawn-back white gauze curtains barely stir as a warm Florida breeze carries in a floral note that mingles with the purple orchid on her dresser, flows across the black and white photos of her son's wedding and around the framed printed messages of Christian hope and faith. The breeze, the warmth and the light nestle into the blankets and pillows that fill the space between my aunt's now frail body and the oversize recliner that supports her. The breeze, the warmth, and the light are relaxing, soothing and almost enough to completely erase the tiny occasional odor that arises from her colostomy bag like a nagging reminder of her painful inoperable cancer.

Summer rain - NJ Transit 200k

Summer rain can fall
light and steady 

2014 April 200K - a change in perspective.

Given a choice of climbing vicious hills or riding into hours of unrelenting headwinds, some Randonneurs will choose hills and some will choose headwinds.

But some will choose both.

The Asterisk* ride (aka Montezuma's revenge)

Randonneuring offers many medals, but the R12 award has a special meaning. Earning it takes one year of monthly rides of at least 200K in length. Unlike a single event medal, the R12 awards consistency, perseverance - in short, commitment. Miss one month, and a year's worth of effort is lost. Other riders may be faster, more traveled, may cover greater distances but even a below average rider with above average perseverance can build a streak of R-12 awards that literally takes years to accomplish.

Living in the northern U.S. adds another level of challenge to the R- 12 as winter can close roads with ice and snow.

I have ridden at least one 200K rando ride every single month since my first randonneuring event in April 2010. This March would make 48 months straight - four years - without fail. But February comes before March and, weather wise, February in the northeast United States is no gimme. That was especially true this February.

In my part of the world, the polar vortex of 2014 brought arctic temperatures and layers of unrelenting snow. New snow fell on old snow and, in between the snowfalls, the temperatures dropped to single digits.

There were a couple of windows of opportunity. The Pa Randonneurs rode on February 1 and got the February ride done. I passed on the ride for a family event. Then there was my birthday weekend when the temps rose into the balmy 50s for a brief spell. I chose not to ride that day either. By the time the last week of February arrived, I had not been on a bike for over 5 weeks.

But I had plan. I had a work trip to San Diego in the last week of February. Just add a day, take a bike and *boom* problem solved. I would just ride my 200K in the Golden State where winter meant sunny 65 degree days. In fact, I would ride a 100K and a 200K! I made arrangement to ride a 100K permanent called Old Town to Carlsbad and two days later, the Montezuma to Mesa Express permanent. All together it would be 195 miles up and down the beautiful coast north of San Diego. Ha! Take THAT Polar Vortex! Life is good!

Since it was the first time I was going to fly with a bike, I decided to take the fixie. I figured that if a bike was going to get damaged by either my bad packing or someone's bad handling, the fixie was the bike I wanted to risk.

 {For those who may not know, a "fixie" or fixed gear bike has one gear. That gear turns with the wheel. If the the bike is moving the pedals are turning.No changing gears and no coasting - ever. To ride it is to keep pedaling. Always.} 

I hadn't ridden the fixie on a 200K since September but hey, the ride descriptions made the course sound relatively flat. No problem!

The first ride was just about as good as I imagined. Better in fact.

Winter Solstice Ride

 

I don't know if any words can capture the full magic of our Winter Solstice Ride but Patrick (Dancer) said it well:

bade farewell to autumn and welcomed the first day of winter with a small handful of hardy randos on the inaugural Winter Solstice 200k, the all-night ride complete with bikes festooned with string lights, tinsel, reindeer antlers and Santa hats, the dark night punctuated with Christmas carols, bad jokes and oohs and aahs at the festively decorated houses along the route. Good friends, good times: a wonderful way as any to spend the longest night of the year.

Schuylkill to Susquehanna

Saturday is laundry day in Lancaster county. Riding through miles of farmland, we see clothes hanging from lines stretched between homes and barns or sheds. Lots of black, single color, simple clothes snapping and whipping in the cold steady wind. They remind me of Tibetan prayer flags.

Hard Nox

We rode the Nockamixon 200k Permanent. After starting in New Jersey, it crosses the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. The land is a series of ridges and valleys that run parallel to the river in row after row of geographic wrinkles. The route crosses the undulations. The climbs are short but steep. They come in groups, like waves on a rough sea, spaced by brief stretches of flats and false flats. We climb and climb again.

Birds in flight - February 200K

Many hours into a 140 mile ride, we pass hundreds of acres of open land, a winter farm field, laid bare until Spring. It is the last weekend of February. The wind blows strong, cold and constant. We have many miles and hours yet to go.
 

Len, my riding partner for the day, tells me a story of another time, another ride, on the same course at the same field. 

Of Ice and When.

January all but slipped away. Along with it, the opportunity to keep my R series streak going. Since my first brevet, not one month had gone by without my riding at least one 200k. Now, less than one month into the new year, life was getting in the way. I skipped the January 5, 2013 PA Randonneur ride to celebrate my wife's birthday. I organized a 200k permanent later in the month but had to bail before starting it to work that weekend.  Then it was my daughter's birthday. Then the forecast for last weekend of the month called for sub freezing frigid temperatures and snow. By that time, the last time I went for a ride of any substance was a 200k in early December - like six seven weeks ago. Since then nada. I felt off my game. Doubts about the distance alone grew, much less riding it solo in sub freezing temperatures. What to do? Let it go and start again in the Spring?

The Jersey Devil in December.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Sunday was a good day to lounge around in a robe and warm slippers, curled up on the couch with a cup of coffee, a hard crossword puzzle and a sharp number 2 pencil with a good eraser. Instead, at 6:00 am, in the lingering night that makes a December morning, I was driving through fog, interspersed with rain, to meet three Randonneurs in Vineland, New Jersey and ride a 201 kilometer route through five south Jersey Pineland counties. 

Flatbread 200K, sweet and scenic

The DC Randonneurs Flatbread 200K is a flat course that twice crosses the northern end of the Delmarva Peninsula by first going east from Centreville, Maryland, near the Chesapeake Bay, to Slaughter Beach, Delaware, on the Delaware Bay then making a short trip south to Milton, Delaware before heading west back to Centreville.

I rode this course for the first time last year. Then, the incessant wind made for a memorable experience. Despite that, one year later, I decided to give it another go. As the weekend drew near, I realized that I had missed a few highlights of the route the last go around. I vowed to not let that happen again.

October 200k in Central Jersey (or what wouldn't I do for a hot cup of coffee.)

I guess I could blame the RBA.

Just before the start of the NJ Rando's October 200k, the "Ron Anderson Special", she explained the alternate procedures for the final controle:

If you finish before 5 pm, the coffee shop will be open and there will be a sign in sheet and envelope inside.

If you finish after 5 pm, you will have to drop your brevet card in the window of a parked car. (No coffee, no baked goods.)

The ride would start at 7:30 am. I took off my gloves and did the math - 9.5 hours to get in before 5 pm. Before arriving at the start, I was convinced that I would ride a relaxed pace - just enough to check the October R-12 box and get in before dark. I even brought the fixie to discourage any thoughts of a hard paced ride. But, hmmm, I have ridden a 200k on the fixie faster than 9:30 - just once - last year - when my friend Joe pulled me around the course. Joe wasn't riding today. Then Katie really put the carrot on the end of the stick - she said it was a fast course. And then we were off. 

Guess what happens when you give a group of Randoneurs - people who ride long rides to beat essentially arbitrary time constraints - a time constraint that involves possible coffee and baked goods at the end of a ride? 

Grabbing a tiger by the tail

The arguing voices grew more heated. One voice pleading just let go and slow down. The other screamed quit bitching and hang on. The simmering argument reached a boil. Sad part is, both voices were in my head. With the voices as a backdrop, I ride on.

Rando Joe, AKA Mellow Yellow, leads our group of four on a fast ride of the 128 mile Princeton-Belmar-Princeton Permanent in New Jersey. Fresh off his recent record setting ride in which he soloed his fixed gear bike across the width of New Jersey, Joe rides a constant, unrelenting, pace. Joe likes to lead. He volunteered to pull our group around the course. We agreed. So the three of us do an informal paceline rotation in his draft.

NJ Transit 200K Permanent - Moving toward isness.

(Sunday August 19, 2012-  Hillsborough, New Jersey)

The next big thing, my goal ride for this summer of training, is less than two weeks away (more on that later). To get in one more 200k, both as part of a taper and as a “safety” to keep my R12 streak alive, I rode the NJ Transit 200k on Sunday.

Hawk Mountain 200k Permanent - The ride of the psycho chicken

On Saturday, I rode the Hawk Mountain Permanent with Chris from PA. He's working on his R12. 

This will be my third 200K in as many weekends, with a few 100's tossed in for good measure. After Friday morning's pre-work 100k, I'm a little tired but, the big ride in August is getting closer and it starts with lots of climbing. I want to be ready. 

Hawk Mountain has 8500 feet of climbing. That's why I chose it.

Shore by Night 200k

The NJ Randonneurs "Shore By Night 200k" began at 10 pm. Fourteen of us would take an overnight bike ride from Cranbury NJ to the Jersey Shore and back - 130 miles. A simple description of a simple event. So why was it that doing that simple thing felt so dreamlike, surreal, inverted?

Hawk's Nest 200K - Playing in the street.

Today, I went to the mountains to play in the street.

Ted saw a black bear. He took a picture of it. The  picture shows the black bear standing, nose to ground, next to a white swing set. Its body seems half the height of the swing set.  Thick, rich, black fur. Either Ted has very good zoom or that bear was close.

Ted saw the black bear on the long climb on Route 390 toward Promised Land. I made the long climb toward Promised Land but I didn't see the bear. Maybe it wasn't there when I went by or maybe I was just focused on climbing, turning the pedals, passing the bottom of the ski lift and the "antique store" where "antiques" fill the front yard like a mashed confusion of history's droppings.

Ted showed me the the picture at the next controle, an Exxon Mini Mart:

R24

On the way to the start, I could barely see.Thick damp fog clouded the Princeton Junction area, the starting place for the 200k permanent. Air suspended water vapor shrouded the street signs and veiled oncoming headlights. Despite my early departure, I arrived 12 minutes late. Those 12 minutes would matter only to me since this was to be a solo ride.

New Year's Day 2012

I like New Year's eve and New Year's day. Always have. I like that I can wish pretty much anyone a Happy New Year without couching it in some watered down generic don't step on any toes phrase. I like that New Year's eve and New Year's day is a non-denominational,  world wide, non-controversial holiday that pretty much everyone can celebrate. Even if they celebrate another new year in Spring or Fall, New Year's Eve still marks the last day of 2011 and the first day of 2012. All you have to do to do is agree that one year is ending and another is beginning. It's that simple and yet that profound. I like that.

I'm a trip odometer re-setter. When I fill the tank on my car I press that button to reset the counter to 0.0. On a road trip, the "A" setting is for the trip and the "B" setting is for each new tank of gas. Each push of that reset button is a simple affirmative step that says I have come this far and I am ready to go wherever the next miles will take me.

New Year's day is a good time to reset life's trip odometer. It does not erase  the accumulated mileage or turn back the hands of time, but it creates a little moment to remember the past while looking forward with resolution. It's a time of acceptance and hope. Life can be complicated. It's good to have a reset point.

My simple affirmative step for New Year's day 2012 was to ride a 200k.