Your Front Wheel: Things I Forgot to Bring to the MS150 for $500 Alex

When you rob a bank, don’t forget the ski mask.  When you carve a side of beef, don’t forget your chain mail glove.  When go skiing, don’t forget the jacket with the zippered lift ticket that proves to all the ladies you tore it up at L’Alpe d’Huez.  Whether you’re cashing in at the local branch, starting your first day at Fuddruckers or dropping the double diamonds at Breck, veteran cat burglars, meatcutters and swooshers have a mental checklist of the tools of the trade.  So do most veteran cyclists.  This weekend one of every 10 people at the Ohio MS 150 ride will forget one of the following: helmet, shoes, gloves or cigarettes.  It’s because their pre-ride routine has been moved from their floral wallpapered bedroom to a field in rural Ohio.  Sunscreen, chamois cream, a towel: which one didn’t you think of yet?  Rain jacket?  Hurricane Irene is coming.  See how much you need me. 

Coco: My Bike Butler

The best advice, hire a bike butler to take care of your packing, like my flamboyant guy Coco.  Or, write up a list pronto and pack for your ride today…Monday.  Ride Tuesday using only your packed items.  Then, like the MS150, ride Wednesday using the same stuff and methods available on the MS 150.  Nuh uh uh.  Using the washing machine and drying rack is cheating.  If you only have one pair of shorts, slide that soggy chamois back up those thighs.  It’s harsh but the only way you’ll learn to bring two pairs of cycling shorts or find a place to wash and dry them Saturday night.  Since I can’t account for the personal items you just can’t live without, like your Polish cleaning lady confederate doo-rag, here’s a basic idea of how to pack for the big MS 150 weekend.

Documents: Your entry information, hotel confirmation, directions, start time/location, email proof that you have dibs on the bed in your buddy’s camper.

Bike: Bike, cleaned and tuned up by Wednesday with both wheels and test ridden at least once before the big weekend.  Yes, I said both wheels.  So don’t leave the front one leaned up against the work bench when you put your bike on the roof rack and back out of the driveway at 5:30 in the morning.

Bike clothes: Helmet, shoes, glasses and wipey cleaner bag, rain jacket.  Multiplied by two: gloves, shorts, jersey, under jersey, light vest, sports bra, socks, cycling cap, confederate doo rag, arm warmers. 

Street clothes: Pants, fundies, shorts, socks, shoes that’ll be good in a muddy field, cool cycling t-shirt, jacket, hat.

All Hail The Top Banana Jersey!

Pocket stuffers: Road ID (drivers license, insurance card, emergency contact), charged cell phone, I-pod and some cash/credit card, spare car/house key.

Toiletries: Sunscreen, chamois cream, lip balm, deodorant, towel, hand sanitizer, baby wipes, soap/washcloth, gallon of water, hair scrunchies, eyeglasses or contacts stuff, plastic bag for the stench-fest of your sweaty wet clothes, toothbrush/paste.

First Aid: Band-Aids, the spray that stings really badly on open wounds, Neosporin, gauze, road rash netting, and medical tape.  Bringing this stuff ensures you will not crash.

Tools: floor pump, 2 spare tubes, CO2 and/or frame pump, seat bag, multi-tool, patches, spare chain pin, umbrella, repair stand, chain cleaner, lube, soapy spray bottle, frame brush, rags, a plastic bag and rubber bands to keep your saddle dry while your bike is on the roof when hurricane Irene arrives.

Food: Coffee and travel mug.  Cooler with icepacks.  6 water bottles because the two of them will be covered in grit after day 1 and it’s nice to have a full bottle or two waiting at the car after the ride.  While there is plenty of food/drink available, limit what you bring to your favorites: like energy drink mix, GU blocks or Sharkies, fig cookies, licorice, meatloaf sandwiches, whatever helps you turn the cranks.  Consider Sport Legs or some sort of electrolyte replacement.

The MS150 doesn't end till your bike is off your car

Recovery: a massage stick, yoga mat for stretching next to your car in the field, a camp chair, a pop up tent.

Lastly, when you arrive at home in a lactic acid haze late Sunday evening, don’t forget your $3000 carbon Trek is on top of your $35,000 Audi A4 when you pull into the garage you dufus.

The Redemption of Riding Solo

Top Flats of Shadow Run

I like to think they were Cicadas.  No dis against crickets, but the head-filling sound of Cicadas fit the zen feel of a solo ride better.  I had no wheel to chase, nor any spinning hubs behind me.  After the battery died on my Ipod an hour into my solo ride at Versailles State Park in Indiana, I was bummed at the loss of my mountain biking soundtrack.  Then I realized, the woods have a soundtrack all their own.  It was me, the wind, the kayaker down below on the creek that feeds the lake and the Cricket-adas.

Riding well below donkey wheezing pace, I had time to listen closer and tune-in the harmonies of the bugs.  I could afford to peer over the edge of the Cliffside trail and check out the dead fallen trees bridging the ravine.  I filled up my phone’s memory bank with photos.  I thought to stop and snap a photo of the trail in the “v” of two trees, but the flow was too good.  At the next intersection, I smiled wiping a cobweb from my face.  I was the first rider of the day on the Grandview loop.

Deadfall on Cliffside

I love riding with friends and teammates, but here comes the but.  I enjoy the solo ride too.  I like to ride my pace of the day, stop when I want to stop, hammer when I feel punchy.  If you need a natural break, you pull over at the next big tree and don’t have to dig deep to claw back on the train.  With a song in my head, “Save Me San Francisco” by Train, I whistled and rode the flow of the Shadow Run loop.

Interesting Tree at the Time

I planned on two hours, but got back to my car 20 minutes early.  I wasn't ready for civilization yet.  I laced up my running shoes, tucked the car key under the leg of my bike shorts and headed back out to round off the time with a trail run.  The ground felt soft and springy under my steps.  Now traveling even slower, with my breath being the only self generated noise, I could hear the kids playing in the pool, the occasional car on the road far below my ridgeline trail and still, the chorus of cicadas.  While the small climbs were tougher on foot, that “v” in between the trees was just as fun to run through.

Back at my truck, I ran into a friend headed out for a solo ride of his own.  As he made a last tweak on his bike, I raved about my ride and run to Bill.  It was Sunday.  I think we were both at church.  A solo ride is always refreshing and redeeming for the soul.  

Do Some GUd for Ohio MS 150

Click Here and Donate Today!

The Best Bike Blog EVER supports the MS 150 and is a good hubby (well tries very hard to be anyway.)  So we're Doing Some GUd for the MS150 by helping my wife Rachel reach her fundraising goal by offering a chance to win a GU Energy Sampler Prize Package.

To win: click here and donate to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in support of the MS 150 through Monday, July 25th.  Rachel will be riding with the Kroger Team for the Ohio "Venture the Valley" MS 150.  Donations of $10 or more are highly encouraged and may even get you extra cowbell.  Accept the challenge!

Chomp!

Support This Great Ride & Cause

The GU Energy Sampler Prize package includes multiple flavors of your GU favorites like Original Energy Gels, Rocktane, GU Brew Electolyte Tabs, GU Chomps and more.  Donate today!

Winner will be drawn randomly on Tuesday, July 26th 2011 and notified via email.  Click here to learn more, see fundraising totals and participate in the 2011 Ohio MS 150 Venture the Valley August 27th and 28th.

Asheville: Where Trails are Named and Maps are Numbered

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With the Tour De France occasionally locking up on the internet TV in the workshop, I handed the mechanic at Backcountry Outdoors $11.95 for my DuPont State Forest Map.  Guess the price has gone up since it was declared an official IMBA Epic mountain bike ride.  It’s been a long time, maybe 3 years, since I’ve been to Asheville and Brevard, long enough for Backcountry Outdoors to change their sign and beautifully organize their sales floor, but I don’t recall ever paying for a map of North Carolina’s DuPont State Forest.  I almost thought they were free, grabbed one and walked out.  Wait.  Is that a price tag?  It is.  Seriously, I probably have three sweat soaked blurred DuPont Maps in a folder at home marked “Asheville-DON’T FORGET TO TAKE THESE MAPS STUPID,” which of course I forgot.  It was a last minute decision.  It sort of went like this.  My wife asked, “Wanna go to Asheville over the 4^th sweetie pie?”  In my deep sexy Barry White voice I replied, “Fo shizzle my Nizzle!” 

Immediately I started planning.  Yeah right.  This is my wife and I we’re talking about.  Most of our ride times end in “ish.”  Like 8 in the morning-ish, or more likely 10:30-ish.  We like to wing it.  Still, knowing we’d get in Saturday Afternoon and leave Monday afternoon, we did make some loose plans to make the most of Asheville, the unicycle and dirty bearded guy capitol of the world.  We’d ride near the hotel somewhere on Saturday and go out for dinner somewhere afterward.  With fireworks somewhere in Asheville sometime Sunday night, we planned to ride mountain bikes at DuPont sometime during the day.  On Monday morning we’d do whatever ride we didn’t do on Saturday, either mountain bike at Bent Creek or do a road ride somewhere on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

At the hotel computer, I printed off a black and white copy of the color map of Bent Creek.  Whoever wrote the Bent Creek Map must have been the same survey engineer that created the DuPont State Forest Map.  While accurate and up to date with closed areas (the trail passing under Bridal Veil at DuPont is now closed to bikes), they are not very user friendly on the bike.  The trails on the map are marked with numbers.  The trails on the dirt are marked with names on wooden signposts, no numbers.  So, if you’re not a rocket scientist, and say a dufus with a Bachelors degree in Broadcasting, you’ll find yourself looking like a cave man in the space shuttle at every trail intersection if you don’t pre-plan your route and or ride with someone who works at the aerospace division at GE. 

I thought I was being a genius with the Bent Creek map.  I wrote out a crib sheet of trail numbers, put it in a sandwich baggie and stuffed it under my shorts leg.  It read: Hardtimes Trailhead, Lt 664, cross road, 666, Rt 660, Lt Road, Rt 150…etc.  Brilliant!  I could read the sheet through the white leg panels of my new shorts.  It didn’t help.  In real life, there are no numbers on the signposts at either Bent Creek or DuPont.  So, rather than having a flowing steady ride, I found myself getting the map out of my Hydrapak Morro at every other intersection or face the certain doom of taking my wife down something gnarly.  Eventually, I just stuck the map in my shorts leg.  That way I could read it, check the number/name key and look a few turns ahead while riding easy sections.  We ended up riding Deer Lake, Wolf Branch, Ledford, Ingles Field Gap, Little Hickory, Sidehill and Explorer in 2-ish hours.  Regardless of the map hiccups, it was as beautiful as I remembered.  We snapped a photo of my wife’s Litespeed Pisgah in Pisgah and headed out for big noodles at Doc Chey’s.

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Dude, Where’s My Giant Foam Thumb?

It’s the if-then philosophical algebraic method of cycling.  If you don’t have a spare tube and air, then carry a cell phone.  If you don’t have a cell phone, then ride with friends who do.  If you don’t have any friends…uh…you should either have two Nike’s or a giant foam thumb sticking out of your jersey pocket.

Occasionally I ride with Dude.  Dude’s cool and a steady strong heads up rider.  Dude is new to town and lives in an adjacent neighborhood.  Dude and I aren’t Facebook besties.  Dude doesn’t feed my cats when I go on vacation.  I don’t know Dude’s full story.  Our conversation has never went past paceline pleasantries.  I don’t have Dude’s number nor know his address.  He doesn’t know mine.  We’re like barbell friends, on the opposite ends of the same group ride.  I show up when I need a moderately paced civil ride.  He shows up when he wants to ride with familiar faces.  I’ve been the new dude, dropped between Loveland and Morrow my first year in town and sympathize. 

Dude’s hamstrings and quads are big enough to be featured on the sale poster at the cannibal neighborhood deli.  Friends on the ride marvel at his beef sticks.  Nicknames like Dude-asaurus Rex and Hamhock don’t even come close.  The legs of his shorts should be reinforced with Kevlar.  After a recent ride, he may consider running a motorcycle chain. 

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I equate riding in Northern Kentucky like this.  Take a piece of paper.  Crumple it up in a ball.  Unwad it and there you have a topographical map of NKY.  On your typical everyday Northern Kentucky riser, Dude got up on the pedals, took two stabs and the chain snapped.  Pop.  We turned to see Dude doing the top tube dance of death.  Putting a foot down, he saved it without injury.

“Anybody got a chain tool,” someone asked.

Silence.

Tonight 6/22 in Cinti Click For Info

5 riders, an hour and a half from home and no one has a chain tool nor a spare pin nor a quick link.  In our defense, 4 of 5 don’t have the legs to break a chain.  To be sure there wasn’t a pin rattling around somewhere, we checked our saddle bags.  Nope.

“Dude, you got anyone you can call for a ride?”

Nope.

Dude’s new to town, living single in the city.  We’re his friends.  We’re all here.  So we did what any good riding buddies would do.  We left him.

Well not really.  Being at least an hour’s walk from the nearest intersection with a stop light or anything you could remotely call a town, we advised him to sit tight on this tiny road in Nowheresville, KY.  In two hours one of us would come back in a car to pick him up. 

“Dude.  What’s your cell phone number, so we can call and find you when we’re on the way back with the car?”

“I don’t have a cell phone on me.”  Dude quickly added, “Who am I gonna call?”

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We desparately held back the dumb found looks.  He’s serious.  Who’s he gonna call?  Dude was so matter of fact about it.  I tried to wrap my head around the fact that, if it wasn’t for us, he was completely prepared to walk home, like it was no big deal.  We figured he was at least 27 miles or a brisk six hour walk from home in bike shoes, 90 degree weather, with one water bottle.  Dude started asking about the fastest route back by foot.  If that’s what had to be done, he would’ve done it. 

Thankfully, another dude on the ride had enough time in his Sunday schedule to run back out in the car to save Dude’s day.  The thing is, and Dude specified before we pedaled off, Dude didn’t want a ride.  He asked for either a spare chain or the tools to fix it with.  That’s exactly what happened.  After sitting in spandex at the side of the rural NKY road for two hours not looking out of place at all, another dude drove back fixed Dude’s chain and Dude rode home.  

Meet Coco, My Flamboyant Fantasy Bike Butler

My cell phone rings once a month.  The exterminator calls to pitch us a package, $180 to keep bugs out of the house for the year.  That’s a tish pricey in my book.  You can win the lottery, but you still have to spend your money wisely right?  Conversely, since we hit those six big numbers a few months back, $180 is exactly what I spend every single week for my bike butler.  

Hola Coco!

Meet Coco, my fantasy bike butler.  I considered a cycling coach, but since I won the lottery a bike butler makes me much happier.  Coco is half butler, half coach.  Coco is a nickname, since my wife and I can’t pronounce his real name.  It’s got a lot of rolly R sounds in it.  My wife pictured a bronzed ex-pro who would wear tight slacks and sexy white open collar shirts.  However, I was uncomfortable with that and hired Coco, who’s a bit flamboyant.  In his mid 30’s, Coco dresses in nice slacks and a pressed dress shirt.  However his has fluffy rainbow striped sleeves and a bow tie.  His machismo bubbling through, he insists the rainbow colors are world champion stripes.  I go along with it, knowing that’s probably not the reason.  While it’s our ultimate fantasy that Coco resides in the spare room with the full bath upstairs, we’re still frugal enough to keep the bike butler part-time for now.  Besides, as leader of a hot salsa band, Coco does well for himself and insists he’s married to an actress named Lucy.  I Love Lucy, he says.  Till we decide on the full-time thing, our bike butler visits once per day and is on call if we need him outside of that.

Every morning, Coco lets himself in just after we get up, brings us coffee and confers with us on our cycling or workout plans.  He’s so sweet.  He even asks if we had any mechanical issues with our ride the day before.  Tonight, after she spends the day at Nordstrom and lunch with the girls, Coco’s workout plan has my wife going to do Pilates at Pendleton in Loveland.  I’m doing hill repeats at Devou Park and riding from work.  Yeah, I still work, but just for the insurance benefits now.  He kindly reminds my wife to be careful with her bummish knee and for me to keep my heart rate at or just under 100% of lactate threshold.  “You go hard.  Backoff if over one hundred LT,” he says shaking his finger.  Even with his sleeves flopping around when he gestures, he can be intimidating sometimes.  Knowing that he’ll see my Powertap data, I nod to confirm.

My Wife And I Buying My New Truck After Lotto Win

Coco then heads down to the laundry room and packs our gear bags.  Yoga pants, other workout wear, a Sigg bottle, a granola bar, a Sweaty Band and a towel go in my wife’s bag.  He instinctively tosses an instant freezie pack in her bag incase my wife’s knee gets inflamed.  Coco packs my Northface backpack with my kit, shoes, helmet, IPod and heart rate monitor strap.  He even pre-butters my chamois.  He also packs a small cooler with a granola bar, a Gu, and three water bottles, two for on the bike, the third mixed with a recovery drink.  He then heads into the garage man cave to give the bike a quick once over and pumps the tires.  He then loads it all into our cars, her BMW and my Range Rover Sport, and hands us the keys as we leave.

Coco sticks around for about an hour after we head out for the day, prepping our other bikes and feeding the cats.  Since we hit the Powerball we each have two identically set-up pro level bikes, for each discipline.  Pretty sweet huh?  While I’ll ride my #1 Kuota KOM tonight, Coco gives my 2^nd KOM and my wife’s two IF Crown Jewel’s a thorough cleaning and overall.  If something’s amiss, like a stretched out chain, he’ll pick up the part at Biowheels bike shop during the day and install it the next. 

It’s a good life.  If it goes well, maybe we’ll hire Coco full-time and buy a motor home for CX season.  Coco still hasn’t shared the secret of how he keeps bike grease off his cool salsa shirt.  We still haven’t won the lottery, but we can dream.

Dropped & Lost at Podunk Place and Boondock Blvd

I’m square dancing on a bike.  I swear I crossed route 125 and 132…twice.  Allemande left and dosado.  I remember the Marathon gas station a few miles from East Fork State Park on 125 having more trees around it and it being sort of a Pony Keg.  I’m officially lost and according to the GPS in my head, at least an hour and a half from home.  That’s an hour and half if I rode straight back on the shoulder-less 45mph posted speed limit Route 125 without getting hit by a speeding Amelia pickup truck driven by a texting hillbilly.  The only thing that really saved me was my internal compass telling me if I kept riding basically southwest, I’d eventually hit route 52 along the Ohio River.  Whether I’d be 18 miles from home at that point, or 10, was the question.  The other question was, "How do I get from this unmarked intersection to something recognizable?"

I didn’t bonk.  I lost contact, (which what bike racers say instead of I was too weak or not in shape enough to hang with the faster guys on the climb.)  At the point of detachment, as Andrew from Zephyr Wheel Sports rode past me, I could’ve just turned around.  I was only 3-4 miles from Batavia, the sprint point for Cincinnati’s traditional Sunday morning Hyde Park Ride.  From Batavia, home was less than an hour away.  Had I hung on the climb, home still would’ve been 2 hours away riding with the big boys.  Eh.  I can figure it out.  I wanted to get at least 3 hours in anyway.  Who cares if I’m riding solo?  I have an IPod, a granola bar, tube/air, a full water bottle and a clue.  I put my head down and pressed on, hoping that I’d make contact at a busy intersection or they’d wait for me.

There is no waiting on the Hyde Park Ride.  That’s what makes it a great ride.  You hang, or you don’t.  Even though I’ve known every butt that was riding away from me for at least 10 years, and the racey part of the ride was over, I didn’t expect them to wait.  Friends or not, the minute you roll out off Awakening’s coffee shop in Hyde Park Square at 10am you better be prepared to hang with the bunch and find your own way back if you don’t.  I’ve been here before.  At least this time there was no terrible headwind, it was warmer than 34 degrees, I recognized a few street signs and I could still feel my fingers and toes.

7-8 years ago, on a similar Wednesday night ride, I got dropped.  A buddy noticed and fell back to help me get back on.  It was Dave Stewart, not long ago he had won the 2002 24 Hours of Snowshoe Solo, just two years after Stamsted was our local hero.  I had only known Dave maybe 2 years; our friendship at the time was mostly on the bike.  Dave told me to dial back the heart rate, keep it steady and hopefully if there was a lull in the bunch, we’d latch back on.  A few miles down the road, contact. 

Dave is also the same guy that once said, "You only get faster by riding with faster people."  In a way he meant to seek out getting dropped.  Seek out getting dropped and lost.  Seek out getting dropped, lost and wondering if you might bonk before you find a convenience store.  Seek out riding so far over your head that you contemplate calling your spouse to come out and pick you up at the intersection of Podunk Place and Boondock Blvd.  One day you will hang and every bout of self depreciation will disappear.

It’s Better Than Retiring In Tropical Paradise

Adams Landing Fire Station

The morning radio show is taking calls about your favorite childhood meals.  “513-749-2320,” the DJ says.  Scrambled eggs with ketchup, nope, pot roast with potatoes, nah.  As I try to remember a meal that wouldn’t be boring or embarrassing to call-in and share with the Tri-state, I chuckle.  I’m on my way to work and just passed the old firehouse.  It reminds me of one of the conversations on this weekend’s group ride. 

There were seven of us on the ride Saturday, a big guy with an eastern European accent who could climb remarkably well, a financial advisor on a aged single speed, the retired dude with the older jersey, the quirky flamboyant-ish guy from South America, the I’m learning that he’s really rich and retired-young guy and me, the guy who makes commercials at a local radio station originally from Wisconsin guy.  Maybe it was just six.  No, it was seven.  The skinny guy on the Ti bike with carbon wheels, like me, is a quieter personality.  We, along with the harder to understand at 21mph eastern European and South American guys, resolve ourselves to listening to the radio chatter of the three main personalities.  

P&G Headquarters Downtown Cincinnati

Conversations on group rides seem to spark from the group of people that have ridden together the longest.  In this case: the old dude, the rich dude and the financial advisor.  I’m pretty sure all but the oldest of us are transplants; drawn to Cincinnati by some connection to the large employers like Proctor and Gamble or Kroger Foods.  We all live near downtown.  However, these three have lived in Cincinnati and have been riding together the longest.  At one point we ride by a beautifully restored historic looking triangle-corner building with a for sale or lease sign in front of it.  The same one I just passed on my way to work.

The rich guy says he’d like to live there.  It’s prime real estate.  He explains his reasoning: a great view of the Ohio River valley from the upper floors, across from the park with all the summer festivals and literally 100 yards to downtown proper.  The old guy unwittingly uncorks that he remembers when it used to be an actual working firehouse.  “That was back when the horses pulled the water wagon,” financial guys stabs at old guy.  “Or was it the bucket brigade,” rich guy fires back. 

La Paz Bolivia

This is precisely why I like to ride with these guys.  There’s arrows flying from all directions and nothing is sacred, fond memories and grey hairs included.  You’d think by spending three hours talking with a financial advisor, a rich guy, a retired guy and a guy from South America we could easily fabricate a plan for all of us, Eastern European guy included, to retire early on a beach in Bolivia.  But, richer or poorer, no matter which corner of the world we call home, we’re guys riding bikes.  We don’t talk substance.  We learned long ago that belly laughs at another’s expense on a January afternoon are warmer than any tropical paradise.