Terrible Two Double Century
So much heat, so much climbing...
At last, it’s time for the terrible Two! This will be my 5th double century for 1999. This is no normal double, however. Besides being touted as “The most difficult one-day ride in the U.S.”, it is the third and last event of the Stage Race. In addition, being the last double held in CA this year, it is my last chance to qualify for the One Thousand Mile Club! In fact, it seems as if virtually all of my cycling goals for 1999 are now contingent on this event. Not to mention that it is being held on my birthday!
Climbing its mountains with 16,000 feet of vertical gain in 100 degrees would be a challenge for almost any cyclist, I knew. Hence, I did more training than in this year than any other year of my life. In addition, in the weeks prior to the event, I upgraded Canny’s components to 9-speed Campagnolo! (Chorus Ergopower levers, Racing-T front derailleur, and Veloce rear derailleur. I mated these with a Shimano Ultegra cassette on an Ultegra hub.) I am pleased to report the new Campy components are far more precise and positive-feeling than my old Shimano 105 ones!
I even managed to borrow a friend’s high-powered bicycle light just for this ride (thanks Dave!) A couple days before the ride I even stocked up on Clif bars and Clif shots, a diversion from my usual cereal and granola bars. I tested everything two days before the ride, and thought I was totally prepared. What could go wrong?
OH NO!!!
I wake up the day before the event with a terrible sore throat! | can hardly swallow. This is definitely not encouraging. Hoping it is just some sort of 24 hour flu, I limp into work, not being able to get much done.
Then in the mid-morning, our office administrator exclaims, “Wow, are you sick? You look like you have a fever!”
Now this DEFINITELY is not encouraging! I could probably ride w/ cold symptoms, albeit a tad slower, but not with a fever! I have to get better, I resolve.
So the entire day I just consume gallons and gallons of fluids, including some great chicken bouillon at work. Then I sleep for a few hours at home before waking up at 2:30 in the morning to pack and head off for Santa Rosa. Great, at least the sore throat and fever had seemed to have subsided somewhat! Off to Santa Rosa in the MG!
The First 75 Miles
I get to the start of the ride listening to Top Gun music (”Highway to the Danger Zone”) one whole hour early. I eat a muffin and wait for the pre-ride announcement, which lasts 10 minutes and I do not really listen to. During this time some people are crowding around Canny to admire not only her pretty frame but her new Campy components. !Vivo Campagnolo!
And finally at 6:30a, we’re off! I start off the back but move my way up in the first 20 miles. I cannot believe how good I am feeling considering that the day before I felt so miserable! Maybe this ride will be possible after all!
I am ahead of about 40 people by the time we get to Trinity Grade, the first climb of the day. It is a gradual climb, and I am still feeling okay. Concentrating on maintaining an efficient line and steady strokes, I seem to be at the top of this double climb without exerting too much effort. It really wasn’t too bad!
And what a glorious descent! I get into my best aero-tuck, with my hands next to stem and chin practically on the stem. As I would remark to another rider, the road is in very good condition, with good visibility. I guess I was expecting something much worse considering the warnings from before the ride. Those terrible roads would come later, the other rider told me. So I enjoy these good roads for now.
Here I am reminded of why I love bicycling, why I love doing these rides. Beautiful scenery, a wonderful descent… ah yes. These feelings would be fleeting, however. Over the next couple of hours my body would go into a rapid, downhill spiral, succumbing to the illness that had taken over me the day before.
Mile 75 to Lunch
After Trinity Grade I am riding solo for a while, only to be joined by a rider on a new Cannondale. We exchange pulls, and are going FAST! So fast that, after 15 minutes, I am really feeling beat and have to go solo again. It is clearly not a good idea to be trying to work with this hot-shot.
Then a paceline comes up, which I join thinking “less work, more speed.” I’m also becoming somewhat concerned of my time splits at this point. Riding solo, I was only going 13-16 mph. My goal was to finish the first 100 miles within 7 hours, and though I am still on pace to do so, I am definitely pushin’ it.
But this is not the paceline to join. Mainly, because of this one obnoxious old rider in it! He frequently yells out rude remarks at everyone (such as calling a guy “you jackrabbit” for not maintaining a steady pace at the front, etc.), and shout an obnoxious “SWITCH!” every 45 seconds or so, as if the guy in front wouldn’t know when to pull off on his own accord. Surely he just wants to maintain an efficient flow, but he is really grating on my nerves.
Still, I hang with them for 20 minutes, though, until the first big test of the day comes… The Geisers. This is a visibly steep climb, and the sun is now high above. I stop to remove my arm warmers, only to hear more obscenities from that old man, this time directed at me. I wait before he’s well up the road before I mount back on my bike. No need to deal with people who need an attitude adjustment when there are other things to worry about.
Such as this climb! I am really dying at this point, and everyone is passing me. It seems to go on forever and yet I have nothing in my legs. I don’t even have the energy to reach down for my water bottle anymore.
Psychologically I am suffering, too. The official time limit of 16.5 hours is like a monkey on my back, and reaching my goal of the first 100 miles in 7 hours is quickly slipping away. I’m going only 6-8 mph up this hill, and am getting dropped by everyone! And where’s the end of the climb?
When the 7th hour does come I’m hardly even at Mile 90 still. I am somewhat seriously considering abandoning the entire race now, feeling sick, tired, and demoralized. Yet, something keeps me going, if barely. I have never abandoned an ultramarathon ride in my life. I resolve that if I do not finish the ride, it’ll have to be because the ride organizers kick me off the course later in the day for being out too late, not because I’m a quitter. So I reluctantly carry on.
All I can think about now is getting to lunch, and trying to recuperate as much as I can over there. I am clearly dehydrated by this point, but despite not having drunk too much at this point, I am nearly out of water. I also feel that the disgusting Clif Bars, Clif Shots, and Revenge Energy Drink (which I tried at a previous rest stop and even made the mistake of filling up one of my bottles with… absolutely disgusting stuff!) only compounded the dehydration problem. All of them are extremely dense with carbohydrates and require lots of additional water to go down with them. I resolve that I would stick with only water and “real food” such as cookies and cake for the rest of the ride and perhaps all of my future rides.
At last, some cyclists heading the other way shout out, “You’re almost to lunch! Just a few more miles!” This is encouraging, and indeed, just a few miles up is the park where lunch was supposed to be at. But where was it?
Another cyclist and I are looking for where lunch is for about 5 minutes, when we finally realize it is about a quarter of a mile farther. I wish signs were posted better. Anyhow, at lunch, I chuck down 2 whole water bottles in order to try to fend off the effects of dehydration, and 10 minutes I get going again.
Lunch to the Pacific
Thinking that the route goes the way the cyclists were going who, just 15 minutes earlier, were cheering me on, I start heading the wrong way. I get about a mile out when it dawns on me this is probably not the way to go and head back to lunch. Drat, just added on >10 minutes and 2 miles to the ride! I am quite bitter at the cyclists who were encouraging me, as I thought they must have been doing the ride also. It turns out they were just doing another ride with their local bike club but just happened to know about the Terrible Two going on. I felt misled by them, even though they had done nothing wrong. The pressures of time and being sick did not do anything for my attitude.
On my way back through lunch again I chuck down yet another water bottle. Everyone at this point is talking about Skaggs, the double-summit climb ahead. About how steep and how hot it was, being unshaded practically the entire way. Oh boy.
I start out conservatively, and it dawns on me that I am not feeling so bad anymore! So maybe it was all just dehydration after all, and the three water bottles I chucked down in the last 20 minutes had cured this! I am actually passing people, although I stop SAG vehicles at just about every opportunity to top off my water bottles. It was indeed hot, probably about 90 degrees, but not totally unbearable.
And soon… a long descent! Aero-tuck time. Again, I stop off at a water stop, where one of the hostesses remarks how alive and strong I am looking there, not even being sweaty. I reply that I was indeed super sweaty, but the descent had cooled me off. But I am indeed feeling pretty well at that point.
Alas, this would be the last time until, say, 8 hours later that I did feel pretty decent still. Another killer double summit is ahead–one that is shaded–but is so steep I am totally dying on it.
1.7 mph! If I had any other cyclometer besides an Avocet, this low speed would not have even registered. And yet, to my almost disbelief, I am barely turning my pedals in my 32 X 23 lowest gear, and am only going a 33-minute-mile pace! Not surprisingly, the climb takes me about 1.5 hours. You don’t go very far at this pace, and even if the hill is short, it takes a long time. I could have been walking faster, but my ego forbids me to walk. I might have been sick, I might have been slow, but I haven’t walked on a ride for a couple of years, and I just don’t want my last ride to end up that way.
It is on this climb, however, I concede my chance for finishing within the 16.5-hour official time limit is entirely gone. My goal is now to just get to the last rest stop before 10:00 so I would be allowed to finish the ride. Even that is becoming something of a long shot now. The climb was hard, humbling. But I keep on going.
Finally, hours later, I reach the Pacific. The wind conditions are favorable, and there seems to be a gradual descent, but yet I am totally dead at this point. In these conditions with a healthy body I probably would have been going at least 23+ mph, but right now I am coasting most of the way time and struggle to maintain 13 mph. A lady in her 50s even catches up to me at this point, and asks if we can trade pulls. I reply, “No… I’m really dyin’” to the dismay of both of us, so she heads up the road alone. Once again I am too tired to drink, although I stop about 3 times to take a leak at the side of the road. My body has finally given out on me.
At last, the rest stop at Fort Ross is now in sight! It is now about 7:00p, and only a few people are there. The elderly lady who had passed me half an hour earlier is still there, bemoaning how hard the ride was. We are also told about the next, and final, double-summit climb: Fort Ross Rd. She looks at me and asks, “What are we going to do?”
I mutter, “I’m going up it… just very slowly… probably at 1.7 mph like on the last climb.” The lady says, “I walked up that one!” Here we are, lamenting the toughness of these climbs together. There is a crucial difference in our attitudes, however. I had already decided I was going to keep on riding until I get kicked off the course, and wasn’t going to give it a 2nd thought about climbing whatever Mother Nature threw at me. On the other hand, she continues to dwell on how hard it is for a 50-year-old woman to be doing those rides, and is openly considering quitting. She stays behind while I take off on my own.
Fort Ross to the Last Rest Stop!
The climb up Fort Ross starts off right away. Surprisingly, I am going well over 1.7 mph… probably about 6 mph. I am feeling a bit better after the stop at the rest stop. I am even catching up with someone!
Such energy is short-lived, however, but I am still well enough to keep on going without suffering too much. A pair of women pass me up, and though I let them quickly get 1/8th of a mile ahead of me, I use them to pace me. It is starting to get dark.
First summit of the double-summit achieved! I can only hope the 2nd summit isn’t too bad. I keep on telling myself, “Last one of the day!” to lift my spirits, and it seems to work. Second summit achieved!
By this time the women who had passed me up are long gone, and the sun is rapidly going down. It is all descending now but the roads, unfortunately, are extremely poorly maintained! There are hairpin corners all over the place, too! So even here I do not make up much time. Finally I force myself to become slightly more aggressive in the downhills–taking the best lines and all, but I am braking a lot.
I am so relieved when we are out of the hills, even though it means I won’t have much of a descent. Just 10 or so more miles to the last rest stop, and about an hour-and-a-half before it closes. At this point I’m pretty sure I can do it!
Knowing it’s not a sure thing, however, esp. if there were any more uphills, I again force myself to ride more aggressively. I am esp. starting to feel apprehensive that it is getting rather dark, and my lights are at the rest stop ahead! I remember the Eastern Sierra Double earlier this year when I had estimated I lost at least 45 minutes due to not having good lights. Thank goodness at this time of year the daylight hours are at a maximum, with the sun being fully down only until 9:15p, but I resign to the fact that I will be riding in total darkness for at least 10 minutes or so.
Which I do. But at last… at 9:30p, I see the rest stop! WOOHOO! I had made it before the 10:00p cutoff! Indeed, making the official 16.5 hour total ride time is completely out of grasp as it meant getting to Mile 200 by 10:00p (and riding 15 miles in 30 minutes is impossible for me even when I’m fresh and healthy), but I will finish the ride at least. Nothing can stop me now! Completing the Stage Race and qualifying for the One Thousand Mile Club is going to become a reality!
To the Finish
I hang around with other riders for the next half hour, just chatting and reveling in the fact that we had gotten to the last rest stop in time to finish the ride. I am now full of energy from the euphoria of it all, recounting how I was so sick the day before, how important finishing this ride was to fulfill my cycling goals for the year, how it is my birthday… and I feel victorious for getting so far under the circumstances. It’s true there is still 15 miles to go. But everything after this point is anticlimactic.
The final people coming in to the rest stop (4 of them, including a husband and wife couple), are all very nice, and we have some good laughs while we pick up and mount our lights for the last leg of this brutal ride. A huge contrast to some of the attitude-challenged guys from earlier in the ride. We ride the last leg together, the very final group.
The last 15 miles feel like the last stage of the Tour de France–just a big celebration, a cruise to the finish. I have legs again, perhaps not of my normal strength, but adequate ones. And the high-powered Trek bike light–the first one I’ve ever used on an ultramarathon ride other than my wimpy 2-watt VistaLight headlight–is amazing. Thanks, Dave, for lending it to me. The others have wimpy lights so I ride at the front, lighting everyone’s way.
By 11:10p, the job is done… rolling into the high school, with virtually no one there. We are definitely the very last group to come in. Dinner is already being packed away, to which we grab what we could. But despite the struggle and suffering of it all, it is a hard-earned victory, one that was made perhaps even more gratifying on my b’day than if everything had gone entirely smoothly. No, when I do the ride again I’d rather not be sick, but looking back I am so thankful that I wasn’t so sick that I couldn’t do the ride at all.
And I will do the ride again someday, most likely next year. The 16.5-hour time limit has been elusive to me this year, but it leaves a rare ultramarathon goal still hanging out there after a fulfilling career. A reason to carry on, to cycle more miles. I can’t wait!
Ride Data
- 200 mi.
- 5:30a start, 11:10p finish — 17:40 hours
- Average Speed: 12.3 mph moving, 11.3 mph overall
- Max Speed: 49.4mph
- Total Climbing: 16,000 ft
Rating
(1=ho hum; 5=best)
- Scenery: 3+
- Support/Organization: 4
- Food: 4 Well stocked!
- Weather: 3 Generally not bad, but a bit hot on Skaggs Springs
- Relative Difficulty: 5+
- Overall Rating: 4 Well deserving of its “Most Difficult U.S. Double” reputation!