Climb to Kaiser 2011

After Terrible Two the weekend before, I swore I'd give up riding, sell all my riding gear, list my bike on Craigslist and never look back.

Instead, at 5:30 am on Saturday, June 25th, I was at the starting line with a couple hundred other people to tackle the 155 mile Climb to Kaiser. Purportedly one of the toughest bike rides in the country (according to Bicycling Magazine, but what do they know).

I was actually thinking about the Climb to Kaiser since early in the year and it was part of the original plan together with the Terrible Two. After my experience at TT, I thought that perhaps if I used only the EFS powder all ride long, and made sure I drank it and plenty of water as well, I might be able to get through a ride and still feel decent (and hungry) at the end.

So off we went. Boy did they ever set off. There was a Clovis PD car that served as a lead car through town and the first 20 miles, or so, before the first climb. Some guys were legitimately fast and had every reason (and physical ability, considering what lay before them) to go like bats out of hell from the opening gun. Others, like me, who should have known better, weren't legitimately fast and had no reason for taking off like they did. After 17 miles of 25 mph through the flat lands, I dropped out of the pace line and watched everyone move off in the distance. It was the smart thing to do. I'm not sure how much it helped or hurt by the end, but it's the second week in a row where I deviated from the plan too much.

Once I was on my own I settled down to a normal rhythm. I drank the EFS and water, I thought, pretty regularly. I used three 24 oz bottles of EFS and one of water in the first 45 miles.

As climbs go, the first two, Wildcat and Tollhouse were pretty mild, particularly Wildcat. Tollhouse had some sections that required some work, but the "wall" I was expecting to see in the last half mile, that everyone had warned about, wasn't much of a wall at all. Sure, it was a little steeper, but nothing too arduous.

The climb out of Big Creek is a brute. 4.5 miles, 10% average, 20% max. The road was in terrible condition. I can't imagine riding it in the opposite direction--steep, narrow, poor pavement, steep drop offs directly to the right. Nah--better to take this in from the Shaver Lake direction to Huntington Lake.

By this point, I was still feeling pretty good. I was still drinking. I did note, with some minor alarm, that it was burning when I had to pee. I don't know if it was because of what I was drinking, or if it was coincidental. I was beginning to feel the effects of the effort by the time we reached the rest stop at Huntington Lake, 69 miles in. This was also the lunch stop. I drank the second of two Ensure's. Went down okay. I tried to eat some other food, mostly fruits, but I was sensing the coming on of the stomach shutdown. Now it was just a matter of whether I could avoid it by drinking still more, eat more, eat something different? What?!

Just before the lunch stop I happened upon an old friend, Keith Cook, who's son, Roger, is a hotshot fast guy. Keith was one of those that took off fast in the morning so he could ride with his son for at least part of the day. We rode to the rest stop together, but he went on in order to catch sight of his son coming down from Kaiser Pass.

The last 8 miles up to Kaiser Pass were the longest of the day. My legs felt decent, but my head, my psyche was getting to me. Perhaps the altitude had something to do with it. I just didn't feel 100%, or anywhere near it. Going uphill, trying to calculate how long the climb would take. Not knowing what to expect. I saw Roger Cook come down about 6th place overall. I didn't seek Keith Cook coming back down until I was about a 1/2 mile from the top. It is weird how the summits seem to suddenly sneak up on you. Just when you think you've had enough, so has the mountain.

I'd managed to eat one GU at the Shaver Lake rest stop without (almost) gagging. I tried to eat (do you "eat" gels?) another at the top of Kaiser and had less luck. I got about 2/3 of it down, gagged, had to throw the rest out. I tried to eat a few other things, but I wanted to get rolling as quickly as possible. I wanted to get done.

The descent is a lot of fun, particularly once you're back on the main road, past the forest service gate. There was a lot of water on the road from melting snow. Enough that the lube on my chain was washed off and I had a noisy bike by the time I got back to Clovis. The watery roads nearly ruined my pair of Quackcyclists' socks, too!

Tamarack Ridge, normally, wouldn't be such a big deal, except for a little fatigue from what had gone before. I caught up with a young man and we rode together for a while. I kept noticing a car stopping and taking photos. At first, I thought he was one of those photogs that later places his digital images on his website for sale to the ride participants (like Photocrazy). Then I noticed that he kept leapfrogging me. I was getting a little paranoid. I finally realized that he wasn't stalking me, he was stalking this young man. And, it turns out, he wasn't stalking him. I asked the kid, "did you bring your own private photographer?" He said, "no. . . that's my dad." Mystery solved.

We worked together--I think we did anyway. I intended to, I don't know if he intended to. I could tell he was tired. But he kept a pretty good pace. I'd passed him earlier on the late portions of Kaiser Pass, but he caught back up to me on Tamarack.

After we crested the last of the 4 individual climbs that make up Tamarack and descended towards Shaver Lake, he ended up gapping me by a little bit. I was starting to feel really crappy by this point. I was getting nervous about the fact that, once to Shaver Lake, I still had 47 miles to go (and, while I knew that was mostly downhill, that certainly didn't mean ALL downhill).

Before reaching Shaver Lake I caught up to the kid again. We both stopped at the rest stop. I tried to eat and drink, made up another bottle of EFS. I opened a Pepsi and tried to drink some. Even the Pepsi made me gag. I got a sip down, gagged and shot it back through my nose. I was wiping Pepsi out of my nose for the next 15 miles. Not being able to eat, or drink, realizing that I still had a ways to go, I was getting panicky.

It was not all downhill to the next stop, but there was a lot of it. I caught up to Keith again in Auberry and we ended up riding in together the rest of the way. We passed the kid again--he hadn't stopped in Auberry. After we passed him, we didn't see him again. He ended up finishing about an hour after Keith and I.

Keith was running low on energy. I was absolutely dehydrated, lips were dry, mouth was a mess. Not totally out of energy, not a total bonk, but I was getting dangerously close--although not as bad as at the Terrible Two the week earlier.

Keith and I tried trading pulls. I think he probably got the raw end of the deal. I have to say that it really did work out better that we could ride together. We caught up with one other fellow at the Millerton Store rest stop, the last rest stop with just 16 miles to the end.

This fellow decided to ride in with us in order to benefit from a group. Despite the fact that we'd just caught up to him, he was obviously stronger than either Keith or me in those last 16 miles. It was weird in that occasionally I felt pretty good at the front, other times, just dead. I'm not sure how Keith felt, but he was saying he wasn't about completely out of gas.

I'm not quite sure how I made it in. I did. Together with Ray Winter of Fresno (a runner who got into biking at the urging of some friends while rehabbing a knee injury. He ran Boston this year, says he'll do one more Boston then stop marathons because it's too hard on the body). Nice guy, and patient with Keith and I.

After finishing, all I could do is sit in the shade and swear. I was having almost the same feelings I did at the end of the Terrible Two. Zero appetite. Completely fatigued. After a while, I managed to get a shower. Threw up in the shower. Felt a little better. Nothing to throw up. Nothing came up.

I tried some 7-Up, then we left about 6:30, or so. We stopped by the Foster's Freeze on Clovis Avenue. Linda had a vanilla shake. I opted out, but changed my mind and had a root beer smoothie. It went down well, and stayed down. I wished I'd had a larger size!

By the time we were near Merced I was willing to talk about solid food again. Then I pushed it to Turlock. We ended up at a Chipotle at 8:30 and I was able to down three tacos and a Coke. No problem. I have an appointment with a nutritionist on July 15th to talk about the problems I've had at the three long events this year--Central Coast, Terrible Two, and Climb to Kaiser.

I don't know if it is what I eat/drink, how much I eat/drink, a combination of the two. Whatever I've been doing isn't working. I'd like to finish these feeling tired, but strong, and with an appetite.

Keith, Ray, and I ended up in 11 hrs 19 minutes. Keith was 2 minutes better than his time last year. His son Roger did 5 minutes better than last year and finished in 9 hrs 26 minutes. The "winner" (in quotes since, technically, this was not a race) finished in 8 hours flat. He was the previous record holder in a time he shared with one other guy of 8 hrs 4 minutes. It would have been cool to see 7 hours 59 minutes. Keith, Ray and I were at about 41st out of 181 finishers. After having let all those folks go earlier, I don't know when/where I caught back up. It didn't seem I was passing anybody.

Big Creek is the location of a Southern California Edison powerplant. It's in an incredibly beautiful valley. The river that feeds the powerplant was flowing huge amounts of water, similar to what's happening at Yosemite it's being fed by a huge snowpack this year. One local rider and I talked a bit and he commented on the enormity of the flows--"it just doesn't happen like that usually."

Some of the views from Tollhouse and Big Creek climbs were amazing. From the top of Kaiser there wasn't really much to see.

I swore off the bicycle again, the second week in a row, after this ride. It's Tuesday evening following and I am holding firm so far.

Who is Jim Swarzman?

Jim Swarzman? I'm not qualified to answer with any great detail. I met Jim Swarzman just twice, the first time during the Devil Mountain Double of 2010. We happened to be at the Mines Rd rest stop at the same time at around mile 91. We started out from the rest stop separately, but as we made our way towards the Junction Cafe rest stop and Mt Hamilton we found we were riding at about the same pace so we ended up riding together for those 25 miles and talked. Not about anything special, really, just that kind of conversation you have with someone else about that one thing in common that got us both there to begin with: riding a bike.

He was riding an older bike with downtube shifters that I have seen in subsequent photos of him, including pictures of him at the Furnace Creek 508. The day I first met him he was wearing his Furnace Creek 508 jersey, which he'd explained he'd earned riding with his partner--whose name I did not learn, nor did I ever get the chance to meet, though I think she might have been at DMD in 2010. When I saw Jim again a few weeks later at the Central Coast Double I know she was there that time because Jim mentioned he was going to wait for her then, if memory serves, they were going to have to drive down to Escondido, or some far off south state town.

On Mines Rd. there is a small creek that runs across the road, maybe 10-12 feet wide. Not much to it, really. He slowed down, I thought, to keep his bike from getting too wet. Turns out he was slowing down so as not to create spray from the tires onto the 508 jersey. He said, "gotta respect the jersey." We didn't solve the world's problems, or discuss philosophy or politics. We just talked. Made a friend. Somehow we got split up at Junction and I didn't see him again at the DMD.

A few weeks later as I rode up to finish the Central Coast Double, Jim Swarzman was there on his bike, having just signed in himself. He greeted me with a hearty "hello, remember me from a few weeks ago at DMD?" I did right away, of course. We didn't talk much more than that. Just shared a short mutual congratulations on finishing and we parted ways. Me figuring I could look forward to seeing Jim again on future rides, him waiting for his girlfriend.

While searching for information on the California Triple Crown website, I saw this headline:

"Jim Swarzman, RIP "My Kind of Guy, and Cyclist" by Chris Kostman - Please share your memories here".

I could not believe what I was reading. I read or hear stories about cycling accidents all too frequently, but this one is the closest to hitting home than any others to date. It was a stunning loss, even to someone that barely knew the man.

For as long as the link to Chris Kostman's memorial works, here it is:

http://www.xo-1.org/2011/04/jim-swarzman-my-kind-of-guy-and-cyclist.html

Thanks to Chris Kostman and the various links and posts to the site he set up, I was able to learn much, much more about who Jim was, what he'd done. I am happy to have met Jim Swarzman, however briefly our paths had crossed. And I am sad that I will not see him again. I'm not typically a friendly fellow to other riders. Not because I'm a jerk, I simply feel I don't have a lot to say. It was impossible to not be friendly with Jim. I hope his family and friends find comfort in their memories of him.

In the clear?

Sixty-Six, flat, easy miles today. Sloooowwwww pace. No knee pain at 2 hours. No pain at 3 hours!! No pain at 4 hours!!! Is it healed? Didn't do any climbing, no hard efforts. Just poked along "listening" to the knee.

I'll try again Sunday. With a climb, even.

Wet, Though Not Quite "Epic "

Linda and I rode the Solvang spring double century on March 26, 2011. We went against our better judgment, believing that the forecasts for rain were exaggerated. Watching the local news from our hotel room on Friday night confirmed it. The local weather guy, don't know if he was out of SLO or Santa Maria, said that the storm would stay to the north and "just brush" the area. We probably wouldn't see any rain at all or, if we did, it would be very light and quick to pass by.

Pffft. . . .

We chose to ride Solvang because we had waived Death Valley in February due to inclement weather (turned out that time that it didn't rain all that much but they did have terrific headwinds). I rode Solvang last year, liked it well enough, but the ride lacks the vibe of the club-run centuries and double centuries. And, boy, the gal from Planet Ultra, the ride promoter, that was checking riders out in the morning, and then back in the evening, she was a cranky ol' thing. Sure, it was a long day. Sure, it was probably for very little reward. But geez, she couldn't have been more dour and ill-tempered if she tried. I don't know who she is, I don't know her name, I don't know her story. All I do know is that her collective experience that day must have worn on her from the start.

Linda took off from the lovely Buellton Days Inn at about 5 am. I guess this Days Inn is famous, or something:

http://www.daysinn.com/DaysInn/control/Booking/property_info?propertyId=11567

I was a little too cold and waited until 6:30. Looking at the sky, there was some overcast but rain was nowhere near imminent. So far, so good.

I'm a little odd in that I expect to ride doubles alone. I don't want to draft anybody, and I don't invite anyone to draft off of me. I figure it's my 200 miles to ride and I'm going to ride all of them. It's hard sometimes to see a big group go powering by and letting it go. Particularly when it contains a few people that you passed earlier. So it was with some folks that I happened to leave the hotel with about the same time. They were going just fast enough where getting in front of them would have been faster than I wanted to go (they'd have seen it as a challenge), but they were going just slow enough where I didn't like following. I finally got to get around them when we hit a short hill just going into Solvang. They slowed way down and I slipped by them. A few minutes later they, and about 20 others, came motoring by behind a tandem.

I was feeling pretty good. I was worrying about my knee because it had been giving me problems since I whacked it against the corner bedpost of our bed back on February 16th. The Doc classified it as a "periosteal bruise", a bond bruise, of my knee cap. It's the stupidest thing. It doesn't hurt when I walk, it's almost like it disappears when I'm not on the bike. The last few weeks it would hibernate for the first 2-3 hours of a ride and then rear its head with a vengeance. I was listening closely for any sense of discomfort in that knee. Actually, did pretty well. Three hours came and went and all was good. I didn't experience any pain sufficient enough to even slow me down, although I could tell that it was irritated. After the ride, though, hoo-boy. There was a great deal of pain. I drove from Buellton to Jerry's house in Cayucos and it hurt my knee just to pivot my foot on my heel to switch from the gas pedal to the brake pedal and back. I was very nervous, thinking that I'd really screwed it up. It acted up the same way while driving home Sunday and actually felt like a real knee injury for a while there. . . it hurt even when I wasn't on the bike. By Monday, though, it was almost as if nothing had happened. It's the stupidest thing.

The sky never really looked all that bad all morning. I passed the first rest stop and it was looking pretty good. We almost made it all the way to the 2nd stop at around mile 86 when the first drops arrived. It was obvious looking north towards Morro Bay that it was going to be wet for a while. I though that maybe it'd rain while we headed north and then quit sometime after the turn back towards Buellton. Nothing doing. It rained the entire time (with few breaks) theraefter.

It was relentless. And it was strange how much a toll it took by the end of the day. When it first started it filled my shoes immediately with water. I could deal with that. Wet's wet, I figured, and once wet, you can't get any wetter, right?

It's a good thing the temps were relatively mild as I didn't have full finger gloves or anything on my legs (just shorts). The long fingered gloves probably would have been just as bad, or even worse, unless they were waterproof gloves. Even so, later in the ride I was having trouble squeezing my water bottles or using my hands at all. I could barely operate the shifters. I don't know how much the poor shifting performance I was experiencing was due to my hands, and how much was due to the impact of the water and grit build up. Even today, April 6th, I still note some weakness in my grip of my right hand.

Except for my hands, though, I really didn't feel all that bad. The legs were good, for the most part. My arms, back, neck, etc., were all good.

It's amazing what the rain and grit did to the bike though. There was so much sand and crud being thrown up on the bike and clothes and everywhere. On top of that, the ag fields close by the roads had mud tracks from trucks/tractors/etc. entering and exiting the fields. The roads, particularly around Guadalupe, were a filthy mess. Throw on top of that the poor road surface, the rain, just everything made it a mess to deal with.

You'd apply the brakes and wince as you heard the rims being sanded away by the grit build up on the brake pads and on the braking surface of the wheels. I figure there was a good 6-7 hours of hard rain and sopping wet conditions. Water got into every place imaginable on the bike. My front brake pads were worn to nubs, my rear pads weren't much better.

And, oh, man the flat tires!! I didn't have any, but a lot of other people did. I never saw so many people pulled over to the side of the road repairing flats. I was amazed, and nervous waiting for my turn. For whatever reason I was spared.

I had some muscle issues in my left thigh that disappeared quickly after finishing. My right knee left me pretty well alone. It never felt badly, and never raised cause for concern or gave me thoughts of needing to stop. After the ride, though, it hurt like hell. It was worrisome because it was hurting AFTER I'd quit riding. Every other time before now, it would hurt while riding, then stop when I stopped riding. This time it stayed. I drove to Cayucos after the ride and drove the trip home to El Dorado. Pivoting my right foot on my heel to operate the gas/brake in the car caused a great deal of pain. I thought I'd blown it for good and I'd be out of riding for months. After we got home Sunday night, I iced it. Iced it as much as I could Monday. By Monday night, it was slightly tender to the touch, but that was it. It almost, very nearly felt normal. Bizarre.

So. . . very wet. Screwed up the bike big time. Cold hands, but everything else was working pretty well. Dirty roads. Rough roads. Wet. Mud. Grit. Wet. Rusty, dry chain. It was messy, but not quite epic. My ride last year in France doing the Marmotte route. . . THAT was epic.

Linda had her own story. She had to bag it at the last rest stop with about 25 miles to go because of a broken cable restricting her to just 1 or 2 gears. She wasn't sure what was ahead and people were telling her the climbing was hellacious, so she bagged it. Which was too bad because 1) the climbs weren't bad, and 2) she was SO close. God bless her.

Ailment

So my doctor tells me he thinks my knee issue, lovingly brought on by a tangle (or near tangle) with my cat, is a "periosteal bruise". I guess there's a thin membrane, or tissue, or something covering some (all?) of our bones--kneecap in my case--that can be bruised and take months to heal. I don't know. Sounds good to me. I've not put it to the test since by ride to Elk Grove on March 12th. Everything I've done since then has been pretty low intensity, and short duration. I've ridden only 143 miles since the 12th. Not a great way to start off the cycling season.

On deck--Solvang Double March 26th (looks like it'll be wet), Devil Mtn Double in April, Central Coast Double in May, Terrible Two and Climb to Kaiser in June, and probably one more double after that. Unless Linda and I decide to go on the Sac Wheelmen Oregon Tour in late July. It interferes with the Mt Tam Double so we're trying to figure out which we want to do.

My Cat's Got It In For Me

My Tormentor, giving the Evil Eye

On February 22, 2011, while simply traversing the doorway to my bedroom, Tycho got under foot and, in order to avoid stepping right on him, I ran my right knee directly into the corner bedpost. It hurt like any other blow to the knee. . . figured it'd hurt a couple of days, develop a bruise, and then it'd be all over. That was a Tuesday. On Thursday, while on the trainer, the knee hurt and I quickly figured, hmm, okay, that's from that blow to the knee.

I rode 65 miles Saturday without any discomfort. The next day, though, Linda and I rode to Davis from Folsom (with The Habit at the turnaround) and by about 1/4 of the way back on the return trip, my knee started to hurt a little bit. Then a little more, and more. It hurt while sitting, hurt worse while standing. It was tough to pinpoint the exact cause since it seemed to be sensitive to the touch only at the point the knee made impact with the bedpost, but the pain enveloped the whole front of the knee. If I'd stop for a few minutes and start riding again, the pain would disappear for a few miles and then start up again. It was quite debilitating, more so from the standpoint over concern whether I'd do more damage by continuing to ride.

Made it home. . . knee didn't hurt. No pain while walking, though still painful if the point of impact was touched. I didn't turn a pedal for five days. By Friday it felt pretty good. No pain to the touch. Figured I was good to ride Saturday. Rode with the Revolutions folks. El Dorado Hills out Salmon Falls to 49, over to Prospector, Georgetown, Cool, back to Pilot Hill where we parted ways. I headed to do the out-and-back on Rattlesnake Bar Rd while the rest of the crew headed back to EDH.

About 2 miles into the 9 towards Folsom Lake, there goes my knee again--just as savagely as the week before. This time, too, there were tendon issues behind my left knee--hopefully unrelated. I couldn't decide whether to continue, turn back or what. It wasn't like I could just stop and climb into the car, I had about 25 miles to go before I could get back to the car.

I made it out to the lake, rested it for a while and the 9 miles back to Pilot Hill were a little better, but the pain was still hampering my ability to climb, or apply any power up a hill. For whatever reason, after that, things went pretty well the rest of the way back on Salmon Falls.

Post-ride, the knee was hurting like it was before my 5 days off. Today, March 8th, it still hurts like it did two weeks ago. No pain to walk, just riding. And it seems the easier the pedal stroke the more it hurts. It's driving me mad. Stay off the bike completely for another week? Two?

I'm supposed to ride the Solvang Double in two weeks--when am I supposed to get some miles in? It's such a stupid injury, doubly so not knowing what it is I did. I'm falling behind in training. The first Folsom Canal time trials were today--wanted to do that series this year. I've got Devil Mountain next month, Central Coast in May, Terrible Two and Climb to Kaiser in June. I've got to be getting in some miles!!

I'm supposed to see a doctor Monday or Tuesday. It'll be three weeks since the injury by that time. Too bad I'm not on anybody's payroll, a doctor would have seen me by now!