But it did get me thinking about my relationship to cycling, and the things I’ve accomplished this year, and where I want it to go from here. I’ve logged about 4000 miles this year, most of them commuting miles, but at least a thousand of them were training for and riding my first century back in August.

As I began training for that ride, I’d thought I might be taking my first step towards getting into serious road riding. I put in pre-dawn miles and went after hills and thought about how heavy my bike was and how thick my tires were. I ate little blocks of gummi caffeine and sugar, occasionally found someone else going fast to trade drafting duties with, and wondered if I should get serious and trade the pedal clips for real cycling shoes and clipless pedals. I thought about joining a club and riding a featherweight bike in a paceline on Saturday mornings, and derided myself for having a triple crank.

Some things have become clear to me since then, most notably that performance road riding’s not my cup of tea. Occasionally I take on something that seems big and challenging out of curiosity or to prove something to myself, or in the case of the Livestrong Challenge because I wanted to do something good and difficult. But the truth is that I just don’t have much of a passion for pushing the envelope, my competitive fire doesn’t burn all that hot, and that anything that starts feeling like Serious Business loses my attention. I’m bliss-driven.

For example, I’ve gone weeks without making it out to a disc golf course, but I’ll still get up at 5:00 a.m. a few times a week to head out to a field with a stack of Rocs or Teebirds for an hour or so before work. There’s a peripheral motivation to become a better disc golfer and a stronger competitor, but that’s not really why I do it. I do it because I love throwing discs, I love shaping lines in the sky and watching the disc follow them. If there were no courses nearby, I’d still get out to a field because I love the snap of the throw and the shape of the flight, and I experience a lot of perfect moments doing it.

The perfect moments I have on bikes are blissful and joyous, very few of them have involved much suffering. The best rides I’ve had this year have been on partly cloudy days in the mid-60’s, flying down brick alleys on 60mm balloon tires with my hands wrapped around a pair of Albatross bars. I love riding my Xtracycle with my daughter to her school. I love wrenching on our bikes and building wheels and tuning drivetrains until they’re quiet and smooth. I love bunny-hopping and off-street bike trails and saying Good Morning to crossing guards on my way to work and cranking and rolling and flowing with traffic and breathing the air and having nothing but the sky above me the whole time. My brass bell is one of the prettiest tones I can think of. Sometimes, I like to go slow.

There’s a hundred things that make me smile about being on a bike, but there’s not a single one of them that a heart-rate monitor would make any better for me. Sometimes I wish that weren’t the case. Sometimes, I think it would be awesome to be driven to achieve peak performance, to measure my effort by my perseverance and endurance, to conquer and win. And I enjoy watching folks with those qualities struggle and grind and endure, I’m amazed by their superhumanity (as well as their humanity) and take delight in their performances. But the only measures of my cycling experience that really motivate me are grins and laughs.

I realized that I wasn’t dissatisfied because my Long Haul Trucker was the wrong bike for how I wanted to ride, but rather that I wasn’t doing the kind of riding I truly love doing (for which the Trucker actually is perfect). I put the fenders back on, the clips came off the pedals (though I may pick up a pair of these or these for traction), and it’s getting mustache bars at the earliest opportunity.

I also picked up a beautiful Paramount Series 3 earlier this year, and had plans to outfit it for road riding. But I think I’m going to put riser bars, platform pedals, and 28’s on it instead. I may not have room for a serious road bike in my stable, but I can make room for a zippy street bike. Especially if it’s fun to ride.

Rollin’ Out with Jason and Philly Jen

I was up at 4:28 a.m. on Sunday, two minutes ahead of my alarm clock. I got dressed, slammed some juice, joyfully spalmed up, washed my hands, and headed to the Doubletree to meet the morning rollout squad. Thirty of forty of us were assembled out front, including one intrepid rider on an Xtracycle, much to my delight.

Spotting Philly Jen was easy, she was simultaneously effervescent and in-charge (which was no mean feat at dawn’s early light). She also noticed that I’d forgotten to put the provided pink Team Fatty ribbons on my wrist and helmet. That’s right, I got busted for failing to wear enough flair. Again. Before long, The Man himself came out, looking a little dazed but happy to be there. Everyone clicked into their pedals, and sixty snicks later we were rolling the back roads of Blue Bell, PA towards Montgomery County Community College.

Ben and Fatty Arrive at Livestrong Central

The Philadelphia Livestrong Challenge filled up completely, 6,500 riders and runners raised over $3.2 million for cancer research, prevention, and survivor support. By the cut-off date for tallying recruitment goals and contributions, Team Fatty Philly had 197 members (over 170 of which were signed up for the 100-mile ride) and raised over $270,000. Team Fatty Austin has raised over $129,000, and still has two months to go. It’s humbling and gratifying to have been part of such an outstanding effort by so many wonderful people.

We Are Legion

We packed the starting chute around 7:30, and hit the road at 8:00. I was pumped with adrenaline, fueled on pasta and gel, and rode the rollers over the first few miles of the course like I had wings. I knew I couldn’t hold that kind of pace for the whole ride, and that hard work lay ahead, but I was filled with energy and enthusiasm, and coffee and sports drinks. I covered the 9 miles to the first Power Stop station with a quickness and made haste to the porta-potties. Relieved, I got back on the road and settled into a comfortable cadence.

Ridin’ Along at a Medium Pace

Before the ride, I’d had doubts about whether or not Cledus was going to be up to the task. He’s built for loaded touring from Surly’s 4130 CroMoly steel, solid and comfortable. But he’s not light, his handling’s more stable than swift, and 32c tires on him pass for “skinny”.

My doubts were totally unfounded, he was a perfect steed, rode like he was on rails. On the rollers, I’d crank and tuck on the downhills, let Cledus carry the bottom, pedal easy and downshift as I came up to the next crest, and push a little to the top. Someday I may be strong enough to attack a 15% grade on a road bike, but this time, on these hills, I was grateful to have a triple crank and I didn’t walk once. The steel frame, long wheelbase, and solid touring tires made descents easy and filled with joy. I spent a lot of time at 35-40 mph, hit 42.5 mph at least once, and I swear the faster I went, the more at home that bike felt.

I imagine I’ll put together something sportier and closer to a real roadie at some point, but I’ll have that Trucker for the rest of my life if I have anything to say about it. What a sweet, sweet ride that bike is. I’m a lucky guy.

Pennsylvania’s Countryside’s Real Purdy

The early miles were pretty easy. I hit every stop for short rests, filled up on sports drinks, PBJ’s and fruit, and chatted with the volunteers. At around the 28 mile mark, we hit our first really good hill, a 600 foot climb over about 5 miles, with a 150 descent in the middle to break it up. This wasn’t the big one, but it was big enough to put me into low gears for a long time. A line of us would climb and climb, pass a few people walking their bikes, and every so often see someone sitting on the side of the road massaging a knot from a cramped quad or hamstring.

That’s Some Good Work Right There

We hit the top and dropped quickly into a long descent with a couple short steep climbs down to the plains around Pikeville. I was rocketing down one of these glorious roads when I looked up to see a cyclist waving his arms and making signs to slow down. I yelled back to slow, grabbed a couple handfuls of brakes, and came around the slightly wet, hay-bale-softened corner at a cautious speed as a couple other cyclists were assisting someone who’d clearly gone perineum-over-elbows over the guard rail. The downed rider looked muddy and stunned, but conscious and not bloody. Hearing the ambulance coming up the hill was both reassuring and chilling, I kept rolling with a cautious hand on the brakes the rest of the way down.

Headed down into the Woods

I got nervous as I closed in on the 50 mile mark. The map showed the hill heading up to Landis Store rising slowly, then climbing 600 feet or so over the course of a mile. For all the training I’d done leading up to the ride, I hadn’t done anything remotely like that in D.C. and had no idea what to expect. The road started tilting, but at first it wasn’t any harder than the climb back 20 miles back, and even had a few easy descents. Then, around mile 55, the road got steep, and then it went straight up. The heavy parts were 12-20% grades, but every so often they’d mellow to a 5% grade that felt like heaven for a little while. There was bygawd sufferin’, lots of it to go around.

I got out of the saddle, looked up, visualized a long steep staircase, found a climbing rhythm, and ground it out. Every fifth of a mile or so there’d be a sign with a you can do it! or a not much farther! to keep us going, and I appreciated every one of them. About three-quarters of the way up, one of the volunteers in a Devil outfit, complete with pitchfork, urged us on. He did tell us we only had about 50 meters to go, which of course was a lie, but everyone’s got a job to do, right?

The grade dropped to just a few percent at the top, and we could see volunteers in yellow shirts, waving us up, blowing air horns, and shouting to us that we were almost there. We came around the corner, and hit Landis Store at last.

Happy People Coming In To Landis Store

Landis Store was like heaven. Volunteers congratulated us and offered water, hot dogs, soup, Gatorade, pasta salad, trail mix, watermelon, orange slices. There was a misting machine and a country band. One of the riders I’d been chatting with on the way to the climb lived less than a mile away, his kids were there to greet him and he was visibly touched. I stayed too long, ate too much, and enjoyed the party.

Rockin’ the Chicago Schwinn and Toe Clips, How Cool Is That?

Everything after that seemed, if not easy, at least doable and really fun. There were more 6-7 mph climbs, more blazing descents, more folks on their porches waving and smiling, more beautiful Pennsylvania countryside. Somewhere around mile 65, I felt something crawling on my right ring finger for a split-second before it felt like it’d caught fire. I found the sting but not the stinger, so I figured at least the world hadn’t lost another honey bee. About 10 miles from the end, my right inner thigh cramped at the end of a climb, but I limped to the top and rubbed it out on the road. There was just no way I was going to stop at that point, even if I had to pedal with one leg.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Around the Bend We Go

At about mile 90, I thought about the Tyvek ticket attached to my rider bib, redeemable for a cold beer, put a few more watts into the cranks, and reeled in the last few miles. Before long I could see the college, then I was in the chute flying between rows of yellow balloons, then I was across the finish line, and then I was at rest. Someone was trying to congratulate me, I looked up and it was Fatty his own self with a big grin and a warm welcome.

You would think from reading his blog that Elden’s a really nice guy, and that you’d probably like him if you ever met him. You’d think that, but you’d still be unprepared for just how nice a guy he is, and what a joy it is to meet him in person. If he hadn’t put together Team Fatty, he’d still be the kind of person that makes the world a better place just by being in it and showing us how it’s done. But in addition to being a swell guy, he also put together a team of hundreds, coordinated all sorts of contests and events to keep us motivated, and so far has been the driving force behind hundreds of people raising over half-a-million dollars and counting to fight cancer. I’m grateful that he invited all of us to join his fight and to raise money and train and be a part of this, and I’ll be ready to do it again next year.

The Tale of the Tape

I’m still exhausted. My legs are noodled, which I expected. My hands are wasted too, which I didn’t expect, seems like all the climbing worked my forearms to the point where it hurts to squeeze a fist. The total for the day, with the ride from the hotel, the ride, and the ride back to the car (including the wrong turn) was around 110 miles. The course map says the total climb was around 4200 feet, but I heard a guy at the 70 mile mark say his GPS was already showing 6240 feet of climbing, and I’d heard it said elsewhere that the actual total climb was around 8300 feet. That sounds about right.

After the ride Sunday, I overheard a Livestrong volunteer telling a rider about the course. The folks that lay out the courses for the events present them to Lance for approval, and when they got to the Philly course, they mentioned to him that this was, of the four events, the hardest course. They showed him the route and topographical chart, and then pointed out some areas where they could change the route to take out some of the more difficult climbs. He said something to the effect of, “Are we putting on the Livestrong Cakewalk? It’s perfect, make sure everyone signs the waiver.”

I couldn’t have asked for a better first century. Thanks for the challenge, Lance. And thanks for the ride, Fatty.

[UPDATE]: Things I forgot to mention:

• Big, huge thanks again to all of you that made contributions to the Livestrong Foundation. You all are heroes, I just ride a bike.
• The Livestrong Volunteers are, one and all, awesome. This being my first charity ride, my sample size is small, but I honestly can’t imagine any crew anywhere being as enthusiastic, supportive, and dedicated as the folks that shouldered the work of putting this event on so that a bunch of us could run around and ride our bikes.
• Additionally, to the folks at Landis Store, y’all sure know how to put on a party.

Here’s some more stories and photos from other awesome Team Fatty folks, check ‘em out!

• Jason from Albany hits town, and cranks a longtail
• epicmoonflower rides pink tires, has awesome toenails, and provides pics and movin’ pictures.
• Albany Bob hammers roadies on his awesome Gunnar cross bike, and wins wheels. (The Albanians represent!)
• Lizzylou made our awesome bibs, loves cake, and crashes a little (’cause blood smells like victory).
• Pics from Llamahope, Alex Matthews, and a ton of great shots from KevKavPix.

I’ll post more as they become available…

Bag’s packed, clothing’s checked in and checked off. Brought the good socks, and they’re clean. Tool kit’s rolled up and in the bag, along with the Shot Bloks and GU Chomps. Cledus is tuned, stripped of commuter luxuries, and dialed in. Naked Juices are in the fridge, waiting to hop into a cold bag with some freezer packs. DZ Nuts? Oh yeah, I got ‘em covered.

A special thanks goes out to all of you that gave generously to sponsor my participation. I’ll have a ride report and maybe some pics when I return.

I am McLovin.

Saturday would’ve been a possibility, but my daughter got a case of Swimmer’s Ear. From about 3 p.m. until 9 p.m., she and my wife sat in an emergency room, waiting to be admitted for about five-and-a-half hours, and then being diagnosed and prescribed ear drops, while the boy and I got some quality time. From about 9:30 p.m. until 11 p.m., I was standing in line at a pharmacy, waiting to fill the prescription.

Incidentally. as far as all the scaremongering about socialized medicine and long waits for treatment goes, I say bring it, I have no fear of your hypothetical long waits. If we can get emergency room visits to be as pleasant as a visit to the DMV, it’ll be a huge improvement.

Saturday night was punctuated with ear-dropping and other small emergencies that kept me from sleeping for more than about 90 minutes at a time. It turns out that this is not an optimal training regimen. Two large cups of coffee into the morning, I still couldn’t shake the queasiness, lethargy, and disorientation I get these days when I don’t get my beauty sleep.

Nevertheless, I was determined to do 3 laps around the city on what’s become my training route: Sligo Creek Parkway up to Silver Spring, across town to the Capital Crescent Trail, down to Georgetown, and back through the city to Northeast. There are variations, but the trails make up a good 19 miles of it, with mild elevation changes and long stretches without cars. Cledus and I took off from home and went counter-clockwise, turned northeast from the Washington Monument, and back up through town. Lap one was just a hair over 30 miles, and held a steady 15.5 mph until downtown’s lights and stops brought it down into the high fourteens. I was feeling pretty good when I stopped at home, drank a quart of milk, and made an adjustment to my saddle.

For the second lap, I went the other way, except instead of heading downtown I went due east towards Rock Creek Church Parkway, just west of the United States Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home. I needed more climb than my usual route has, since the Livestrong Challenge ride promises a couple good ones, and the route north of Catholic University goes up a couple hundred feet in a couple miles. The climb was long, but I was up to it, and the payoff was great. I flew down the other side, hit some rollers on the way to 14th, turned south and headed for the National Zoo to pick up the Rock Creek Park Trail to Georgetown.

It was getting towards one o’clock by then, and the temperature was climbing towards 95 by the time I made it up the CCT to Bethesda. I stopped at Gifford’s,slammed a smoothie made of sugar, ice, and something from the artificial berry family, and alternated between ecstatic gulps of ice-coldness and agonizing bouts of brain freezing. The heat and humidity was getting to me. I was 45 miles in, and seriously doubting whether or not I had another lap-and-a-half left in me, but pretty sure I could get home. I stretched a bit and saddled up for the second half of lap two.

Another hour and two bottles of water later, I was back home, slamming another quart and a half of milk and eating frozen blueberries. Lap two took about the same time, and my average was holding at 14.7 mph, but I was hurtin’. I did another set of stretches and thought about calling it a day. My legs were cramping in the hamstrings, but the more troubling cramps were coming from my ribs. I’d misadjusted the bars and seat so that I was putting just a little too much weight on my arms, and the supporting muscles were starting to protest. I rested ten minutes, made small adjustments to my cockpit and seat and decided to give it a go, but slowly for a while.

Lap three went clockwise again, but this time, I took a quick, easy route downtown before heading west on K St. to the CCT entrance on Water St. The first part of that leg was tender and tenuous, but I loosened up and my position was definitely better. By the time I hit the trail, I wasn’t explosive by any means, but I felt like I was on the upswing. I hit Gifford’s again once I got to Bethesda, and sucked down an orange soda float with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and a cherry. (It might’ve been the best soda float I’ve ever had, and I recommend it as a superior training drink.) I rode an easy pace up the rest of the CCT, and crawled through Silver Spring to the Sligo Creek Parkway. Sligo Creek was beautifully smooth and winding, and didn’t have a lot of traffic on it. I took the lane, and started pushing just a little harder. I couldn’t really pound on the cranks, my legs felt fragile, but gently pushing with what I had was enough to glide along at 20 mph and enjoy the ride for a while.

I gave what I had left to the last five miles or so between New Hampshire Avenue and the Prince George’s Community Pool where the rest of the family was waiting for me. It was good to see them, and not just because my wife had an ice-cold Yuengling waiting for me. Well, that was a big part of it, that and she’d just come out of the pool and gave me a big, wet, cold hug. The total for the day came to 87.5 miles and around 3080 feet of climbing in a few minutes over 6 hours of saddle-time. I took 4 breaks for about another 45 minutes, drank close to a gallon of milk, and maybe another quart of cold ice-cream drinks.

That’s the most miles I’ve ever done in a day, and the most I’ve ever done at a time, though it’s still short of the Livestrong ride by about 12 miles. I realize that this is, by any objective standard, a mediocre achievement. After all, Kent Peterson does 174 miles as a practice run for really big rides. But I know this: 4 months ago, I couldn’t have done it, and two weeks from now, I’m going to ride 100 miles. I know that I can, I know that I will. In fact, I’m really looking forward to it.

[UPDATE]: Mr. Peterson, sir, if you’re reading this, I’d like to apologize. Searching through these posts, I realized I used the couch cushion metaphor on December 2 of last year, when I signed up for this thing. You deserve better than a recycled quip, therefore, I’ve fixed it.

You see, I wasn’t able to get the Fat Cyclist jersey I was hoping to score. I hemmed and hawed over which one would be the most awesomest, and then they all sold out. Like, in a week.

So I was kind of down about not being able to have participated in the big Twin Six Fat Cyclist sale, and was thinking about writing about it, and then thinking “no one wants to read about that, and I don’t want to write about it.”

Which led to thinking about what I do want to write about. I mean, I can tell you about the finer points of my goat trails, the ride to Ruby’s school, the commute. I can tell you about the even yet finer points as well, there are truly splendid driveways over by Trinity University that I could fill pages describing. I could do a daily post, in all-caps, yelling at the motorists who taunt and torment me. But you don’t want to read that. And I don’t want to write it.

And then I caught a glimpse of a slide from a presentation by BikeHugger’s own D.H. Byron, a presentation that included a couple points about making your blog better. The seed of advice that took root in the fertile soil of my imagination was: “make yourself more awesome”. Which led to the next slide, the practical implementation of that advice: “Do Epic Shit”.

About the same time, Fatty announced that he was going to put together a team for each of the Livestrong Challenge events that would be bigger than any before, raise more money for cancer research than any Livestrong Challenge team ever before, and would involve a bike ride longer than… well, any ride I’ve ever done before, by probably 75 miles. And I thought, “Hey, that sounds suspiciously… epic.”

It is a big event thought out and managed by people who are good at those kinds of things. It’s not a race, the ride’s well supported, and I’ll be undertaking this quest with my teammates, who will (hopefully) be about a thousand strong. So it’s kind of beginner level, as far as an Epic Adventure! goes. In other words, a perfect fit. And, it’s for the best of causes, under an auspicious banner, and I may get a FatCyclist jersey out of it after all, hopefully something smaller than an XXXL.

So, between now and next August, I’ll be training for a big long ride, writing about the process, and perhaps bothering folks about sponsoring me just a little bit. If you’re interested, this here’s my personal fundraising page, and I’ll leave a link over on the right in case you’d be interested in stopping by it later. If they make a thermometer widget or a bat or something, I’ll put that up too.

If you’re interested in joining Fatty’s Livestrong Team for one of the events in Austin, Seattle, San Jose, or Philadelphia, visit this post for quick links and info, as well as the rundown on all the nifty rafflings he’s personally doing for folks joining his team. You’re worth a million in prizes. You don’t have to walk, run, or bike to join, there’s plenty of ways to help. And you don’t have to ride 10, 20, 50, or 100 miles, but you sure could.

I’m excited and nervous and ready to get on this, like I’m at the beginning of something… epic. Feels good.

[UPDATE]: Kent Peterson also asks that you join the team. I imagine that when you’ve done the Great Divide Race on a single speed, you’ve probably got a hundred-mile ride laying around under your couch cushions.

[ANOTHER UPDATE]: I found a thermometer on the Livestrong Challenge site, but it appears to suck. I put it on my sidebar, it was bright yellow with heavily aliased white text and an obviously white background. Not gonna do it. If I find out they have something like an RSS feed, perhaps I’ll whip something up that doesn’t suck.