The best word to describe both Steve and myself following
the Ronde Von Palouse bike race is wrecked.
The toll from being dropped from my last two races was taking a serious
mental toll – bike racing is awesome, chasing alone or with maybe another guy
for thirty miles sucks. Anyway that’s
fodder for another blog post. In addition
to the mental degradation I’d been pushing my no longer twenty eight year old
body too hard: racing, training, skiing – all done too hard and too often had
worn me down.
Why then would the two of us elect to drive four hours to the
south central Washington town of Goldendale to do a ninety mile hilly, windy
Grand Fondo? I doubt either Steve or I
could give a satisfactory answer to that question, but regardless we got in the
car and drove to Goldendale; we had planned it that way so that’s what we did.
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| Steve chefing up in the sweet suit |
Goldendale is a sleepy town into which we rolled hungry, but
without appetites. Neither the weird bar
that claimed to serve burgers nor the Mexican restaurant seemed appealing, so
instead of going straight to dinner we checked in at the hotel. Thank God I paid the extra five bucks for the
suite – the sweet suit we called it. The
sweet suite had a refrigerator, an oven, a stove, pots, pans, plates,
everything we needed; we headed to the local grocery store.
After a shower and a massive dinner of pasta, sausage and
bread that filled in most of my empty spaces I went to bed thinking that the
next day just might be doable.
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| Cold and clear at the start |
We awoke to a slightly cold but clear sky. Screw it, let’s do this thing and let’s do it
with a smile. Steve and I filled up on
as much of the complimentary hotel breakfast as our bellies would hold all the
while picking the brains of two other riders.
They were seasoned Fondoliers (a made up word but I like it), and they
seemed extraordinarily chill, not the intense Type A’s one finds at sanctioned
bike races.
The ride started from the local high school and I met up
with a couple of guys I knew from cyclocross as well as a father of a girl on
my daughter’s gymnastics team. I looked
across the parking lot to see a familiar kit: it was Monica from my bike team;
she had come with a couple of gals on the Group Health team.
Off we went on a neutral rollout through town, rigor mortis
had definitely set it. The crisp morning
chill actually felt invigorating - the start of a beautiful day – but my legs
were D-E-A-D dead. Steve, on the other
hand, was riding fresh as a daisy.
This was a relatively small Grand Fondo, about one hundred
and twenty riders, but it seemed to break up into predictable groups within the
first few miles. Out front you had the
fifteen or twenty “racers” then you had the twenty or so “deliberate riders”
guys who were riding hard but not necessarily racing, then you had the
recreational riders, then you had the folks on mountain bikes.
I, along with Monica’s friend Marsa, fell in with the
deliberate pack, while Steve bridged across to the racers. At this point I figured that Steve and I
would be riding separately, and I settled in for a long day. Thankfully within a few minutes Steve rolled
back to Marsa and myself, “fuck that” he said.
We were in a group of about a dozen riders and strange as it
may seem every time we hit the gravel (there was about twenty miles of unpaved
road on this ride) the pace would shoot up.
The Grand Fondo was put on by Vicious Cycle Promotions and every time we’d
hit the dirt these five or six guys in Vicious Cycles kits would blast on by,
but then they’d fade on the pavement.
Those 33mm cross tires inflated to 50 pisi were good on the gravel but
they proved painfully slow on the road. I
rode 25mm Continental Gatorskins inflated to 100 psi, some of the downhill
gravel was sketchy, but I’ll take that over sixty five miles of road on knobby
cross tires anyday.
Steve, Marsa and I fell into a great rhythm, my legs were
coming around, we were all riding consistent and strong and the wind, well it
wasn’t that bad. During races hills are
my nemesis as I have yet to find that extra tiny little bit required to stay
with the peloton over the top, but tone the pace down just one mile per hour
and I can ride uphill all day. I
actually kind of enjoy it – it gives me a chance to look around and enjoy the
scenery.
At the top of one such long hill we rode through the middle
of a wind farm. Instead of focusing on
the steepness of the climb or the crappyness of the rutted dirt road I took in
the view: Mount Hood, white in the distance, the Columbia River rolling below,
a gentle breeze blowing over the hills of Central Washington, it was
spectacular, all you had to do was look up.
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| Approaching the wind farm |
After some rolling terrain, through which we picked up and
dropped numerous riders we descended into the Columbia Gorge. It was a fairly dramatic descent down twisty
roads, and I made the most of the free mileage.
Steve later told me that he and Marsa were freaking out over the wild
antics of the riders who surrounded me.
I guess I was focused on the road ahead and didn’t really pay them any attention,
I thought all was cool.
The Lyle rest stop at mile fifty five was well-stocked. Steve and I had brought our own food (more on
that in another post) and had also prepared drop bags, but I just stood at one
of the picnic tables shoving mini Pita Pit sandwiches into my mouth.
From the rest stop we had sixteen slightly uphill miles
along the Klickitat River, Marsa, Steve and I caught up with a strong duo and
we pushed a steady twenty mile an hour pace.
We had been warned about the hill at mile seventy two. The hill was really no mystery: we were
heading north and soon would have to head east toward Goldendale, and off to
the right was nothing but a massive ridge line, we’d have to cross it one way
or another.
At mile seventy two, just as predicted, we turned off the river
road and literally hit a wall. I had
nothing but big gears and the pitch was nearly too steep to ride. Within the first few hundred yards we passed
a “Primative Road” sign and they weren’t exaggerating. The ancient road was little more than a
rutted jeep trail, the grade remained at least ten percent. Riding on road tires meant that I couldn’t
stand up to pedal – my rear wheel would just spin in the loose dirt.
Somehow, somewhere I got a second wind and it seemed like
climbing became nearly effortless, I was rolling up the hill, no problem
passing riders one by one. It was weird,
but not unheard of. I’m used to riding
long distances at a moderate pace and have learned how to fuel myself; my near
constant ingestion of food was paying off.
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| Steve finishing the "hill" Mt Adams in the distance |
I waited a little bit at the top of the hill for Steve and Marsa,
and then we finished the last sixteen miles of rollers together.
All in all the weather was perfect, the scenery beautiful
and the company impeccable. By sticking
to our plan Steve and I had managed to salvage our weekend and pull out a
memorable ride.
