Sometimes when I ride my bike, I enjoy all the scenery and embrace the wonderful weather that propels me along as part of the rhythm of riding, taking me into a zone that insulates me from the stresses of life. At other times, I have no choice but to embrace the pain and exhaustion of going on, and concentrate on nothing more than finishing. During one of those moments with only finishing in mind, I came upon Alex and stopped for a brief rest.
“You just take the next exit to Bunkerville, and it’s all down hill from there,” Alex said as I leaned wearily on my handle bars wondering where the last rest stop was and if the suffering would ever end. I was alone and hadn’t seen the rest of my team for more than an hour since I had pulled away from them as we climbed out of Overton. It’s November 13, 2010, Day One of Bike MS 2010, and I had “only” 12 miles to go before reaching the finish line and completing the first 100 miles of 200 miles in two days. It had been non-stop 20 plus miles per hour headwinds all day, a sharp contrast to my euphoric first experience with Bike MS the previous year.
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| Early on Day 1 (Photo by Don Laczi) |
Alex is one of the strongest cyclists I know, and this year he did SAG (support and gear) instead of riding. He’s the guy who mapped out a bike ride called Seven Peaks, which encompasses all the mountain summits around the Las Vegas area, including Mt. Charleston, Red Rock and Mt. Potosi. He hit six of those summits all in one day, and was alone on the last mountain when it got too dark to ride without lights and support. Only then did he turn back, just short of his insane goal. I should have known that Alex’s perception of “downhill” would have been very different from mine, but I wanted to think the rest of my ride was easy, so I gladly absorbed his words. My mind said, “Good. You’re done.” It told my body, “Hey you don’t have to work anymore.”
After about a mile, I came upon the favorite rest stop of the ride, sponsored by Cheetah’s, a strip club. There, I sat down while four women massaged my neck, legs and arms. One of them declared, “Yea, you’re almost there,” reinforcing my delusion that I had no work left to do. I set out toward Bunkerville, a new portion of the ride that was not part of the route in past years.
The wind blew out of the east, and I coasted downhill, heading almost southwest, happy to have the wind almost at my back for the first time all day. But wait, I’m heading away from Mesquite where the finish line is. And if I’m going downhill already, won’t I have to climb back up? The road finally turned east just as a hill began. The wind hit me in the face again, as it had been doing all day. Okay, just this one hill and it’s over. I put my head down and pushed my way up the hill. At the top, the road dipped down again, and I could see another hill in the distance. Oh! One more! I couldn’t coast down because of the wind, and I stood up to climb this next hill, only to be greeted by even more hills. All Downhill?!
I approached a couple other guys I’d seen intermittently throughout the day. I had drafted behind them earlier, but I couldn’t keep up with their speed. Now, they were burned out. I passed them on the hills just as a guy on a support motorcycle appeared, heading in the opposite direction. “Just make a left at the stoplight,” he said to me. Ah, almost there. I climbed still another hill, expecting to see the stoplight. No. More hills. What stoplight was he talking about?
I came upon another member of my BikingLasVegas.com team. There were approximately 32 people riding on my team, and I didn’t know all of them. This guy remembered me from a team meeting, and had the added advantage of seeing my name on my back. I was wearing a special number with my name on it because I had been in the top ten of fundraisers last year. I noticed he had one, too, making us both members of the yellow bib number club. This was Dr. Benjamin Rodriguez, plastic surgeon and strong fundraiser for Bike MS. He started a conversation as though he was trying to keep me from thinking about all the hills. I realized that he had already finished the ride, and had ridden back out to find the rest of the team. He had found only me.
The conversation did help distract me as we rode in together. An announcer at The Oasis finish line in Mesquite announced “Number 52” as I rode in. I realized he was announcing my finishing place: 52 out of approximately 150 doing the whole 100 miles. There were 217 total riders when you count those doing a shorter route that included a shuttle ride part way. Not bad. I only wanted to finish, and did not care about my ranking, but it did give me a smile to know I did so well. Still, we had 100 miles more to go tomorrow. I thought about those deceptive hills and the headwind. This could be analogous to the ups and downs of having MS. You think you might be in for an easy stretch, but it’s another hill instead. As cyclists, we have no right to complain.
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| Finishing Day 1 |
Riding two hundred miles in two days on a bike: what does that have to do with fighting the crippling disease Multiple Sclerosis? Well, I’m a person who wants meaning in everything. It’s not enough for me to ride to improve my health. If I can add one more ounce of meaning, I’ll always do it. The moment I heard about this annual event run by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, I was sure that Bike MS was one of the reasons I started riding, even though I hadn’t heard of it when I took out my fat-seated, knobby-tired hybrid bike and “Forest Gumped” my way west on a twelve mile adventure that would change my life. On that day in April 2009, I discovered an endless network of pathways that I never knew existed, bike lanes and life lines that revealed a new future for me.
Bike MS made sense and gave me a reason to work harder. My wife, Colleen, was diagnosed with MS in 1994. She woke up one morning almost completely blind in her left eye. After she was misdiagnosed many times, the blindness eventually led to the discovery that she had MS. The blindness went away, but the MS never will. It attacks in various ways, and the symptoms are roughly used as predictors of the future severity of other symptoms to come. In Colleen’s case, the form of MS that first presents with blindness is one of the “best” forms to have. Yes, her potential of going blind was an indication that she might have one of the least aggressive forms of MS. Well, if that’s the “best” form of MS, then how much worse could the other forms of MS be?
MS is a disease that causes a break-down of the myelin sheaths around the nerves in the brain. When these nerve coverings are destroyed by MS, the effects on the person can manifest in many ways. Because the loss of myelin causes the nerves not to function properly, the body’s “electrical system” short circuits. This can mean the person with MS can experience loss of feeling, pain, loss of muscle control, impaired thinking and memory, and numerous other debilitating symptoms the may come and go or progressively worsen. In the world of MS, Colleen has been “lucky” thus far. When she has an exacerbation, she usually experiences general fatigue, numbness, and burning sensations in her legs, which is difficult to deal with, but could be worse. The shots she takes three times a week are designed to slow the progression of the disease and lessen the severity of the symptoms. Whether it’s from the shots or the nature of her form of MS, Colleen is much better off than many who have MS. Some are completely wheelchair bound, completely blind, or worse.
The National MS Society does more than work for a cure. It also provides assistance to those with MS. That assistance comes in the form of providing medicine, scooters, in-home ramps, and much more. NMSS is an organization that makes a difference in the lives of people with MS and their families and friends. Bike MS is an annual event that takes place in many cities throughout the U.S. In southern Nevada, the Bike MS ride starts at the Las Vegas Speedway, heads out along I-15, winds through the Valley of Fire, up through Overton, back along I-15 and into Mesquite. In 2010, for the 25th anniversary of Bike MS, the route was changed to go through Bunkerville before heading into Mesquite. For those of us who rode in previous years, this change was much more difficult than we expected.
Back to my question: what does riding 200 miles on a bike in two days have to do with fighting MS? The simple answer is that the ride is a way to bring awareness to MS and an opportunity to raise funds for the National MS Society. But in addition to that, the ride symbolizes the difficult struggle people with MS must endure. There are flaws in this symbolism in that cyclists can quit riding whenever they want. People with MS can not quit MS. Cyclists have the luxury of battling obstacles while knowing they have a chance eventually to reach the glorious finish line. People with MS do not have such a rewarding finish. But even with the flaws in the symbolism, the ride demonstrates that we are fighting for each other and fighting against MS. Those with MS who participate by volunteering at rest stops or cheering for us at the finish line know we are fighting for them, and I think our physical and mental struggle on bikes shows them they are not alone. So, it is with these thoughts in mind that I attacked the ride as though I were attacking MS itself.
I trained for it. It became a numbers game. How many miles a week? How many days to train? How many hours to finish a ride? During my first 600 days of serious riding, when I started recording my rides with a bike computer, I rode more than 6,000 miles. That even number of 6,000 miles turned over unceremoniously some time during Day One of Bike MS 2010. I rode with the number 6 on my back, representing my ranking in fundraising for 2009. It is a great honor to know that so many people donated to NMSS in support of my ride that I came in 6th on my first fundraising effort. Having done so well in fundraising matters much more than my placement at the finish of the ride, but I still had to ride a good ride for this effort to feel complete.
One of the big changes for me from 2009 to 2010 was my bike. I rode last year until Bike MS with my old steel bike, much heavier than newer bikes and much more difficult for shifting gears. That initial training on a heavy bike led to my feeling almost weightless when I rode a carbon fiber Trek just for Bike MS 2009. Riding that new technology showed me how much more I could do with a better bike. For that reason, I got a new Trek in March 2010, and it allowed me to accomplish rides I’d never considered before.
I frequently rode up mountains such as Mt. Potosi and Mt. Charleston, and took on long rides such as doing two loops of the River Mountain Trail at Lake Mead for 70 miles. My first century of 2010 was the Tour de Fire at Lake Mead, which I rode alone. My next century started with a group, but quickly broke up, and I wound up alone doing two loops of Red Rock (very difficult even once) along with one Mt. Potosi climb, up and over and back. After that, I did 108 miles solo out to Pahrump, up north, and almost around to Indian Springs before I couldn’t ride any longer that day. A few weeks later, I went to Arizona and did a charity century ride in Flagstaff. It was hot and very difficult, and I rode much of this alone, too. Between all these rides, I did shorter rides or more difficult mountain climbs, along with specific interval training as well as group rides.
The core of my riding came every Tuesday and Thursday night when I rode with BikingLasVegas.com members, and many Saturdays when we did “challenge rides” as a group. Our night rides, to stay out of the summer sun, became faster and more difficult as the summer wore on. Often I would add extra miles to these rides and get in 40+ miles on a night. My summer culminated with The Tour of Utah Ultimate Challenge, a ride that is aptly named.
The Tour of Utah Ultimate Challenge is a preview of the most difficult stage of one of the most challenging professional cycling stage races in America, and opened to riders outside the professional circuit. It is 100 miles with 11,000 feet of climbing. It starts in Park City and finishes in Snowbird. Except for a few miles in the middle, I rode this solo, too. With all the climbing, I was going too slowly to draft, anyway. My only goal was to finish within the allotted time of nine and a half hours.
It is absolutely the most beautiful ride I’ve ever been on, with amazing countryside and dazzling mountain forests. But it was (and still is) the ultimate challenge I’ve had on a bike. Imagine training for a ride, having the right bike, the right fitness level, and perfect weather, but seriously questioning the need to finish, with only two miles to go. Yes, that is what I did. The final climb up to Snowbird was so steep, I could barely keep riding, and I had to stop multiple times to rest. I seriously considered having Colleen pick me up and take me to the top. But I did not quit. I finished with fifteen minutes to spare, and I even had the determination to keep riding past the finish line until I completed three tenths of a mile more to get exactly 100 miles for the ride. I immediately told myself I would never do this ride again, but I changed my mind less than an hour later. Now, I look forward to improving my completion time next year. Such is the bug of cycling.
To provide a little perspective: the professional cyclist who won that stage of the race a few days later finished in four and a half hours, compared to my nine and a quarter hours. I have lots of room to improve even though I will never cut my time in half.
Bike MS 2010 was a new challenge for me in that I had never ridden two century rides on consecutive days. In 2009, we rode 167 miles in two days. Organizers changed the route for this 25th Anniversary Ride so we would return the way we came and have the opportunity to ride 200 miles in two days. After the headwind of the first day, most of us were exhausted, and I did not know if I would have the energy I needed for 100 more miles.
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| Colleen, Steve and Athena before setting out on Day 2 |
On the morning of the second day, we ate at the Elk’s Lodge. I saw very few of my team mates there, and of those, only a couple were planning to ride at all. The core group I trained with was still not at the lodge when I finished breakfast, so I got everything ready to ride and headed out solo. I was hoping the wind would be the same as the first day so that we would have a tailwind as we re-traced the route, but that was too much to hope for. The wind shifted to blowing from the north, creating a heavy cross-wind. I tackled the rolling hills and just kept going. We had rest stops every 10 or 15 miles, and I skipped the first and third before heading into Valley of Fire. By then, I had decided to keep the whole ride solo. I would not draft from anyone for even a minute. I got the idea from another team mate, Jorge, who had declared that to be his goal. I saw him along the way and carefully passed him without drafting.
As I approached Valley of Fire, I questioned my decision. In fact, I even questioned my ability to reach the lunch stop in the park. Throughout all the riding, I kept eating and eating: power/electrolyte gel, oranges, potatoes, energy bars and energy beans, fig bars and other things available at the rest stops. Even so, I didn’t eat enough. I was dizzy and winding down like a child’s spinning top. I wasn’t thinking about calories at the time, but if I had, I could have figured the numbers and understood that I just wasn’t eating nearly as many calories as I was burning. Each day, I was burning between 5,000 and 6,000 calories just on the ride, and another 2,000 for still being alive. At that rate, you just can’t replenish all those calories quickly enough. It’s a simple concept, really, but all I knew was that I was dizzy. I was sure I couldn’t stand if I got off my bike, so I just kept pedaling, riding amidst the amazing red rock formations of the Valley of Fire landscape. Finally, I saw Colleen and my daughter, Athena, at the lunch stop. I waddled my way to a table, sat down, and ate one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever eaten. It saved me.
I was relieved to find that the dizziness subsided and must have come from lack of food. It’s surprising that I still needed so much more, considering my conscious effort to eat so much. After the ride the day before, I had eaten three sandwiches and a protein drink before going to dinner two hours later, where I ate two huge portions of pasta and a piece of pie.
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| Gina, Lisa, Lynetta and Paul at Valley of Fire |
I re-filled my little bottles with energy gu along with filling an extra bottle with endurance drink when I saw Roger, a team mate I rode with for much of Day Two the previous year. He was ready to head out again, and we were both glad to have each other’s company. The last of my team came in just then, only seven or so, and the ride organizer said that they were the last on the route. I was surprised at this because I thought I was among the earliest to leave. There were dozens of people still at the lodge when I had left, and not one had passed me. What were they doing? Along the route, I had only seen a few riders. How could we be last?
Roger and I set out together. I stayed in front for a while before he offered to “take a pull.” I told him I didn’t want to draft because I was going for a solo ride. I had no problem, however, letting him ride behind me as much as he wanted. When we rode together in 2009, he really had made a difference in helping me finish strong. He had also provided an inner-tub when I had gotten a flat tire and hadn’t had the right replacement tube.
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| Roger and Steve leaving Valley of Fire |
Now, we had to climb out of Valley of Fire, which required that we climb for eight miles before tackling the steepest hill of the whole two days, a short but intimidating switchback just outside the entrance to the park. We made it there together and grunted and groaned our way onto the last upturn, spitting out lots of swear words that I’m sure are still lying all over the road, ready to be resurrected by the next cyclist to struggle up the hill. Panting, and with our heart rates racing, we sputtered in to the next rest stop.
A few more people came in behind us as we headed out again. We immediately hit a very short but uncomfortable hill before starting our downhill ride to I-15. I switched to my aero bars, which allow me to get into a more aero dynamic and comfortable position in which I rest my elbows on the main bars while holding the aero bars that extend forward over the front wheel. With my light bike, good bearings, proper gearing and aero position, I can really fly down the hills. In just a few minutes I “dropped” Roger. I hadn’t wanted to do that, but I really needed to stay with my own rhythm on this ride. As the road turned more northward, I hit the headwind and pushed on to the next rest stop.
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| With Athena in the Wind, Day 2 |
I waited there for the rest of the team to arrive, including Roger, before I pushed westward on I-15, finally with a tailwind. The tailwind and my matching speed left the wind noise almost silent for that last climb to apex where we would leave I-15 behind. That was also the last rest stop. As the core of my team, along with a couple other riders caught up to me, I pushed off to complete the last stretch down to the speedway alone, just ten miles or so.
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| The Last Stretch |
This happened to be the same weekend as the air show at Nellis Air Force Base, which is very close to the speedway. They were only allowing parking at the speedway and were bussing spectators to the base. Parts of Las Vegas Boulevard were closed because of this as I approached the speedway completely alone. On the boulevard, I navigated around two police cars in the middle of the road and up to a group of turning busses, where I was told to turn with the busses, then head toward the entrance tunnel to the speedway. That was the tunnel we had ridden through to start our ride less than 32 hours earlier, just after doing one lap around the speedway. We had exited as a long group of 217 riders, and now I was coming in solo.
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| 200 Miles |
I saw a couple familiar faces along with Athena, but I felt as though I had missed a party. The few people who were there cheered and rang bells, but as I passed through the gate, the finish line area was empty. Colleen greeted me with a hug and put a medal around my neck. I headed straight to our van to shed my cycling stuff so I could go eat one of the stale, cold hamburgers that awaited us. The rest of the riders, including what was left of my team, came in soon after.
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| BLV Team at Finish |
Wow, I thought. How had everyone finished so soon before us? It would be a few days before I discovered the explanation for this. It was not what I had expected.
I was shocked to discover that more than 90% of the cyclists doing the ride did not finish. They either did not ride the second day, got SAG’d to the top of hills, rode a shorter route, or took a huge shortcut along I-15, skipping the early rolling hills of Bunkerville and bypassing Valley of Fire completely. That was the explanation! With only a couple exceptions, in the end, we were not the last ones to finish, we were the ONLY ones to finish, meaning that only 13 of us actually completed the full 200 miles. Wow!
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| The Best Hug (Thank you, Athena Patchin for most of the pictures). |
I had done what I had set out to do. Most of our team had done it, too. Our sponsors had contributed generously. The event was a success! BikingLasVegas.com raised more than $27,000 for NMSS, making us the number one team. The event raised almost $115,000. And of all the individuals and teams that rode and finished, only 13 of us rode the full 200 miles, nine of those from our team, a team just in its second year of existence. How’s that for riding a good ride? I could not ask for more . . . until next year.
