| |
|
|
 |
|
|
by Peter Gerrard
|
|
|
 |
|
|
July 2007 -- Less than a mile after the first rest stop, my 2007 Bear ride starts imploding. Cramps signal that this attempt is destined to be Chapter 3 in my personal ode to pain and misery: “The Bear: A Trifecta of Terror.” And it was such an auspicious start.
If you haven’t done the ride, it starts with a 10-mile jaunt around Redlands. Right off the bat you find yourself climbing for a few miles, then there’s a nice glide (coasting at 35 mph) to Highland. A quick right onto an overpass, a jog left to the onramp and you’re climbing.
Overcast skies rule in Redlands today, but the morning grayness is slowly eclipsed by glorious bursts of sunshine reflecting off the mountains. Leading into the first long climb. I’m even a bit ahead of Ron Hata and Suzanne Ackley, my riding buddies. Trying to ignore an endless parade of semi trucks, whose drivers seem to have the professional truckers’ special awareness of their rigs in relation to the road and cyclists (and regular people in RVs or in SUVs towing trailers, who clearly don’t) I grind my way to Rest Stop 1, non-stop.
Riders are milling around being re-supplied by volunteers in pirate garb–bike helmets and lycra commingling with eye patches, parrots and hooks. Aargh! 24.5 miles and 41% of the climbing are in the books.
The first year I had cramps, the kind where you’re really not sure you legs are yours anymore. But I finished. Last year, no cramps–just altitude sickness. Again, I finished. No SAG wagon for me. Courage? Stubbornness? Or a simple distaste for humiliation?
At the end of both rides, I told those who cared and those who didn’t that I was stick-a fork-in-me done with any future Bears. As in “read my lips” finished, baked, fricasseed, broiled, and filleted.
Twice now, it only takes a few days for me to waffle on this vow. With the right training, fuel, equipment and attitude the Bear, I know, can be tamed …
Rolling into Rest Stop 1, I have a fleeting delusion that I might finish the next 75 miles ahead of Ron and Suzanne. Hah. Ron has negative body fat and doesn’t seem to realize he has two chain rings, or that he’s allowed to use the smaller one. Two years ago he did the ride non-stop, fueled by a 5-pound bag of peanut M&M’s. Suzanne has incredible focus, trains like a fiend and has no more body fat than Ron.
Whatever lard they lack I seem to have acquired. This year, Ron has a new training food: beef jerky. He offers me a cud's worth as we head out toward stop 2. I think chewing it sucked a quart of water out of my system.
So, suddenly I’m off my bike, my mind trying to get to rest stop 2 at Snow Valley, my legs saying, “Not so fast.” I decide that an article I came across extolling the miraculous cramp-curing powers of yellow mustard may be worth exploring, even if a streak of screaming yellow will clash with my jersey graphics when I inevitably spill it.
If you’ve ever driven from Running Springs to Big Bear, you probably have no idea just how much climbing you do. But on a bike, it’s very clear that the road is anything but flat – the conventional wisdom of the altimeters puts it at 2,170’ of elevation gain over 10 miles.
I have now given up hope of seeing Suzanne and Ron before the finish. At least the final run-in to the Snow Valley parking lot is flat or deliciously inclined downwards.
Breezing through Rest Stop 2 as quickly as possible, dodging more pirates, then it’s back on the bike hoping to clear the short climbing section uncramped before the rolling romp skirting the cliffs into Big Bear. No such luck, but I don’t lose too much time–it’s only 10.4 miles and 540 feet of climbing.
The lunch crowd is for the most part a little more subdued and beat-up, but there’s plenty of food, drink and pirates. I find two angels working the tables among the scurvy buccaneers, Penny Poorman and Tommie Kozlov. Penny, an executive chef most of the time, helps me make a fabulously yummy yellow mustard sandwich, which oozes onto my jersey as expected.
Leaving lunch, you’re 46 miles in, almost halfway through the 100 miles, and 74% of the climbing is done. Probably the most boring part of the ride is section looping through the backside of Big Bear before the climb to Onyx Summit. You get glimpses of the lake, and a chance to wonder who named so many streets after Peter Pan characters, then it’s a short hop down Big Bear’s main drag and a right on Hwy. 38; now you just follow the signs to Redlands.
The yellow mustard is working. The approach to the Onyx Summit climb is gentle, but I know from experience this is illusory. My attitude is good, but this section is about 9 miles and 1,580’ of climbing, and I am finding that altitude trumps attitude. I just can’t get enough air. Maybe I’m just not meant to do rides like this?
|
|
|
| I stop to plug in the iPod I stashed, and it’s as if I’m suddenly on-stage under a spotlight. One SAG vehicle stops; I wave it off. A second one matches my pace, with people I know, Angie Carson taking pictures like a paparazza on a mission, Sue Bowers driving, and Margo Irr hanging onto Angie’s belt to keep her from falling, and they are going to keep and eye on me (do I look as bad as I feel?) for the rest of the ride.
Roberto Long nudges me forward as he passes. Don Carson and Dave Whitney pedal by leaving encouraging words in their wake. I try to climb through an entire song before I‘m forced to stop for a recovery breath. The Who, Melissa Etheridge, a little dose of Springsteen and I find a little climbing rhythm.
The approach to Onyx Summit isn’t particularly steep, it just goes on forever. For some reason I haven’t figured out or asked about, the OCW Route Slip insists that Rest Stop 4 at Onyx Summit is at 61 miles and change. It is not. I base this on readings from everyone I know who has climbed this with a functioning odometer. Even the data posted on OCW’s own analysis site says it’s 62.7 miles.
I find I am now pacing someone up the hill! Matt Sklar, who I’ve ridden with on many of the Bear Training rides, is behind me. How long he’s been there, I don’t know. I shut off the music, and Matt says, “This ride is kicking my butt.” I laugh; he doesn’t know the insider’s joke that the summit is not where it’s supposed to be.
We poke along, and I go into the gravel when someone-who-must-not be-named-Rhonda leans out of a SAG car and tries to get me to take a ride. No way, at this point. In fits and spurts, we reach Onyx Summit. Matt wants a picture I oblige. Then we are off the bikes. Someone wearing a fake pirate’s hook senses I’m looking for something I’m not finding. Was I expecting popsicles? No, I was actually hoping for a voluntary euthanasia tent. She says she will pass it along for next year’s ride. I tell her if they do I will volunteer to dress like a priest and offer last rites at each rest stop.
Atop Onyx Summit, you’ve covered 62% of the miles and 93% of the climbing. Now it’s a long, loping downhill cruise, for the most part, and if you know the road you can really fly. There’s one more notable hill and one short annoying one leading into Angeles Oaks. The bigger one kicks up to 12% at one point. You can refuel at the last stop, and then coast or push it the rest of the way. The roads are good and the traffic bearable.
When you enter Mentone you’re retracing your first few miles. Even after 93 miles, it’s not hard to keep a pace over 20 mph, and you realize just how much climbing you were doing at the start. A left at University, and a minute later you’re done. There are people everywhere giving you smiles and high-fives. Cold drinks. Hot food. Brownies. And even yellow mustard.
Hah! I know this road, and I’m ripping down Hwy. 38, but I get kicked in the butt on the two climbs and lose Matt and the riders we left with from Onyx. No pirates at Angeles Oaks, just 2 forlorn gallon containers in the back of the lot, Gatorade and water.
I know I’m going to finish under my own power, and I have plenty of time to think about the ride, the pain, and how I will re-gear my bike, keeping only the big chain ring, losing the small one and front derailleur, finding a nice 11x19 corncob cluster. In the future, I will only do flat rides, and I will abandon these as soon as the road goes up, including overpasses.
Now I’m in Redlands, drafting a local rider who offers to pull me and his buddy at 25 mph just for fun, and I thank them as I peel off to the park. I catch up to Matt at the turn, and it’s over. Officially, I feel better than after the other Bear centuries, and officially, I am slower. But I am among friends, and we are all safe and sound. I surrender.
Strangely, the day after the ride I am actually willing to consider getting back on my bike, even before making the modifications to ensure it’s as hill-phobic as possible (and still have a saddle and wheels). I wander down to Sand Canyon Cyclery to consult a neutral party, and end up talking to Eric Smart. I try to keep my reasons generic, but Eric gets me into a hellacious flashback; I suffer through the memories, and he suffers through my narrative.
I finish. After a moment to digest the story, Eric does two things. First, he makes this observation.
“When you’re wrestling with an 800-pound bear, you don’t stop when you get tired. You stop when the bear gets tired.”
(Thanks, Eric. Next time enlighten me beforehand.)
Then he asks:
“Well, aside from the cramps, traffic and lack of breath, how did you like the ride”
I give him the only reply possible. It comes courtesy of a great American journalist and writer, David Halberstam. Once, during a lecture about Watergate, he recounted an event where Dan Rather was the guest speaker. He kept being interrupted by a woman who insisted that Richard Nixon’s legacy be evaluated in all aspects of his policies, and be considered, as she put it, “Aside from Watergate.” Rather felt otherwise, but agreed to disagree. But every time he paused, the woman pressed her point. Finally, Rather gave her a kind look, and said, “What you’re suggesting is like asking, “Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
That’s my reply to Eric. Then I breeze out the door.
|
|
|
