Bob's MS 150 ride, 2002

Bob's 2002 Preparation & Ride
This account was written for my sponsors: Nancy Geyer, Margy Herrmann, Pat Herrmann, Herrmann International, Patsy Schechter and Nancy Theodorou. Your donations contributed to the 1.6 million dollars raised by this event for multiple sclerosis research. You have my deepest thanks.

Training

It's a paradox. In a summer of drought, I probably rode more miles in the rain than I have in my entire life before.

It began with the Thursday night Warren Wilson College ride. I established this weekly ride because Lolly (who works at Warren Wilson) rides and has several co-workers who ride, and I thought that if we all got the ride established during the summer, some students and faculty members might join us when the fall semester began. So the weekly Warren Wilson College ride began in June, Thursdays at 6:30. The first week we had rain. Lolly and I rode anyway, but nobody else joined us. The next Thursday it rained all day, but it stopped just in time for the ride, so several other folks participated. The following week we had rain again.

My friends Bill and Jill ride regularly on Saturday mornings, and I occasionally join them. One Saturday in July when we planned to ride together, I woke up to a light rain, so I called to see if they were still planning to ride. Jill answered the phone and responded, "It's raining here."

Well, I may not be the sharpest tack in the box, but I did eventually figure out that she was telling me that she doesn't ride when it's raining. She said that Dru had planned to join them as well, so I might try him. I really wanted to ride, so I called Dru. He said he, too, really wanted to ride, so we agreed to meet at his house in an hour.

An hour later Lolly and I showed up at Dru's house in a torrential downpour. I think Dru was surprised to see us. I think Lolly was regretting she'd even woken up. After a tour of Dru's new house, we settled in the living room, waiting for the rain to at least let up a bit. Every few minutes I'd work my way past all the child barriers (which I'm sure their daughter has less trouble with than I did) to the front door for a look at the weather.

Eventually I got sufficiently impatient that my brain edited my visual and aural input so that I could tell, for sure, that the rain had let up. I told Dru and Lolly that I was going riding. I was not particularly bowled over by the enthusiasm of their responses, which was along the lines of, "huh?" I then may have mentioned something about how if Dru didn't join me, he was a wimp. See, he's got a healthy spirit of competition, so he'll respond to that sort of challenge. He said, "Ok, I'm game." I think Lolly still would have preferred to be blissfully snoring, but she is a social being, and went along with the majority position, foolish though she may have thought it.

As we climbed on our bikes, the rain was, indeed, considerably lighter than it had been. But after the first half mile, the lull was over. After the first mile, we were all thoroughly soaked. Nevertheless, we rode for two hours. It would have been a little less if I hadn't gotten us lost. (I'm sort of hoping Dru has forgotten that little detail.)

Back at Dru's house, Lolly and I changed our clothes in the garage. I was wearing Gore-Tex over-sox which are supposed to keep my feet dry. When I pulled them off, about a pint of water poured out of each.

Long-Ride Weekend

The MS ride is about 150 miles over two days. In training, I tried to do one long ride each weekend, but it's difficult to find the time to do two. Three weeks before the event I decided I really had to do two long rides. I set up a ride with some of the Warren Wilson riders that would take us over a few significant mountains. It would be around 50 miles, but the climbs would mean lots of saddle time. (The MS ride is very flat, so it goes faster.) By Friday evening, everybody had cancelled on me, largely due to the weather forecast, which was for... you guessed it: rain.

At 7:00 Saturday morning the sky was overcast but dry. The weather map showed showers to the south and the forecast was for rain by 10:00. The showers on the map appeared to be moving northeast, so I decided to change routes and head west. The route I chose was one I had done only once before, six years ago. It includes one continuous climb from an altitude of 2000 feet to 4700 feet then some fantastic descents on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

I donned my Gore-Tex over-sox (wondering, as you are doing right now, why bother), and packed my rain jacket, some cash and a cell phone into a bag behind the saddle, and I was off.

After 15 miles of no rain, I stopped at a little rural church and took off the over-sox. My feet were getting hot. About two miles later the rain began, lightly, just to thumb its nose at me. I didn't get real rain till a bit later.

In the village of Pisgah Forest, I stopped at Taco Bell for lunch. It's a mistake on a long ride to eat spicy food or much fat. I had a bean and beef burrito with hot sauce. Actually I had half of it and stored the rest in my saddle bag.

Pisgah Forest is where the climb begins.

It starts slowly and builds as you go. Ten miles later you're on switchbacks and can hear traffic on the Blue Ridge Parkway ahead. The traffic sounds like it's right around the corner, which it sort of is, but it's also about 1000 feet up. You're just zigging and zagging up the mountain at that point. You can see where you're headed, if you crane your neck back far enough. It's that part of the ride where the rain really began. Which is fine, because climbing can be hot work, and the rain keeps you cool.

My cyclocomputer has several functions that most don't. It's a heart rate monitor and an altimeter as well as an odometer, speedometer and chronograph. On steep climbs I amuse myself by counting how many pedal strokes it takes to climb 10 vertical feet. On this climb it got down to 11. With the rain dripping down my face, I was counting pedal strokes and feeling that burrito rumbling in my stomach and zigging and zagging up the mountain. 8. 9. 10. 11. There's another 10 feet. 1. 2. 3. 4...

The really great thing about the climb from Pisgah Forest to the Parkway is what you see when you get to the Parkway. You look out on a vast vista, and down there--way, way down there--is where you just were. (Well, maybe an hour and a half ago.) But by the time I got to the Parkway, I was in the clouds. And rain was still falling (from where?) I looked out and I saw... nothing. I could see about 20 feet in front of my nose and that was it.

The climb continued another three miles on the Parkway, and the rain and fog (clouds) continued as well. My glasses became so thoroughly rain-streaked that I could see better without them, so I took them off.

I stopped in an "overlook" (beautiful view of unvarying grayness) to try to clear my glasses. A car was parked there with the occupant listening to a football game on the radio. That's one way to spend a rainy Saturday! My glasses-clearing project was a dismal failure, so I left them off.

The top of the climb is the Pisgah Inn, where I dried my glasses on paper towels and bought some Fig Newtons. Sitting on a bench, I finished my burrito and ate my Netwons. A flock of motorcyclists was in the parking lot, preparing to head out. These were the Gullwing species of motorcyclists, not Harley. The passenger on one was reading a hard-bound Sandra Brown novel while riding. (Definitely not Harley!) Several of the motorcyclists became fascinated by the cleats on my shoes. I had to show them the pedals and how the cleats lock in. Before they departed, they made sure I had a tail light. "We can't see you otherwise." Yup, my light was flashing away.

The 15-mile stretch of Parkway from the Pisgah Inn to route 191, that I was about to travel, contains six tunnels. Parkway regulations state that for the tunnels a bicycle must have either a front light or a front reflector visible some hundreds of feet ahead.

When I rode this route six years ago,

I had my 15-Watt mountain biking light, along with its one-pound battery. But I gotta tell you, when your eyes are daylight-adapted, those 15 Watts in a dark tunnel don't do doodly squat, so I saw no point in lugging that battery up those hills. And earlier this year, I rode a route that took me through a few of these same tunnels and discovered an excellent technique for safely navigating the tunnels.

Here's what you do: Stop 30 to 50 yards before the tunnel and wait for a car to come by. Flag it down. Ask the driver if he or she would mind following you through the tunnel, preferably with the bright lights on. Not only does this give you the benefit of the car's headlights, but it also gives you substantial protection from being hit from behind. I had a few cars not stop, but not many, and I never had anyone refuse. In fact, I even had one guy going the other direction stop and ask if I needed help. I explained what I was doing and he U-turned to lead me through the tunnel, only to U-turn again on the other side to go on his way.

On my drive to and from work every day I go over Old Fort Mountain on Interstate 40. Frequently, whatever the weather is doing on one side of the mountain, it's doing something else on the other. If it's foggy on one side, it's clear on the other. If it's raining on one side, it's not on the other. That was true of Mount Pisgah on this ride. Heading down the mountain, the rain had stopped. The road was, of course, still wet, but my freshly dried glasses did not get shrouded in rain and mire again.

This is a fun descent. Fifteen miles and almost 3000 feet. You can feel the weather change as you go. By the time I was at the bottom, the Sun was out and the temperature had risen at least 10 degrees. I took my rain jacket off and just cruised the last 10 miles home. Total distance: 75 miles. A good day's ride.

But remember, my weekend task was to do two long rides. Sunday morning I was tired, but Lolly was raring to go, so we decided to do a tandem ride. I opted for riding along the French Broad River, because that's as close to a flat ride as you're going to find in Asheville. You can ride 50 miles with just three real climbs, none particularly long.

The first climb, Dump Hill (because the old county landfill is at the top), starts around mile 10, and I was doing just fine until then. I use a heart rate monitor on all my rides, because I have a tendency to go hard, which means my heart rate is above the aerobic zone, which doesn't help in endurance conditioning. So the heart rate monitor allows me to see when I'm working harder than I want to and to ease up. However, on this ride, on this climb, my heart rate just wouldn't go up. I even got up out of the saddle on the climb, which usually makes my heart rate jump appreciably, and nothing happened. My heart rate stayed around 75. It just wouldn't budge beyond that.

On several other occasions on the ride I encouraged my heart to work a little harder, but it was being very stubborn. At one point we stopped at a park for a break. I ate one of those syrupy carbohydrate supplements that goes right into your blood stream and my heart rate shot up to 115. But it settled back down to 65 shortly thereafter, and it wouldn't budge above that, even when going back over Dump Hill the other way.

Final Preparation

The following day I consulted Bruce Berry, a friend who races bikes and knows a lot about training. After I described the phenomenon I'd experienced, he said, "you're fatigued. You need to rest."

His prescription was to ride about an hour at a low heart rate, being careful not to let my heart rate ever get above a certain point. He told me what that point was for him and I extrapolated to estimate it for me. I figured 120. He said if that felt ok, to progressively increase the distance the next few days. So the next day I rode for an hour without exceeding 120, but I was still tired after that, so the following day I tried the same thing at 110. That felt better. After several days of that, I started gradually working harder and longer.

The next weekend I did 50 miles along the river. At the turn-around point, I encountered two riders, one of whom was also training for the MS ride. I rode with them to their car, which was 10 miles closer than my house (where I'd started). As I left them, I felt the first few drops of rain. Several miles further along, one of them passed me in her car, asking if I would like a ride. The rain was not hard; I was ok. "No, thanks," I called. Two minutes later, the rain was absolutely pouring. I couldn't see a thing. Oh well. What's new?

The week before the MS ride an end-of-Summer celebration was planned, including a ride and picnic, in Saluda, a mountain-top town near the South Carolina border. I woke up that morning to a steady rain. With a telephone call to Saluda, I discovered that if it was raining at 10:00, the ride would not happen. The picnic would still happen, but it would be indoors.

Saluda is an hour's drive for me, and I didn't want to drive all the way out there that morning if the ride was not going to happen, so Lolly and I suited up and rode from home. We did a 40-mile along-the-river ride, most of which was sandwiched between rain showers. We got a light sprinkle in the first few miles and a steady, but not heavy, rain in the last five miles. All-in-all, it was a very pleasant ride.

At the picnic that evening I learned that a ride had happened in Saluda, of about 20 miles, in pouring rain. I concluded that I'd chosen well.

Two days before the MS ride, Thursday, was the weekly Warren Wilson ride. I showed up an hour early, figuring I'd get in a little extra riding, as darkness had been cutting the ride short the last few weeks. The weather was blustery, as we were experiencing the outer edges of Tropical Storm Irene. I headed off to the east and hit the rain on the first descent.

I think you've gotten the message by now that I'm ok with riding in the rain. Well, I'd had just about enough. I was not excited about this, so I turned around. It seemed the rain was pretty local, because back at the top of the hill, the road was dry. I just rode around the college for half an hour then waited for other riders to show up. Nobody did. So I headed off to the west, on the regular Thursday route. Five miles out, the rain began again. I turned around. I went home.

The day before the ride, Tropical Storm Irene was still demonstrating her presence. I left work at 11:30 to prepare for the drive to Lugoff, SC, where the ride would begin the following morning. Rain was intermittent, but wind was constant. However, driving over the crest of Old Fort Mountain, I saw the Sun for the first time in several days. A good omen!

Final preparations included washing laundry, cleaning the bike, lubing the chain (I've gone through more lube this Summer!), changing from my mountain gear cluster to my flatland gear cluster and, finally, packing clothes.

My duffle bag is the size of a Navy sea bag, and though I was only going for a weekend, I completely filled it, what with the several pairs of bike shorts and jerseys, an extra pair of shorts, and well-it-might-get-cold long pants, and rain gear (including the Gore-Tex over-sox), bike shoes, sports glasses, kitchen sink, etc.

After a quick stop at the bike shop for PowerBars and Gu (that syrupy carbohydrate supplement stuff), finally I was off at 3:00.

At 3:05 I realized I hadn't brought a bathing suit for the Jacuzzi at the hotel in Florence. Oh well, forget it.

Somewhere on Interstate 26 in South Carolina, I picked up my water bottle from the passenger seat. (It's important to get thoroughly hydrated before a long ride.) I wasn't really looking at what I was doing; just caught the bottle out of the corner of my eye. Holding it before me, I noticed a stickiness in my fingers.

Glancing at the bottle, I discovered syrupy carbohydrate supplement stuff dripping off the bottle onto my lap. Then I noticed more syrupy carbohydrate supplement stuff on my hands and the steering wheel. A look at the passenger seat revealed a big puddle of it there.

My hands are gooey and I don't want to touch anything. The road's shoulder is narrow here and there are no exits.

A million miles and a thousand hours later, the shoulder widened and I pulled off. Fortunately, I had a gallon jug of water and a roll of paper towels in the car. And also fortunately, this syrupy carbohydrate supplement stuff is very water-soluble. Twenty minutes and half a roll of paper towels later, I'd cleaned up the steering wheel, turn signal knob, gear shift lever, door handle and seat. After changing into my only other pair of shorts, I was back on the road.

Lugoff

I had printed the e-mail with the hotel name and address and MapQuest directions from Asheville to the hotel before leaving home, so I had no trouble finding the place. Checking in, I discovered that I was slated to share a room, which was a surprise.

As the primary expense on the MS rides is for hotels, having a roommate cuts the cost almost in half. However, I had not managed to line up a roommate for Friday night. (I did have one for Saturday, though.) So I was surprised and pleased to learn that I was to have a roommate. I figured this was probably a screw-up, but I wasn't going to worry about it.

I believe that if one keeps a positive attitude, things generally work out. When I get cynical and expect things to mess up, they often do. Even when things don't appear to be working out right, or especially then, if I can manage to maintain a positive attitude things usually work out well. We live in cynical times to which I have adapted well, so this is not easy. I often see the negative side of a thing before the positive. But my own anecdotal evidence for the benefit of positive thinking has been substantial, so I keep working on it. So I just accepted the gift of a roommate. Thank you, Universe.

Having settled into my room, I realized there were a few details I hadn't nailed down yet. Last year I got to Florence after the first day's ride and didn't even know what hotel I was staying in. Though we were going to be staying in the same hotel in Florence this year as last, I didn't remember its name. I made a mental note to find out tonight. Also, I'd heard that this year we could check in tonight rather than wait until the morning, but I didn't know where or when.

A couple of guys, obviously cyclists, were coming out of their room as I was walking past. I asked them if they knew about the check-in. They told me when and where. I had an hour before it began, so I figured I'd get some dinner first. Opening the passenger door to my car, I saw a pen lying next to the door jam. I recognized that pen. It was the one I'd used last year to make notes about the MS ride. It had come from the hotel in Florence and had their name on it: The Wingate Inn. One less item to worry about. Thank you, Universe.

After an uneventful and uninteresting dinner at Shoney's, I drove up the road to the school hosting the Lugoff MS send-off. I recognized the school from last year, but I saw only a few cars. This couldn't be right. Another school was adjacent to this one, with many cars parked nearby, so I thought maybe the starting point had been moved. (I vaguely recalled something about a different school this year.) Driving around to the other school I discovered that a football game was in progress, accounting for the cars. Another car had come in after me and was following me. It turned around before I did, so I followed it as it wended its way to the back of the first school and parked. Though there were few cars, there was evidence of MS ride stuff, with tables and signs reading "Caution: Bicyclists". This must be the place.

There was no line. As I'd done all my fund-raising on-line, I had no cash to turn in, so I just picked up my number, t-shirt and jersey and left. Piece of cake.

Back at the motel I hung out in the lobby with some other team members. The major topic of conversation was our team jerseys. It seems that Dan had the jerseys and Dan wasn't there yet. The plan was that we would all wear our team jerseys, so it sort of followed that we'd have to have them. Something to add to my to-do-tonight list.

Back in my room awhile later, my roommate, Scott, arrived. He said that he, too, was surprised that we were rooming together. He was slated to room with someone else, but that person had sustained an injury at the last minute and couldn't attend. Scott expected therefore to be in a room by himself. But he had no problem with sharing a room.

I mentioned the jersey and Scott said that Dan was at the motel. In fact, he'd just seen him a few rooms down the corridor. I went to look and sure enough, there was Dan and there were the jerseys. I got mine, went back to my room and went to bed, ready for the ride.

Day 1

The wake-up call came at 5:00, then a quick shower and shave and I headed down to a pretty good continental breakfast. At breakfast our team jersey, of bright yellow with red and blue sleeves and rear pockets dominated the colorfully clad crowd. What to eat before a long ride is always a challenge. You don't want to eat something that's just going to sit in your stomach, but you're going to burn a lot of calories before lunch, so you need to eat a decent amount. I went for a bagel with cream cheese, a banana and a few muffins. I got a ribbing about the banana because bananas are always a staple food of ride rest stops, so we would be getting our fill of them over the next two days. Oh well, I do like bananas.

After checking out of the motel I drove to the school and prepared for the ride. Step one was to get pins for my rider number. It seems that in my highly efficient registration process the previous evening, I missed "station 4", the pins. Step two was to verify that I had everything I wanted for the ride and that everything I wanted for the evening and next day was in my duffle bag. This may seem like a simple thing, but it was a great strain on my poor brain. I don't know why this should have been such a challenge, but I kept having to go over in my mind when I would be picking up my bag and what I'd need between now and then. Final check: I've got my cycling shoes and helmet, some cash and a credit card. Everything else is in the bag. Ok, I'm ready.

Luggage goes into an 18-wheeler truck for the trip to Florence. (The truck and driver are donated to the MS Society for the event.) A big sign next to the truck cautions riders to ensure they have everything they need before relinquishing their luggage, because once in the truck, it's not coming off till Florence. I'm standing next to the truck running through a checklist in my head and the truck-loader guy starts laughing. "I can see you going through a checklist in your head," he says.

As I hand him my bag I've got this nagging feeling that I've forgotten something. The feeling stays with me right up to the start of the ride, but I won't keep you in suspense. It turns out I didn't forget anything.

Our team congregated at the front of the line. If you can get there, it's the place to be, because you don't have to contend with passing all the slower riders. Of course you still have many riders passing you, but you can settle near the right side of the road and ride at your own pace, unconcered about being boxed in by slower-moving riders. When you start further back in the pack, you are trying to pass some people while others are trying to pass you. It's easy to get trapped on the right side of the road, behind very slow-moving cyclists with a steady stream of riders passing on your left.

Lunch is around half-way, which meant I stopped for lunch around 10:30, which was fine with me. I was hungry, even though I'd stopped at several rest stops on the way and chowed down on cookies and bananas. Lunch consisted of turkey sandwiches from Subway, pasta salad and fruit. I had some of each, but loads of pasta.

On a long ride, I don't like to spend much time off the bike, because my muscles tighten up and it's more difficult to get going again. After eating I ran through my basic stretching routine, including hamstrings, quadriceps and a couple of arm stretches, the muscles for which I don't know the names. For some reason my left shoulder gets very tight from riding. It also gets tight playing the recorder, so I must be inclined to hold tension there. Odd place for it, but the human organism is an odd thing.

Reunited with my bike, I waited until a group of people started riding so that I'd have a paceline to join. I hopped on and was off. This line was primarily women, all with the same flower-print jersey. There was no team name or writing of any kind, but these women were obviously together. The paceline was rotating slowly, meaning that the person on the front of the line would "pull" for awhile then move out to the side and slow down a bit, thereby drifting to the back of the line, where she'd move in behind the last rider. Ten or twelve miles later, when it was my turn to pull, I had just settled into my rhythm when our route took a left turn onto a somewhat rough road. The line broke up for the turn and didn't get reestablished afterwards. It turned out that the rough road was the entrance to Darlington Speedway, where we rode out onto the track to our next rest stop.

Some folks took a lap or two around the track, but I was content to eat some cookies and a popsickle. My paceline companions were still hanging out when I was ready to leave, so I headed out alone. Leaving the Speedway, I caught up with two other riders, so we formed our own little line.

Because I am heavier than the average cyclist, I'm a relatively slow climber. On our local rides there are many people I can stay with without difficulty on the flats who leave me wheezing in the dust on the first big climb. But this MS ride had no big climbs, and I made a startling discovery about small climbs: I'm not slow on them!

Less than a mile out of Darlington, we rode over a highway overpass. An overpass isn't much of a climb, but it does go up a bit. On that overpass two of us dropped the third rider in our little group. We never saw him again. It seems amazing, but it happened on several occasions. At one point I was pulling a paceline when we came to a bit of a climb. At the top I glanced back to discover that I'd dropped the whole line. This was truly novel for me. I rarely drop anybody on a climb.

That overpass was the last climb of the day, and for that matter the last climb of the ride. The fellow I was riding with was named Moses. He's probably about my age, and, like me, he's got a bit of a belly. We rode the remainder of the ride to Florence together. For awhile we joined a paceline, but it was going faster than either of us wanted, so we dropped out after awhile. We finished the ride as a duo. From Aiken, South Carolina, Moses said he and his wife come up to Asheville in the fall to see the foliage colors. He was a great guy who I'd enjoy running into him again.

Florence

Sometimes on a ride like this I get very focused. When I stop at a rest stop I refill my water bottles, eat, stretch, pee and go. I don't hang out and chat, I don't wait for people and I don't waste any time. It's as if I were racing. All business. Why do I do this? I say it's because my muscles will tighten up if I stop for too long, which is somewhat true, but that's not the only thing. I get into a sort of trance state, where my entire focus is "the mission." All else recedes into a distant background.

Riding into the school in Florence, volunteers and orange traffic cones guide you onto the athletic field, which has been adorned with temporary bike racks for thousands of bikes, in the form of rows and rows of saw horses. The rows are all labeled with a range of numbers, i.e. 0-99, 100-199, 200-299, etc, up to 2999, and there's room on each row for one hundred bikes. I found my row, based on my rider number of 891. It, along with many other rows, was empty when I arrived. I hooked the bike onto the saw horse by the brake levers, moved my cycle computer/heart-rate monitor from the bike to my wrist, grabbed a water bottle, and went to find my duffle bag. No hanging out and no wasting time.

Luggage was arranged in long lines in the parking lot, with signs similar to those on the bike racks. My blue-and-grey-striped duffle bag was easy to spot in the 800 row. Upon reaching my bag I immediately changed my glasses and shoes, then headed for the bus to take me to the hotel. And, thanks to a year-old pen, I even remembered that I was looking for the Wingate Inn!

A row of buses waited for the gradually accelerating influx of riders. Each bus would take the same route, stopping at the same seven or eight hotels, all along a single boulevard. When the first bus filled, it would head out and the next riders would begin with the next one. The buses would run all day and half the night, then they would do one run in the morning.

Duffle in hand, I climbed onto the first bus in line. It was about half-full, but a steady stream of riders filled it before long and we were off to "hotel alley." Sitting on the bus, I realized I was tired. Not dead-tired, but I was looking forward to a hot shower and then perhaps reading in bed for awhile.

At the hotel, I gave the front desk clerk my name, which she typed into her computer. I waited. She typed some more. I waited. She looked up and smiled. I hate that smile. "I'm sorry, but we don't have a reservation for you. Could it be in another name?"

The other clerk, who had just finished registering another guest, came over to help. My clerk snapped at him, "I know how to look up a name in the computer."

The other clerk held up his hands in a "woah, there" gesture and went back to his station where another registrant had appeared.

I was scheduled to room with Brad, but I didn't know his last name. I said as much to the clerk, and to my surprise she was able to do a first-name search. To my dismay, the search came up empty. I asked her to check under Lesa Schmidt, since she had made the reservations. She said she had one room under that name. I considered for a moment then rejected that idea. (Wouldn't Lesa be surprised!)

The clerk said she had one room left but it had a king-size bed rather than two doubles, but she wanted to check the list our club had supplied, so she went off to get it. The other clerk tried to intercept her, but she insisted, "I know what I'm doing here."

In the mean time, a woman came up from behind me and said that she and her husband had a room with two doubles but that they would prefer a king, if I wanted to trade with them. It looked like all would work out.

The clerk returned with a printed email listing of all our team's room requests. She saw my name there, along with Brad's, indicating a room with two double beds. She looked in the computer again, and still didn't see anything, so she said all she could do was to give me the room with the king. The other clerk turned to her and said, "I just booked that room."

My clerk looked at him, aghast, but he shrugged and said, "I tried to tell you."

The clerk counted the rooms listed on the email, then counted the reservations in her computer for us. The email listed 14 rooms, and she had 10 reserved.

The email she had was one of several sheets of paper in her hand. She thumbed through the sheets and found one with confirmation numbers on it, with a number for each of the 14 rooms. She looked up the confirmation number for me and said she found it! However it was for a king.

I turned around to see the woman with the two doubles walking out the door. I called to her and she came back. We swapped rooms.

I don't know how that happened or whether the hotel ended up four rooms short that night. At that point I didn't really care, as long as I had a room. I went to my room, took a luxurious, hot shower, and lay down on a wonderful bed to read for awhile.

Feeling rested, I wandered out a bit later to see if any of my teammates were in the Jacuzzi. The Jacuzzi was not running, so I went to the front desk to inquire about that. "Was there water in it?" she asked.

"They've been working on it all day. Would you like me to ring your room when they get it fixed?"

I went back to my room, but my plastic key card wouldn't work. Expecting to be told that the room had been given to me in error, I trudged back to the front desk, where they just replaced the card.

Shortly thereafter, my roommate, Brad, showed up. After he'd showered, we went down the hall to where three of our female teammates were staying. They were drinking Smirnoff Ice and watching the Beverly Hillbillies. It was a Beverly Hillbillies marathon. Fortunately, I had to leave after the second episode to go to dinner.

Last year the rest of the team had gone to a restaurant in Florence, but I'd wanted to keep things simple, so I'd eaten the free dinner at the school. It turned out that the logistics of getting to the restaurant had been quite complex, and they hadn't eaten until 9:00, by which time I was in bed! This year the rest of the team chose thelogistically simpler plan of having pizza delivered to the hotel, but I chose the free meal again. I enjoy meeting and chatting with fellow riders.

This year I sat with a couple of guys from Shelby, NC. Their team was the PPG Fabricators, sponsored by their company, PPG. They had very nice team jerseys, shorts and socks, all with their team name in white on a royal blue field. (They weren't wearing these outfits at dinner, but I'd noticed the outfits during the ride.) PPG, according to these guys, is the largest manufacturer of fiberglass in the world, and the Shelby plant is one of the biggest. They were quite proud of their company.

Dinner was salad, lasagna and ice cream. It was nothing to write home about, but it was fine, and it was free and plentiful. After dinner I went back to the hotel, where my key again didn't work. In the lobby I came upon another team member who grumbled that she was starving. They hadn't ordered their pizza yet.

Day 2

Muffins and bagels then back to my room... but the key doesn't work again. (It's not me. Really!)

Before leaving I filled out a "customer satisfaction" card, recounting my check-in experience and mentioning the lack of a wake-up call and key problems. I also complained that though the clerk had said she would call me when the Jacuzzi was fixed, she had not done so. (I saw people in the repaired Jacuzzi that evening.)

The school was buzzing with activity by the time my bus arrived at 6:15. I found an empty piece of sidewalk and sat down to change into my cycling shoes and to make sure I had everything I'd want for the ride, including the water bottle I'd brought to the hotel with me (now refilled). At the luggage truck was a guy with a sign. The guy kept shouting "Read the sign." The sign listed items riders commonly forget to remove from their bags, and cautioned that once a bag was on the truck it wouldn't get off till North Myrtle Beach... so don't forget anything. I did the mental check, and was satisfied.

After dropping my duffle bag at the truck I went right to my bike then headed for the start, where a few hundred riders were already lined up. A "cherry picker" truck was parked next to the school entrance, with the bucket suspended out over the entrance. A woman in the bucket had a microphone. Speakers at the school boomed her voice over the surrounding countryside. When I got close enough to see the woman's mouth move, I could see a significant lag between her speech and the sound. I thought how difficult it must be to get the aural feedback so much later. It would stymie my poor little brain.

But I wouldn't get that close to her for another hour. In the mean time, I chatted with the riders around me. One nearby couple had a recumbent tandem, which generated quite a bit of discussion. Recumbent bikes can be designed with the front wheel at the very front of the bike or so that the pedals protrude in front of the front wheel. Having the front wheel at the very front produces a bike with a very long wheelbase, which makes for a very slow turning response, making the bike feel sluggish in tight situations. The advantage of the "short wheelbase" recumbent is that it turns more quickly. Because recumbents are very fast down hill, the slower turning action can be an advantage, though. But I think the real problem with short wheelbase recumbents is that they're odd looking.

That's on single recumbents. A tandem, of course, has a longer wheelbase to begin with. The one these folks had was a "long wheelbase" tandem, with the front wheel in front of the pedals. That made for an incredibly long bike. I have difficulty doing a u-turn on my traditional tandem on a narrow two-lane road. I would think that a long-wheelbase recumbent tandem would be difficult to u-turn on a five-lane highway! But these folks were very enthusiastic about their bike. They hadn't had it long, so they were still in the "infatuation" stage. I enjoyed their ebullience. (I also made a mental note to give them lots of room.)

The ride flier had said that the ride would begin either at 8:00 or when the morning fog lifted. The sky was still black when I joined the line, but there was no sign of fog. Perhaps it would come in as the sun came up. I remembered last year, when the first 10 miles or so was in fog, sometimes quite thick. I gathered that was a pretty standard occurrence. However, as the sky lightened, no fog settled. Dawn brought a spectacular, clear day. The first batch of 100 or so riders was released at 8:00.

Groups were released at five-minute intervals, so every five minutes you'd move forward a few feet. During the hour I waited and inched forward, several riders went by on the road, having circumvented the starting line. A raucous chorus of boos and hisses from the line accompanied these few creative and possibly suicidal souls. I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd been run off the road when the next batch was released from the line, but the announcer tried to calm the mob, explaining that we were all doing this for charity. I still wouldn't have been surprised.

I was on the road around 9:00. I waited to begin until the riders immediately in front of me were a good couple of yards ahead before I started, because these mass starts make me nervous, especially when I have no idea what sorts of riders are around me.

At the first rest stop, 10 miles into the ride, I stopped to put air in my tires. Typically, my tires lose a couple of pounds of pressure overnight. It's not enough to really make a difference, but I've gotten a pinch flat just running over a pebble because my tire pressure was not high enough, so I didn't want to go too long without topping off the pressure.

A pinch flat is what happens when the tire compresses so far that the tube is pinched between the rim and the tire and the edge of the rim cuts the tube. It sounds like a pretty obscure thing, but it's quite common on mountain bikes. It's not as common on road bikes because of the much higher pressure used in the tires, but the heavier the rider, the more common pinch flats are, and as I said, I've gotten one before just from hitting a pebble.

Pinch flats are also called "snake bites," because frequently both sides of the rim will cut the tube, producing two little holes (like a snake bite). A common beginner's error is to patch one hole and reassemble the tire, only to find that you still have a leak. I've done this a few times.

The rest stops were generally about 10 miles apart. Sometimes this was annoying, because a paceline would be running smoothly when along comes a rest stop, and some riders would want to stop and others not, breaking up the paceline. The lines rarely recovered from such an interruption. Sometimes this interruption was nice though, because it sort of forced me to ride with other people. It was like a teenage dance where you can't dance with the same girl twice. (Do they still do that?)

I was in one great paceline early in the day that broke up at a rest stop. I even hung out at the rest stop for awhile waiting for a couple of the people I'd been riding with to head out again, because their speed was perfect for me, and they were very smooth riders. Some people will pedal

hard a few strokes then coast a few seconds, then pedal hard again. Following such a rider in a paceline is frustrating and dangerous. It's frustrating because you have to adjust your own speed constantly to match the person in front of you, but you want to do that without making any sudden speed changes that will mess up the rider behind you. It's dangerous because if you're not paying close attention, your wheels may overlap and then they may make contact. When that happens, the trailing rider will always go down. There's nothing you can do about it. So, the two golden rules of paceline riding are: ride smoothly and predictably, and don't overlap wheels. Two of the people in this paceline, a man and a woman, were particularly smooth and predicable, so I didn't want to lose them. However, they seemed in no hurry to get moving again, so I headed out as another paceline rode by. (I just can't hang out. I gotta keep going.)

The next line I was in was going a bit slowly. After a short time, another paceline was passing us and I heard someone call my name. I looked up to see Moses riding by, so I hopped onto the back of that line. As so often happened, the line eventually broke up at a rest stop. Moses and I both stopped there, to refill water bottles and eat cookies. As I was waiting to fill my water bottle, I saw the man and woman from the earlier paceline, so I told Moses about them and said I wanted to try to leave the rest stop with them.

Moses was still scarfing cookies when the other couple left, so I signaled him and went to get my own bike. By the time Moses and I got off, they had a good hundred-yard lead on us. I didn't think we'd catch them, but it gave me a project.

I like to watch the month-long bicycle races on television. The Outdoor Life Network (OLN) broadcasts two hours per day of live coverage for each of the Giro D'Italia (May), Tour de France (July) and Vuelta a España (September), then they repeat the broadcasts twice more during the day. One thing I've learned from many hours of Tour watching is that when one rider is trying to catch another, or even trying to catch a group, once the rider ahead is in sight, he'll get caught. But until there's visual contact, it's usually, at best, even money whether the back rider will catch up. (Of course the odds change when the back rider is an especially strong cyclist.) This phenomenon is accepted as a given among cycling commentators. And sure enough, when a chase comes out of the curvy roads of the mountains onto the straight roads of a valley, the chasers catch the chased in short order. It always happens.

Moses and I were on a straight road. We could see the couple ahead of us. It took awhile, but we caught them. We became a four-person paceline. It was the best paceline I rode all weekend. Everyone was smooth and predictable and nobody was inclined to pick up the speed when taking the lead (a common error among paceline beginners).

Other riders would come and go in our line, but the four of us drove the pace. We skipped the next rest stop and kept the line intact as we approached the lunch stop.

I've thought a lot about this, and I could probably describe it so it doesn't look like it was my fault. But of the two rules about paceline riding--ride smoothly and predictably, and don't overlap wheels--the really important one is the first. Overlapping wheels in itself is not a problem if the front person is riding smoothly and predictably. It's only a problem if the front person turns quickly--which action is neither smooth nor predictable. So the only unpardonable sin in paceline riding is doing something unpredictable or sudden. And what I did was both unpredictable and sudden.

We were coming into the lunch stop. Getting ready to slow down, I turned to the left, to get out of the line. But I did it with no warning and somewhat abruptly. It happens that the woman we were riding with, who was behind me, was overlapping my wheel at the time, and she was to my left. When I turned left, my rear wheel touched her front wheel, and she went down.

Along with the inevitable road rash, she banged her knee pretty hard. I felt about this big (see picture).

She shrugged it off, and it looked like she would be able to finish the ride, but that knee would definitely be sore.

Moses and I ate lunch together, did a few stretches, and headed out with a group of riders, forming a paceline right off the bat. I hung with this line for a few miles, but it was going a little faster than I wanted to, and I was feeling insecure after the crash, so I hopped off the line as we were passing a slower-moving group. Moses wanted to stay with that line, so he and I parted ways there.

I looked for him after the ride but didn't find him. That's the way of paceline friendships. They're often quite transient. Perhaps I'll encounter Moses on another ride. We'll find ourselves in a paceline together and pick up where we left off.

As the day warmed, a breeze picked up. By lunch time you could almost count the stars on a waving American flag. The wind was out of the east; the direction we were headed. Of course. After lunch I didn't see a single rider out of a line. I was happy to mosey along in the slow line for an hour or so, but then I became restless. Watching for a suitable-speed group to go by, the first one I spotted contained only three riders. Bucking a headwind in a small group would be tougher than a large one, but I was ready to move on, so I made the leap.

Though small, this turned out to be the most organized paceline I rode in the whole ride; and for that matter, all year! Each rider pulled for exactly one mile, and the pace was very steady. During the hour or so I rode in this line we expanded to around 12 at the most, but we finished where we started (or at least where I started with them). As we approached the finish, we gradually sped up. I assumed this was because of the adrenaline produced in anticipation of the finish. While that no doubt contributed, it also turned out that the wind was shifting, so that by the end of the ride we had a pretty

substantial tail wind. The four of us rode the last several miles around 23 miles per hour, still changing leaders exactly every mile.

In the North Myrtle Beach High School parking lot, volunteers held out our ride-completion medals, which we grabbed as we rode past. A few yards later other volunteers took our bikes from us to put on trucks for transport to our starting locations. And a few yards after that were rows of luggage.

My next stop was the gym, for a massage. I'm pretty picky about massages. It seems that most people don't like them as deep as I do, because I have found very few massage therapists who work as deeply as I like. Or it could be that most people don't like most of the massages they get either. In any case, this one was pretty average, which is to say pretty unsatisfactory. And I've discovered that I can't just tell a massage therapist,

"more pressure, please," because a deep massage isn't just a wimpy massage with added pressure. There's some additional quality that goes into it. It's like Thai food. When I lived in Phoenix, there were two Thai restaurants in town. At one, the food tended to be spicy and magnificently flavorful. At the other restaurant, the food had less kick. In the custom of restaurants specializing in spicy cuisine, one could request mild, medium or hot. If I requested 'hot,' the food was more piquant, but no more flavorful. The flavor of the food at the first restaurant was achieved through skill in balancing spices, not just throwing more pepper on. Likewise, a good, deep massage is not achieved by just applying more pressure, but in the skillful application of that pressure. So the massage sucked. It happens.

Next was a shower, but, unlike last year, there were no towels. Note to self: bring a towel next year.

When I was about eight years old, I went to a summer camp. One day I swam out to an off-shore swimming float, and upon climbing onto it I discovered that the brisk wind made me very chilly in spite of the warmth of the Sun. An older camper, or a councillor, or a CIT, or my guardian angel (I've forgotten just who) showed me how to use my hand as a squeegee to get the water off my body. After applying this technique I was quite comfortable hanging out on the swimming float. It's a technique I've had many occasions to apply, including after my post-ride toweless shower. Not quite as effective as a towel, but better than not taking a shower!

Then to the cafeteria for another lunch. Last year, I had driven Scott from Asheville to Lugoff, so after the ride I had to find him before returning to Lugoff, and it had taken me several hours to find him. This year, I drove to Lugoff by myself, so I had no such restrictions on my freedom. Therefore, of course, the first person I saw in the cafeteria was Scott. We ate together, sharing accounts of our rides.

After searching unsuccessfully for Moses I looked for a bus to Lugoff. I asked someone where the buses would be and was directed around to the left. It turned out that the buses were around to the right, so I ended up walking all the way around the school. Upon finding the buses, the one to Lugoff was just pulling out. I had to wait another half hour before another Lugoff-bound bus arrived, and then another half hour before it filled. At least the air conditioning on the bus was turned on. The wait for the bus was down-right hot.

The bus ride back to Lugoff was long but uneventful. In Lugoff, my bike was waiting for me, as was my car. I wasted no time loading up and heading out.

On the way home, I stopped for dinner. I couldn't decide what sort of food I wanted, but the exit I'd selected had several options. One was a Hooters restaurant. I'd never been to one, so I thought I'd check it (them) out. Despite the attractive decor, the noise level was intollerable, so I left and went to a Cracker Barrel restaurant, because I love their chocolate cobbler.

Arriving at home around 9:00, I realized I'd spent more time that day riding in motorized vehicles than on my bike. I cycled 80 miles then rode the bus 136 miles then drove another 184, for a 400-mile day. I was worn out.

Epilogue

The week after the MS-150, I drove up to Spruce Pine, NC, for a 55-mile fund-raiser ride for a local hospital. It was a great ride in beautiful, mountainous terrain. And it rained.

Again, I thank my sponsors for allowing me to experience the MS-150 ride and for supporting the search for a cure for multiple sclerosis.

Bob's 2002 Preparation & Ride