Livestrong - Hill Country Roads

Sunrise at the staging area

In the chilly morning half-light, I'm straddling my bright red road bike, trying not to shiver.  On either side of me, and in long lines before and behind me, are 2400 or so other cyclists, all of us impatient to get rolling.  Roger Hanks Park, in Dripping Springs, Texas, is transformed into a festival of tents, streamers, vendors and volunteers for the 2011 Livestrong Challenge.  I hear, but can't see, a DJ and some local poobahs up on the stage somewhere talking about what a great crowd we are and how important our fund-raising is to the fight against cancer.  I believe this, too, but I want to get moving and wish someone would just say, "GO!"  Then Lance speaks briefly, and he and his cohort are off.  I think wryly that they'll be finishing the 90-mile ride about the time I reach the third rest stop.  As I look around at the crowd, I vaguely sense a weight on my back and realize that I am still carrying my daypack full of sneakers and other things I want handy after the ride is over.  There's a bag check somewhere, but I have no idea where it is.  This is like the bad dream where I'm about to take an exam and realize I haven't been to class all semester; I have to tamp down my nerves.  I ask my son Matt to hold my bike and I hobble off in my bike shoes to find the bag check.

Not the ideal start, but minutes (seems like hours) later, I'm back just in time to hear, for real, the "GO!" I've been waiting for.  And in a slow shuffle, then gaining momentum, the mass of cyclists picks up speed and rolls out of the park.  Now I'm shivering helplessly.  I know it will get to 90 degrees later on, but I could really use a preview right about now.  There's a cool mist, like a fine, low cloud over the countryside.  The trees and fence-posts are soft-edged silhouettes against a gray background.  Cyclists all around me chatter among themselves.  Gears click and cassettes buzz like metal-voiced cicadas.  The first few miles descend gently down narrow roads, and the riders jockey and dart, the faster ones around the slower ones.  Occasionally we swoop down quickly into an arroyo and across the smooth concrete-slab bridge at the bottom.  The water is a mere trickle now, but vertical signs marked off in one-foot increments that stand next to the bridges indicate how deep the water can be during a flash flood.  A little farther on I hear a cry go up ahead; we've come to the first of a number of cattle grates - sets of parallel pipes across the road - that are only slightly less unfriendly to cyclists than they are to cows.  On a bike, you have to hit these straight across or risk going down in a heap.  In the mist, they're wet, too, which makes them even more slippery.  I don't see any casualties.  At ten miles or so, we come up suddenly on the first steep grade.  It isn't long at all, but most of the riders have been lulled by the level roads and are taken by surprise.  They slow and wobble, and some even have to stop.  I veer over to the far left of the roadway to keep up my cadence.  It's the first taste of "the burn" for the unprepared, and I wonder how they'll do later in the course when the climbs grind on and on.

I pull over at the first rest stop to fill my water bottles and grab some food.  Over the next few hours I know I'll burn nearly 5,000 calories, so I have to to eat every chance I get.  Rest stop food on this ride is great - PB&J's, bananas, orange slices, trail mixes, power bars, gatorade and water.  Okay, it isn't haute cuisine, but it tastes just as good.  I think about the start of the ride, when a doctor got on the microphone and made the shortest but most important speech of the opening ceremony:  "Sunscreen, eat, hydrate."  I smear on some more specially-formulated sunscreen that I bought the day before at the Livestrong village - it carries some organization's ranking as the best on the market.  It goes on like toothpaste, looks like warpaint.  Feeling sunscreened, fed and hydrated - and so very virtuous - I clip in and start cranking.  The crowd has thinned out some now, and I can get into my groove without risking a pile-up.

(photo by Matt Yerkes)

 (photo by Matt Yerkes)

The morning mist is thinning out and I can see a round hot sun peering through the fog that remains.  One of my water bottles is for drinking, the other is for dousing my head and back.  Not yet, but soon.  Right now it's comfortable.  I zoom down tree-lined roads that run along ranches.  Every so often I pass the end of a long driveway, flanked by gateposts that support an iron sign with the ranch's name.  Sometimes a family is sitting in lawn chairs at the end of the driveway, and they clap and ring cowbells and cheer as I ride by.  Some are set up for the day, with a cooler full of drinks and a tailgate picnic.  I feel a little self-conscious waving back to them, but they are the real deal in their enthusiasm.  Why would they be there otherwise, I ask myself.  I feel a warm thrill of connection with them for a second when I realize that there is surely someone they know or love whom this ride could be benefiting.  My legs feel fresher whenever I hear the cowbells clanking and the cheers.  I'm on top of the world.

Dedication wall . . . In Honor of . . . In Memory of . . .

In the quiet stretches I think about Theresa, my late wife, who died of cancer four years ago.  I've been riding in this event longer than that, but it surely means something else for me since the disease broke into our lives and stole so much.  I've come very far since those first heartsick days.  This ride is a joyful way to honor her memory and to help others in their heartsick times.  I see amazing things here, people undergoing chemo who walk or ride, entire families riding, a team that rode all the way from Calgary to get here.  Spirit and community.  It's both humbling and inspiring.

I arrive at the 37-mile rest stop, where riders who want to go 90 miles must get to within three hours of the start or be diverted to the 65-mile course.  I'm there in plenty of time and graze the food tables for a while before starting off again.  I know that the next 30 miles have some long grades to climb, and the roads are not the best.  At least they weren't in prior years.  Let me pause for a minute and tell you about chip seal, or chip and seal, roads, in case you are not familiar with this farm country version of a road surface.  First, a thin layer of asphalt is laid down, and then it is covered with fine gravel and compacted with a roller.  I quote from Wikipedia:  "The rough surface causes noticeable increases in vibration and rolling resistance for bicyclists, and increased tire wear in all types of tires."  That is a good, basic description.  The adjectives "tooth-rattling" and "muscle-numbing" also come to mind.  Not to mention what the incessant buzz does to your more sensitive parts.  The first 37 miles of the ride have been more or less all on this surface, and the prospect of another 53 miles of it is something I put out of my mind.  Imagine the thrill I feel when shortly after taking off again I reach an intersection, and the road I turn onto is freshly paved with beautiful, serene blacktop.  I hear the other riders within earshot moaning in almost sexual bliss, as I just have, as they hit the glass-smooth surface.  Pickup trucks and cars roar by on this main road, but they give us wide berth and I don't care at all about the noise or the buffeting as they pass.  This road is a gift.  It lasts until we are 65 miles in. 

Fine facilities

The 65-mile stop is the western-most outpost of the course, in the town of Blanco.  The countryside is in full, blazing sun now, and my tingling skin reminds me to smear on some more sun-paste.  The gang manning the stop is rowdy and ready for fun and I feel even better than when I started.  The cold mist seems like a memory from another time and place.  I notice that there are no lines at the porta-potties here; people are not following the good doctor's third commandment.  I must be, since I have to use one.  I look at my watch and have to look again; how can I be making such good time?  I thank the county again for the newly paved road, and eat and drink, then eat and drink some more.  I recognize some of the volunteers at the food tables from the village yesterday.  They're members of Texas 4000, a group of University of Texas students that does a ride from Austin to Anchorage every year to raise funds for cancer research.  Each member of this team raises $4500 dollars, one dollar for every mile ridden.  I thank them for volunteering for Livestrong, and they seem a little embarrassed to be acknowledged.  Their attitude says, without saying it out loud, that it's the least they can do for the cancer patients they're raising funds for.

Haulin the last 25 on chip seal

My spirits are high as I get on the bike again, but the legs are starting to ache now.  This 65-mile point is always the hardest mentally for me when I'm riding a century.  We're back on the old chip seal again, but I keep the vibration to a minimum by riding where car tires have compressed the surface the most.  This part of the course is a testing ground of rolling hills - a long way up, a long charge down - over and over.  The worst part is that you can see the uphill climbs coming from a long way off, and at a distance they look almost vertical.  After a while, I feel pummeled.  Oh please, not another one!  But I've got a new strategy since last year.  When I train, and in years past when I ride an event, I try never to drop out of the big chain ring.  It means I exert a lot more muscle power going up hills, but I go faster in the bigger gear.  This year I'm using the smaller ring on the long climbs and keeping a steady cadence (revolutions of the pedals).  It requires less muscle effort but I roll along more slowly.  Unless I can work a fast cadence to make up for it.  And it works.  My legs like the fast steady pace better than the shorter, brutal assaults, and I think I make better time overall.

I begin to recognize the scenery again, as the last part of the course retraces the roads where it started.  It's in bright sun now rather than the cold fog, and I'm riding it in reverse, so the climbs are now descents, and the descents are now climbs.  And now I'm nearing the end, and not facing the whole course as I was this morning.  My legs are complaining, but I know I'm nearing the end of the course.  I come onto an electronic highway sign that warns drivers of a "Special Event Ahead," and shortly past that I see the crowds and the finish line.  It's an inflated archway over the road.  I enter the chute.  Local high school girls in Livestrong T-shirts and skirts jump around like cheerleaders (maybe they are!) and an announcer welcomes me across the finish line, telling the crowd my name and that I come "all the way from Connecticut."  "Not very many riders from New England," he comments, as I turn out of the chute towards the cool-down area.  I coast to a stop, unclipping my shoes and straddling the bike for a second while I get my bearings.  A woman points me to the cool-zone, a little inflated structure with mist-sprayers that you go through like a car through a car-wash.  A girl on the other side hands me a small towel soaked in ice-water that I drape around my neck, and this feels impossibly good, even better than the smooth road did.  I greedily take another icy-cold towel for my face.  I have that complete, mind-body giddiness of accomplishment and exhaustion and relief and pleasure.  (Yes, I know what that sounds like, and this is the next best thing.)  I open my eyes, and I'm back in Roger Hanks Park.

Matt is there waiting for me, having already used his ticket for a free beer.  [This turns out to be something called Michelob Ultra, which is as far from beer as I can imagine.  How is it legal to call this stuff beer?]  I check my watch and I'm astonished to see that I've beaten my previous best time by 20 minutes.  Whose legs are these, anyway?  Can I keep them?  I leave my bike at the corral and swap my riding shoes for my sneakers.  Matt and I then go off to the food tent for some incredibly good tacos, rice and refried beans.  I'm not worried about eating another big meal in a couple of hours.  Our traditional post-ride meal is at the County Line restaurant, where we dig into barbecue and beer and watch a Hill Country sunset.  This is just one more reason why we go all the way to Austin for this event.  People sometimes ask me why we go to all the effort to fly down there, take our bikes apart, ship them, put them together again, and so on.  There is a Livestrong ride a lot closer to home than Austin.  It's in Philadelphia.  Philly.  Think about it.

I won't feel the ache in my legs for another two days.  I'm on a cloud after the ride.  We collectively raised over $2.4 million for the cause.  I rode my best time yet.  Everything feels like the best - the cold towel around my neck, the food, the drive back to town, the Austin skyline in the late afternoon light, the long hot shower, the first sip of a cold long-neck, horsing around with my son, the spicy ribs, the cool sheets I fall asleep between.