Sunday, June 21, 2009
6: EPIC
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| Stoker's Log Day Six |
| 6/21/09 |
| From Frederick, MD |
| To Bedford, PA |
| 102 miles |
| 8-9 avg mph? (malfunctioning speedometer) |
As we climbed onto the bike this morning Kyle was still having doubts about the trip, and it's not like I was clicking my heels and leaping into the seat either. We had a good litmus test approaching though; early in the trip we would need to climb a massive hill. "If we start tackling that hill and decide that we can't take one more pedal stroke," Kyle pointed out, "we can always turn around and coast home again." We never did abandon the trip, which means we're even more dedicated, stubborn, or stupid than we realized, because the ride gave us countless reasons to turn back. Today was epic...meaning it yielded good stories (and what I expect will be a looooong blog entry) but was horrendous to experience in person.
One of our greatest cycling accomplishments before this trip was climbing what we call Hell Hill in Frederick, which took two tries...on unloaded road bikes. Today we would be climbing a different part of Hell Hill with our heavy tandem and without standing. We almost lucked out on the weight issue; Kyle's parents had planned to meet us in Frederick so that his father could ride with us and his mother could carry some of our equipment in her car and rendevous with us at the hotel. Unfortunately severe weather up north kept them from coming, so we were on our own.
With a slow, steady cadence we managed to make it over that hill and coasted into a Sheetz, where we ran into some cyclists who had just finished a criterion race nearby. (Really wish we had known about that!) Unfortunately that was only the beginning of our climbing for the day. There were four massive hills on the agenda and a lot of rolling terrain in between. It seemed like every summit brought sight of another climb in the distance.
After the second giant climb we had a brief break while we looked around Mercersburg Academy, where our frisbee friend Tammy attended high school. She never mentioned that the campus was ridiculously beautiful and could rival most colleges.
We called Tammy and she suggested some nice restaurants in the area, but we had no time for a sit-down lunch. Instead we ate standing up in the entrance to a park because we didn't have the time or energy to find the actual picnic facilities.
We were in such a hurry because of our motel, a mom and pop establishment that absolutely, positively did not accept check-ins after 10 pm. We didn't really expect to take that long -- we started at 6:30 in the morning, after all -- but we wanted a healthy cushion since the worst climb of the day was yet to come.
Hill #3 made Hell Hill look like Happytimes Hill of Rainbows and Ice Cream. It was steep and seemingly neverending, a mindbogglingly grueling climb in ever-increasing heat. It's hard to describe the experience because in order to survive you can't let your mind fully comprehend the climb while it's happening. I started counting sets of eight in my head in time to the pedal strokes; I have no idea why. But it helped me keep pushing and we kept crawling forward. It was hard to believe that the climb would end before our legs gave out. We started to understand why everyone who rides the Trans America route says that the mountains in the east are worse to ride than the Rockies. The Rockies are longer, but less steep, so as long as you reconcile yourself to the fact that you'll be going up hill for a long time it isn't too hard to settle back and just keep a steady pedal. But these Pennsylvania mountains, the misleadingly pleasant sounding Laurel Highlands, are steep and brutal and out to destroy cyclists. At two points we had to abandon our No Walking Rule and drag the loaded bicycle up the steepest sections so that our knees didn't pop out of their sockets. As soon as possible we would climb back on the bike to do leg press after leg press, unable to think or see straight as the climb wore on. When we finally reached the peak we were too exhausted to really celebrate, especially with the spirit-crushing knowledge that we had one big hill left to go, but we did take time to breath, smile, and enjoy the view.
The downhills were of course also steep, which made for rather intense descents. We learned the important information that our speedometer stops working around 42 mph, presumably because the magnet on the wheel gets knocked out of alignment. We're pretty sure that we surpassed 50 mph on our steepest descent. I never in my life thought I would go that fast on a bicycle. It was both exhilirating and terrifying; I'm just glad that I wasn't steering and that Kyle kept us from plummeting off a cliff or something. Mostly the downhills just made us happy because we didn't have to pedal and we could make up a lot of time.
What didn't help with our race against the clock was the decision to ride the abandoned turnpike. Once a busy four lane highway with tunnels, the 20+ mile stretch is now open only to bikes. We were looking forward to the unique riding experience, but unfortunately we needed to find it first. The directions from Googlemaps took us into increasingly rural areas until all of the roads were dirt and most of them were unmarked. Luckily I was willing to ask for directions at one point (cough cough) or we would have had even more trouble. Once we completely left civilization for mud puddles and forest the Garmin became our greatest friend. I road with it in hand as we tried to figure out what was a road that would get us out of the woods and what was a trail that would only lead us farther in. When we finally emerged from the woods fate decided to slap us in the face with a steep hill of loose gravel and stones that was completely unridable. Kyle hauled the bike up to the crossroads and then did homage to the first pavement we'd seen in far too long.
Finally we found the abandoned turnpike, now called the Pike2Bike.
It was a fascinating experience, to have a once teeming highway to ourselves, to ride the wide stretches of pavement surrounded only by trees and the sounds of small wildlife. We even saw where the government had used the abandoned pike to test rumble strips and other road innovations. It must have been even cooler to ride the Pike2Bike years ago when it looked more like a functioning highway. I never realized how bad unmaintained pavement can become over time; major captain points to Kyle for navigating through cracks, holes, grass, reverse potholes, and the like while staring straight into the sun. The only other cyclist we saw was on a road bike going the opposite direction and I don't see how his tires survived.
I was most excited about the tunnels...until we were actually in one. The first tunnel was over a mile long, slightly sloped, and completely unlit, which meant that the light at the end of the tunnel was barely visible for most of the ride. It sounds like a metaphorical problem, but I found it incredibly unsettling. The only sounds were the echo of dripping water and our tires on the moist stones. The only light was from our headlamps, which had to be trained straight ahead so that we could veer around the plentiful potholes and puddles, leaving the rest of the tunnel in eerie darkness. As absurd as it sounds, I couldn't shake the feeling that someone or something was about to leap out of the blackness. We rode as quickly as we could while still being safe; the only thing worse than going through the tunnel slowly would be getting a flat halfway across. The tunnel and its darkness dragged on but eventually we saw the most beautful sight:
The second tunnel was shorter and therefore easier, but it still wasn't a pleasant experience. Afterward we had more uneven pavement and a gravel downhill to traverse and then we were through. Even though it was interesting and blessedly FLAT, we weren't sad to leave the Pike2Bike behind. It's worth a try (if you can find an easier way to access it than we did) but I would never ride it more than once.
Thanks to our trek over the mountains and through the woods and into the tunnels we were running hard up against our 10pm deadline. We looked into a shortcut via a highway but it was closed to bikes so we had to navigate on the fly as the sun set. We sped up and down rolling hills in the dark, pulling out the Garmin every few miles, and at 9:35 we entered Bedford. When we hadn't found the motel by 9:45 we started to panic, especially since we had left a commercial area for neighborhoods. We didn't have the motel phone number, so as we rode I called my mother and had her call the motel. Then we saw it, the glow of the Judy's Motel sign. I leapt off the bike and ran to the door to find Bill, the proprietor, grinning as he told my mom that the cyclists had arrived.
We had our warm bed for the night; we just needed a warm shower and warm dinner to feel like ourselves again. Kyle was amazing and gave me first shower while he set off to find food. I almost had a complete breakdown when the shower refused to be anything but ice cold, but finally it warmed up and I stepped into one of the most refreshing experiences of my life. Dinner didn't work out quite as well; the only thing nearby and open was the convenience store, so we made a meal of cheese cubes and wafer cakes. Still it all felt like a hazy miracle; I'm not sure what was powering our legs during those final miles other than desperation for a bed. We didn't know it at the time with our broken odometer, but we broke 100 miles today, hills and dirt roads and all.
EPIC
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| posted at: 07:17 |
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