A Girl and a Bike: Kings and Queens of the Mountain

I've done it! America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride was last Sunday June 7, and all the training and mental preparation paid off. My time was 2 hours faster than when I first conquered this ride as a newbie back in 2007.

Thanks to all who helped me along the way- whether you were able to donate or just give your well-wishes and moral support. Team In Training nationwide raised more than $6.8 million to help find a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, and other blood cancers!

I did this ride along with a few good friends, all of whom had a great day and made some spectacular accomplishments- Congrats to Meena for completing her first century! For me, the ride was good for the most part, but it was not without its troubles.

Saturday- The Arrival

We got to the Embassy Suites around 11:30, and here I was in flip-flops in 50 degree temps and drizzle. Yes I had read the weather reports, but I didn't believe them. Wishful thinking on my part. At 1PM our team had a short tune-up ride, and at this point the drizzle had become rain. I stupidly wore the jacket I planned to wear on event day, and it became muddy and sand-encrusted by the ride end. I actually took my clothes into the shower with me, and used the hotel shampoo to wash all the crud off my gear. Not to mention my bike, made recently shiny by my own careful polishing, was now streaked in grease and grit.

On our way to the tune-up ride

Everyone's big fear was that the weather would be horrible on event day. There was a 30% chance of rain at 6am, which was exactly when we were supposed to start. The thought of descending Spooner Summit with wet brakes was terrifying. This is a downhill where faster cyclists can easily reach 50mph, and chickens like me who feather the brake still hit 35mph. Imagine trying to slow yourself on slick roads with wet rims? No way.

Saturday ended with an early Inspiration Dinner at 4pm, team meeting afterward, and bedtime around 10pm (I should have gone to bed earlier, of course). I know for a fact that more than one teammate prayed for dry weather on Sunday, and the gods did indeed answer.

Event Day

Waking up at 5am is hard to do any day. Waking up at 5am and knowing that particular day you have to ride your bike 100 miles at altitude is really daunting. I was my usual dry-heaving self, queasy from the ungodly hour at which we had to rise, and also from pre-ride jitters.

Getting ready

One positive about the morning was that Jason and I were in a family suite with Meena and Tory, so it was fun to actually be getting ready together. I wasn't hungry at all but forced myself to scarf down my breakfast (which partially contributed to some later troubles). I was downstairs to meet my team by 5:40am.

Legends in Our Own Time

Rather than give an entire account of the day and its minutiae, I want to highlight a few stories that I think will become TNT lore.

Jake-

What can I say about my friend Jake? Jake is a monster on a bike. He got next to no sleep the night before the ride, and he was still a monster. On Saturday Jake dj'd a wedding in the North Bay until midnight. His dad drove him up to Tahoe in the middle of the night and he arrived at 5am with just enough time to check in and throw his stuff into his hotel room.

One of the things I'll remember about that morning was seeing Jake's teammates pinning on his bib number, putting on his bracelet, sticking a ride sticker to his helmet, and otherwise putting him together as a group effort. The other thing I'll remember was later seeing Jake around mile 50, leading his entire team out of Truckee.

Me & Jake 6am

Antonio-

I didn't get to know Antonio very well, but we all knew him as the ex-bike messenger who wore jeans to every training ride. He finally broke down and came out in a pair of actual cycling tights with padding on event day. The problem was he wore boxers under them (ouch!). That, and he also wore only his TNT jersey (it was 48 degrees that morning) and no gloves.

Amanda-

Amanda's story wasn't so much anything that happened on event day. It was more that she could ride on event day at all. She took a number of spills during the season, the worst of which landed her in the hospital after crashing on HWY 1 near Stinson Beach during our 80 mile buddy ride.

My ride group came across that crash not long after it happened, and I can say there is nothing more scary than seeing fire trucks and ambulances and knowing it's a bike accident. When you realize it was one of your teammates, it chills you to the core. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt, but I can't imagine how tough it must have been for Amanda to get back on the bike.

Sheryl-

Sheryl Braum is one of our Honorees. She is a cancer survivor who had a stem cell transplant 6 years ago and has only one working lung. Riding around Tahoe involves climbing some serious hills, and most of us are pushed to limits of our cardiovascular thresholds. How Sheryl can do what we do with one lung is really beyond amazing.

Me-

I'd like to think I had a pretty incredible story that day. A comeback story.

Before our first big climb, at about mile 7, I started to feel nauseous. I'd eaten the same breakfast I always eat, but I'd also doubled the dosage of the sports drink mix I used that morning after doing some ounces-to-liters calculations. Every time I took a sip, I could feel my stomach burn.

Coach Scott and I planned to ride at the back of the group early on, and he was riding behind me as I got increasingly queasy. Then it happened. I threw up in my mouth. Scott was behind me. I couldn't hit him with it, so I held it. Yes, I held it in my mouth. Probably for 5 minutes (luckily it tasted mostly like Cran-Razz Clif Shot).

I started to slow down big time, and Scott passed me. He called out that he was going to catch the rest of the team, and I simply nodded and grunted, my mouth full of electrolyte and bile, and probably a little Amy's Organic Pocket Sandwich. Once Scott got past me, I spit everything out, miraculously avoiding hitting my clothes.

And I kept riding. In fact, I had to climb up Emerald Bay not long after. I can honestly say I felt completely like sh*t. When I rode around Tahoe in 2007, I also got sick (though I didn't vomit). But that happened at mile 70. This time, I was only at mile 10 and didn't know if I could face pushing through 90 more miles.

What if I didn't feel better? What if I had to call Jason to pick me up at the first rest stop? What if I had to let down everyone who donated money to me? How could I go to the Victory Party that night, having not finished the ride? I felt desperate, and the tears almost came. But I just rode. It was the only grounding force at that point.

Eventually I caught up with my team at the first rest stop at Homewood around mile 20. They'd been there for a while, and I knew I needed time to pull myself together, and most importantly dump out the sports drink from my Camelbak and replace it with water and my tried-and-true Nuun tablets. So I told them to go and that they should wait for me at the lunch stop at mile 70.

I rode alone for the next 50 miles. This is not really a bad thing for me, because it let's me ride intuitively. I can hammer when I want to hammer. I can ride slow up a hill when I need to. But I didn't want to finish the ride alone. I really wanted to finish with my team.

I found them at the King's Beach lunch stop. They had arrived there just 5 minutes earlier. I was proud of myself, because it really took some effort to close what was probably a 20 minute gap between me and them. Granted, they stopped for the bathroom once or twice. But hey I threw up in my mouth earlier.

The last 30 miles of the ride went off without a hitch, and we rode pretty hard to the end. There was nothing more rewarding than seeing the Horizon Hotel (the ride finish) looming in the distance from about one mile out, and then crossing the finish line with my team after a long day filled with so many mental and physical highs and lows.

Ride time in the saddle- 6 hours 40 minutes

Overall time including stops- 8 hours 30 minutes