Memorial Day Weekend was all BBQ’s and bicycles. You can’t avoid the bummer life easier than that.

Saturday morning Chris and I left around 4am to ride the SBS (Snoqualmie, Blewitt, and Stevens’ Passes) 356k permanent. It was one part eagerness to ride in the mountains, two parts training and prep for the upcoming 600k.

Friday afternoon I had geeked out on nutritional facts on the internet. I’ve been trying to find my magic bullet for long distance bicycling. According to sources, I had been in-taking about half of the needed carbohydrates per hour since I got off of Perpetuem. I thought it might be worth giving the stuff a second shot. I reasoned that I could half dose it in a multi hour bottle and substitute bike and real food to get the other half of the nutrition necessary. I’ll bet you can’t guess where this is going.

We rode through a bit of North Bend to pick up I90 up towards Snoqualmie Pass. I remember it being a bit easier than the others, but we really cranked up it this time. Traffic started to get a little heavy as the day wore on. A Memorial Day weekend with some sun is a recipe for some busy highways.

I had calculated some times that we might hit controls and wrote them down on my cue sheet. The first time was if we kept a 16 mph pace (with stops… unlikely over the mountains) and the second showing a slowest possible pace of 10 mph. I also had a little hourly reminder about what I should be eating. Even if it didn’t work, I could at least say that I tried.

We made it in to the first control at Cle Elum (mile 55) around the 16 mph pace. The long decent really helped and we seemed to have the wind at our backs. We got the usual stares from the locals and moved on our way.

Blewitt Pass was much busier than in the past, but we had enough shoulder to not really let that bug us. The decent off the top is one of the longest high speed rides around. It isn’t quite as scenic or steep as some of the other passes, but I think it might be one of the most fun. It feels like you are descending forever and all you have to do is steer.

Leavenworth (mile 105) came up quickly and we only had 7 hours under our belts after 2 passes! We grabbed some small bites to eat and refueled on water. Chris sat next to some surly biker guys. I didn’t notice him at first so he called me over. He said he was trying to blend in. One of the guys looked out and gave him an evil eye. They then proceeded to make a number of ignorant comments about immigrants, jacket patches, and life in general. The spandex wasn’t impressing them. I had a stare down contest with one of them as we all left. We saw them going up Stevens’ Pass and they gave a little effeminate wave to let us know what they thought of us. Not to our faces of course. It would have been a messy fight, chamois cream and do-rags everywhere…

Not to give bikers a bad name in general, we got a number of fists and horns on the road from people giving us respect for tackling the climbs.

Stevens was a major slog. I started to feel the burn in my legs and a slight discomfort with my food situation. We faced a head wind and an endless series of ups and downs (mostly up) to reach the 4,056 foot summit. I don’t know what it was about that climb, but it really took the life out of me. To top it off, the temperatures were in the mid to high 80’s for the first time this year. It may not sound like much (and I realize it isn’t), but my body hasn’t really adjusted from the 50-60 degree weather we keep around these parts.

My new low 12-28 cassette helped me reach an even lower slow speed of about 5-6 mph. I was contrasting my performance with what I’ve been watching on the Giro over the last couple of weeks. Even the guys that are busted and broken were looking better than I felt.

Somehow, some way, we finally made it to the top. We (okay, I) took a breather and hit the decent. It looked a lot like this, except we had on different jerseys, and I was on a different bike. I didn’t snap a ton of pictures because it seemed like I was always working for a climb or descending way too fast for photos.

Skykomish was the next control and we spent a little time eating and reaccessed possible finish times. It looked pretty positive even though the climb up Stevens took like 3 1/2 hours. My only real goal was to get home before midnight, and we were well on track for that.

The next few miles flew by. The headwinds finally went away and we were cruising along at 17-18 mph. I actually felt really good and my stomach had settled a bit from Stevens.

Then it hit me insanely fast. My stomach started to churn and I felt queasy. I know the feeling a little too well so it is pretty demoralizing once it comes on. It is hard to eat or drink anything because it only seems to make it worse. Everything you’ve been eating sounds disgusting and makes you even more queasy. I told Chris that I needed to stop at the first gas station for a carbonated drink. I figured I might be able to burp out some gas and settle the stomach with a sit down.

That might have worked if I didn’t throw up right when I got to the station. Again, lost nutrition, terrible taste in the mouth, where did it go wrong? Right when I got out of the bathroom, a small Indian man hovered near the door and ran to get some aerosol spray. He peppered the bathroom and the surrounding hall immediately. Even sick, I got a chuckle from that. I drank some 7up and burped a bit. Chris and I sat on the corner for a while and watched the locals in Gold Bar.

There was a family that pulled up straight out of Devil’s Rejects. They had 3 in a 2 seater bucket car that was ready to die. “Hillbilly” as a word doesn’t do justice. They looked out for murder. I avoided eye contact. Chest puffing motorcyclists don’t scare me. This family did.

We hit the road again and it felt promising for a couple of miles. Then it came back. I barely made it to the next town (Sultan) and tried to find a bathroom. I’m not above a little roadside display, but I thought I could make it. Once I got in, the door was locked and a man from inside started yelling, “Someone is in here!” Calm down guy, I only tried once. A little vomit came up in my throat and I spun around looking for somewhere to put it, quickly. There was a service sink and I spit it out into there. I ran the sink for a second to clean up any mess and then sprinted outside to finish what I started. Sorry, too much info?

Our “for fun” training ride was turning out to not be worth finishing. I’m pretty confident that I could have limped in to the finish. It was only 40 miles away. I didn’t think it was worth burning a bunch of muscle and feeling like crap over a bit of credit. Chris called his wife Emily and she was sweet enough to drive out and pick us up.

I wasn’t able to eat anything until later that night. On the plus side, I still got home before midnight. Other than that, it was a beautiful day on a bike. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sunday and Monday both held BBQ’s with friends and coworkers. Monday’s was at Chris and Emily’s house. They were showing off some puppies that they’ve been fostering. They are up for adoption in 3 weeks and are looking for good homes. Jane and I have our name on the list for a little white one named Ciabatta that looks kind of like our last dog Shiska. All of the dogs were named after breads.

Tiny puppies are automatic high voice inducers. I dare you to not make a baby voice to this.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 9:46 am and is filed under bicycling, sir. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.