there’s blue sky ahead

One thing I like about blogging is I never really feel on deadline. But I notice that my hit counter took a healthy tick up yesterday, which suggests that there may be a few of you out there wondering how it all went down for that little Bridge To Bridge outing on Sunday. So I am ignoring the laundry and gettin’ down to writin’ it down. Can you feel the love?

There’s so much to tell. Generally I believe there is numbness in detail, and when I started I had every intention of finding that broad line of the story between too little and too much, but after I started writing I realized your scrolling device works just fine. My blog, my story; EP version. And my longest post to date, by an order of magnitude or two. Scroll at will.

So we’ll start with Saturday.

I have little faith in Google Maps and even less in Mapquest. Instead, I called my bestest CL, whose sister lives down thataway, and thus ended up taking what I am sure was both the quickest and most scenic route to meet up with my crew just outside Boone, NC.

I did have to rely on Google Maps to find the campground, which of course meant that I had to rely on the dude at the mattress shop next to the shuttered gas station to get me unlost. I don’t believe he ever once shifted focus north of my neck, but in all fairness it must be said that he managed to give me stellar directions despite that, and I pulled into the Grandfather Mountain Campground just ten short minutes later.

You may be saying, Woah now, Madam Fraught, did you say CAMPGROUND? Fear not, fair reader; I may be crazy enough to undertake such a ride but I am nowhere near crazy enough to do it on a night’s sleep in a tent.

My accommodations: Reeechard and his crew arrived (from Tejas by way of Georgia) in Junior, aka “the bus.”

The bus is not exactly a repurposed yellow school model, and to be completely honest it has several more comforts than my home. Like the separate thermostat to heat the bathroom should you feel chilled after your steamy shower, and a flat-screen TV some decades newer than anything we own.

So I drive in and get to meet the rest of the crew: Todd, of the quiet nature and great grin. Gregg, whom I will shortly learn with utter astonishment graduated high school two years after I was born. And Keith, who feels — within minutes — like your favorite pair of old jeans. He and Richard are on their second trip; the rest of us are B2B virgins.

We had some lunch (leftover pork BBQ for me; they’d all had it fresh for dinner the night before, after it simmered along through the miles) and then got togged up to fulfill the brilliant plan for dropping cars convenient to the ride finish and simultaneously getting in a leg-stretcher of a ride back to the bus.

The guy who took our picture (coming soon, promise) said “Good thing you’re going now — I just looked on the radar and there’s a storm coming in.” Which made us all happy, because weather coming in now means it’s all gonna blow on through before tomorrow: Rain tonight, but clearing with a 50% chance of showers for the big day.

After Richard cooked dinner — blackened salmon, risotto and grilled asparagus — and then dessert — fresh blueberry somethin with ice cream over — and a few beverages and some lies and tales we got in our jammies and got settled in for the night.

Torrential rain on a metal roof is not exactly conducive to sleep, but the earplugs helped, as did the knowledge that it was blowing on through and we weren’t gonna have to ride in that mess.

Bright and early we packed up, unhooked and headed off to the start, in Lenoir, a piece down the road. The rain looked like it was planning to clear off any time.

Richard pilots the bus down the narrow NC roads; the sweep of the huge windshield wipers is slow and would put me into a hypnotic trance in about three minutes if I had to drive. But I don’t, and it’s not a heavy rain, which means it’s blowing on through and we aren’t gonna have to ride in that mess.

We pull into Lenoir and immediately find karmic parking outside the fire station, where the sight of riders pumping tires and attiring themselves in kit clues us in that we can’t be far from where we need to be.

At 10 we are at the start. I’m wearing a short sleeve shirt, arm warmers, knee warmers (thanks Sarah!), and my heavy Gore-Tex vest. I have the zip-off sleeves for the vest in my rear pocket, along with food and Accelerade powder. The rain has stopped and the sun is making its presence felt if not seen.

As I stand there, unable to hear the announcements, I begin to notice that I am one of two people wearing anything other than short sleeves and shorts. And it’s getting warmer by the minute. Crap. I roll down my arm warmers. I don’t have time to ride back to the bus for my lighter vest. I’m gonna sweat my ass off. Well, I can ditch the sleeves, at least, which will give me room to stash the leg and arm warmers later.

Okay, that’s a plan. Thanks to our karmic parking, I hand the sleeves to a cute firefighter and tell him I’ll pick them up at the station after the ride. (The SLEEVES, people. I’ll pick up the SLEEVES.)

We roll out. Riding through red lights legally is like eating chocolate in bed and being given a pass on the calories AND the cavities. I’m with my crew, and I’m happy. There’s a vast expanse of bright lycra on a shifting sea of bikes as far as I can see in front of me. Lotta money rolling down that road. I do a quick estimate: 800 riders, average of, say, 2K per bike, um, 16 plus five zeroes. 1.6 million bucks, conservatively, of carbon, titanium, aluminum, unobtanium and plain old steel. It’s a pretty sight, indeed it is.

About this time, it commences to sprinkling. Not enough to kick a roostertail off the wheel in front of me, but enough to make me roll the arm warmers back up a tad.

My goals for the day are 1) to spend as much time riding with my peeps before we get separated by the climbs that will kick in at Mile 56, and 2) to eat steadily, so I don’t bonk.

For a good bit of the first 60 miles I’m with one or another, or more, of my crew. I get separated from Richard early, when he has a wardrobe malfunction, but wait at the first rest stop long enough for him to get back with us. Keith, at six-four or maybe -five, is gorgeous to ride behind, providing both complete windblock and a line that never wavers; I instantly trust him enough to sit three inches off his wheel. That is, when it’s not raining hard enough to put a roostertail in my face.  Which it now largely is.

Gregg and Todd are generally ahead of us a bit; we see them briefly at aid stations. The rain continues. It never pours, but it comes down, and down.

The climbs begin. What I’d seen back in August on the elevation chart sent out had looked like a thirteen-mile climb with no relief in grade beginning at Mile 56. On the road, we climb a bit and then it levels out, climb and level again. I am ecstatic. This is nothing. I’ve got gears to spare. I stop at every aid station and eat something. After the second stop, I debate waiting on my crew, but I’m starting to get chilled when I stop, so decide I’m better off at my own pace. I don’t hurry. I chat as I pass people, which I am suddenly doing a lot of.

It rains. The sky is unremittingly gray. I amuse myself by leaning over toward someone I’m passing as we climb and saying conspiratorially, “I think it’s clearing.” I get great reactions. I vary it, but the theme remains the same. After a while I start singing “I see bluuuuuuuuue skies ahe-e-ed” as I come up behind people. I get laughs.

The rain is relentless, and I think longingly of those Gore-Tex sleeves, sitting dry in a firehouse. I’m not freezing, but I am tense with the cold, and when it’s time to descend I get colder and more tense, my body remembering its recent slide on wet pavement.

As the miles tick on, the fog gets thicker. It feels surreal, to be riding and not see another soul. For stretches at a time visibility is ten yards or so.

Hannah from Charlotte comes beside me on a flat stretch. She was part of the fast pack, an hour behind us on the staggered start, but eventually got dumped off the back of the train. She is young, and astonishingly strong. We trade pulls. She announces “This FUCKING SUCKS.”

At Mile 70 I have the jolting realization that I am only two-thirds done. Which means I have to do this for half again as long. Which does not sound fun. I decide the ride should be called Bridge To Bridge Across A Freakin’ Moat.

And I decide that I am not going to buy into Hannah’s attitude. It is adverse out here, indeed, but it does not fucking suck. I am cold, I am wet, my neck and shoulders hurt and I can’t feel my toes, but I am fully alive, and that is good. And you know, I bet that’s a gorgeous view off that overlook there. I’ll have to come back another time and see it.

Hannah and I see more and more cars going by with tagged bikes on them, signaling that more and more people are parting with their desire to finish, and choosing instead to simply be done.

The descents are bad for me. The visibility is so poor at times that I’m leery of getting up speed, in direct contradiction to my deepening desire to be finished as soon as possible. The spray on my glasses obscures my vision too much, so I have to take them off and squint to keep crap from flying in my eyes. I’m tense and numb; I’ve lost trust in my ability to stay upright on wet pavement, and I have to fight my fear, which wells up no matter how much I try to remind myself I know how to do this.

I lose Hannah somewhere on a long descent, and pull into the next aid station. She had eschewed them, eating instead while riding, and it feels good to be standing upright. I stand under a tent.  The half PBJ tastes so good I have another. And some grapes. And a cookie.

As I pass people now I do not sing, I do not banter. I murmur Hey, and never even look at their faces.

I am now officially really, really cold; rainwater drips steadily off the end of my nose. At Mile 90 or so I find myself in pace with another rider. He asks how I’m doing; I say My friend, I am PEACHY. He laughs. This is his tenth year, and he has on full-finger gloves and full tights, and I am deeply covetous. We ride a time and agree to stop and stretch, and my shoulders unclench a bit. I never learn his name, and somewhere in the surreality we get separated, but sharing those miles with someone was huge.

At times the fog clears; at times it’s completely socked in. The air is so wet I don’t even know if it’s raining any longer. When we see the sign marked Mile 100, I’m elated. In a few more miles I know I’ll turn off onto the final climb up Grandfather Mountain. Suddenly a phalanx of volunteers pop out of the fog, but I realize I’m clueless: left or right turn? I ask, and someone points me toward the gate.

I know some portion of the climb from here is going to be at a brutal grade, and I know there’s a possibility that at this point a standing climb will make me cramp. If my legs cramp badly enough, I will simply fall. I really, really don’t want to fall.

I sit as long as I can, grinding up, and then it gets too steep. I stand through the first switchback. Pre-cramp twinge, but I’m okay. I pull off into a parking area and put my feet down. Breathe. Clip back in, gain momentum on the traverse angle, then turn uphill again.

It’s long, and there are three sections in all where the grade demands coming out of the saddle. Each time I stand I try to send calm energy into my legs.

I can hear cowbells, and shouting. I can’t see a freaking thing. I remind myself that switchbacks are deceptive, and they could be a long way away. And then I can see them through the fog, and there’s a sign that says Finish Line Just Ahead, and I round the final switchback and cross that line.

I am the 195th rider over, and the 6th woman.

An interesting statistical breakdown: They cap the race at 800 registrants. About 200 woke up and decided it was a good day to see a movie instead. Watch some golf maybe. 299 total finishers means only every other rider who clicked in at the start made it even to the bottom of Grandfather Mountain (there’s an alternate finish line at the base for those who miss the cutoff time).

Only one of our crew had to abandon. Gregg, whose job took him around the globe a couple times this year, made it to Mile 70 before the evil conditions and the miles he hadn’t been able to log in training caught up to him in the form of unrelenting leg cramps.

Todd finished 10 minutes in front of Richard, who finished 10 minutes in front of Keith. And I am amazed, truly in awe, that they could ride that ride without having the opportunity to train on anything close to the kind of terrain they were up against. It is a testament to their strength, and maybe more to their determination.

And we all got warm, eventually, and drove down the mountain to where Junior was waiting with hot showers and cold beverages.

And I was a little blue yesterday. There are those times when things don’t live up to your expectations, and afterward there’s the dusty taste of disappointment. And then there are those times when things exceed your expectations, and afterward it is, well, over. And you wish it weren’t.

Thanks, guys. You really know how to show a girl an unforgettable time.