MoM RR

The misery is over.

My Memorial Day weekend was full of excitement in the mountains of Blacksburg, VA. Members and friends of Coastal Racing and I participated in the annual Cycling Doubleheader of the family oriented Wilderness Ride and the ominous Mountains of Misery. Both rides provide cyclists with challenging hills and, yes, mountain passes miles long with grades the organizers boast as reaching 12-15%.

The weekend started with a casual 38-mile Wilderness Ride that Ryan and I cruised through with relative ease in under two hours. Afterward we went back to the cabin to meet up with other members for an open water swim on Claytor Lake. Amazingly the mountain water was relatively warm for May but we still sported the wetsuits. I ended up swimming 20 minutes down the lake and another 21 back for a good solid workout. Afterward we ate like kings, had a few beers, and hit the sack for tomorrow's big ride.

The morning came way too early, partly because I didn't sleep well. I don't know if it was some pre-ride jitters about not getting enough training in or the fact I crashed last year and broke my thumb.

Only four of us were in for the long ride (Joel Bell being a stud and doing the double metric). We got there not long before the start and quickly got ready and lined up for the fourth wave. This time around the directors were limiting the size of the waves, which made the ride somewhat harder than last year because we were spaced out. Ryan and I spent the first 20 miles or so trying to find a suitable group of riders to roll with. Last year I had the privilege to ride wheels for most of the first half of the ride. When you're riding 103 miles in the mountains you take what you can, when you can.

Like before, the first serious challenge arrived around Mile 60 with the first mountain climb. This year I rocked a new Bontrager Race Lite GXP compact crank (50/34) and it made a world of difference. I still had to work like a mule to get the pedals around but I could get them around. By Mile 80 I was cursing the hills of a section with four or five continous steep rollers. My left knee had started to ache from all the climbing. And all I could think was that the person who designed the course was just being mean at this point. To say the least, I was happy when I reached the "five miles remaining" sign, but I knew it was literally an uphill battle from there.

After the ride we headed back to the cabin to eat and play flip cup till early morning, which is hindsight was a bad idea. The next day I felt a bit under the weather (partly hungover) and by the second day I had a full-blown head cold that sidelined me for a week.