Dirt Hammer 911

MY RATIONALE FOR WHY I DIDN’T CALL 911
I call Connie when all goes wrong on a ride. I've been in driving rain storms, pulled into a party store, called Connie, had her pick me up in the Outback, and all is right with the world. So when I had searing pain rocketing across my chest and driving down my left arm, I used my right arm to call Connie on the cell phone.

THE DIRT HAMMER
The Dirt Hammer is a special ride. It's a fast, hard thirty-five miles and there's always someone going off the front, trying to stir things up. I've always thought the hardest part was the first climb up Barton. It's steep, it keeps getting steeper, and it just hurts and my legs aren't ready for such exertion so early. But usually I give it a good effort and snarl through the pain. On Tuesday, 9/11, I found myself off the back immediately and not really able to hold on very well. I told myself that it was just fatigue. From what, I didn't know, but that's what I called it. After that hill I tend to get into the groove of the ride and enjoy everyone's attempts to put a burn into the pace.

That night, though, I felt like I was working awfully hard just to hang on. At one point on Jennings, Brian, who seemed to be particularly spunky, passed me, so I jumped on his wheel. He was pulling up the long gentle hill that ascends toward North Territorial. I was in his draft cranking away, then he just pulled right away from me. Man, I thought, I can't even hold on in the draft. I really am fatigued.

It was a cooler evening than usual. I thought maybe my muscles were in full rebellion. Rich passed and I hopped into his draft, but eventually he pulled away, too. I just pedaled easy from there. It wasn't worth wasting the energy. Way up ahead, Rodger and Brian duked it out at the stop ahead sign. From then on, whenever the speed went up I found myself at the back. Here I'd thought only a few days before that I was in good form and really ready for the cyclocross racing season and now I could hardly hang on.

Along Walsh I found myself at the front pulling through a strong head wind. I was only going about 16mph, but nobody was passing, so I thought maybe it was the wind that had held me back in the ride so far and everyone else was now fatigued from working too hard. We climbed the steep hill on Merkel and after that the pace picked up again and again I was huffing away near the rear. I was working too hard. Along Zeeb I just barely hung on. We crossed North Territorial and between there and Gregory Road the pace once again increased. I looked at my computer and the pace was fast, but not outrageous, about 21mph, but eventually I let the last wheel pull away and I waved goodbye. It wasn't my night. I was breathing awfully hard.

After Gregory Road, I felt a pain fill my chest and run down my left arm. I looked back, since I knew that Mark and Wendy would show up soon. It was all too weird, the labored breathing and the pain. Had I pulled some chest muscle that affected my lung capacity? Was it the cooler temperatures that my body had not adjusted to?

I looked ahead and there was the group turning up Farrell and climbing the first rise. That was my favorite place to attack on the whole ride. I love hills like that. Brian and I often fight it out there. But I wasn't there. Weird. I rolled along toward Farrell and the pain exploded across my upper body. I stopped at the turn and looked back. I wanted Mark and Wendy to show up. I leaned over the handlebars and waited for the pain to subside. It didn't. Mark pulled up. "You ok?" "No." That was about all I could say. I put the bike down and pulled off my helmet. Wendy pulled up. I was so glad they were there, but I didn't know what to say. I called Connie and told her to pick me up. I knew that I wasn't riding any farther with this pain. I felt faint and nauseous. I sat in the grass and put my head between my knees. I wanted to throw up, but couldn’t. Then I got up and wandered the road in circles. Mark and Wendy kept asking me questions to keep me talking. Wendy wanted to get Ben to come get me with the car, since they lived close and he'd be there soon. "No," I said, "I already called Connie."

Rodger called on the cell phone. "Everything ok?" I said Mark and Wendy were with me and Connie was going to pick me up. I couldn't talk any more than that. I circled on the road some more. Every time I circled past Mark and Wendy I said something like, "this is just too weird." I was in so much pain and it wasn't getting better. I looked at three sandhill cranes pass through the sky, an intensely blue sky with great graven white clouds carved into it. The cranes were so majestic. So big and prehistoric.

I kept looking up the road, hoping that every car was driven by Connie. A couple of cars approached. One was even an Outback, but it didn't have bike racks. One was an old woman in a Ford Explorer and she was going so slow and she looked lost, but she didn't stop to ask directions. I kept circling. I was getting cold. Wendy passed me her windbreaker. It felt good, but I wanted a warm room at this point. The cold wasn't helping my pain. I leaned over and picked up a small piece of metal, 4" of a chain link fence, and threw it over into the grass. It was important that that piece of metal be out of the road.

Wendy on the Dirthammer

I called Connie again. She was at Joy and Zeeb, but Zeeb didn't continue and she was confused. I told her about the jog left then right again onto the dirt section of Zeeb and verified it with Wendy. It seemed like forever after that, even though she was closer than ever. Then I saw the car and the rack and watched the car get bigger and then it was beside me and my daughter Lauren was in the passenger seat. Everyone mobilized and we got the bike in the car, and me in the car and Wendy said something to Connie about my heart and getting to emergency. I think Connie expected a stubborn argument from me about going to emergency, but I said that's where we needed to go. The warmth of the car was good, but the pain still ripped over my chest and down my arm.

Lauren's face was a good mirror on the situation. She looked worried. Why would her father look so screwed up? Rich called. "Everything ok?" I told him I was in the car with intense pain. "You're going to emergency, right?" It was less a question than a statement. "Yup."

THE HOSPITAL
At emergency there was a line-up of cars. Why now? A valet came up and assessed the situation. We got out, Connie gave him the keys and we walked into the emergency ward. We were at the desk behind a line. When Connie mentioned I had chest pain, the registrar's chair rolled directly to us, she ordered a wheelchair for me and I was pushed right back to the assessment room filled with the bustle of orderlies, technicians, nurses, and doctors. It looked like a busy night, but I was quickly the center of a lot of attention. I now know what to do to get good service in an emergency ward. Mention chest pain and you're the show until determined otherwise.

The first round of tests didn't show much. Then they did an EKG and there it was. A blip out of place. "It looks like you've had a heart attack," the doctor said. "We'll run some more tests to verify. But in the mean time, we'll call in the coronary surgeons."

Connie came back. She'd found a place for Lauren to spend the night. I'd wondered where she'd disappeared. My emotions were in check until that moment. The whole heart attack thing threw me off and I was in shock. Why would I get a heart attack? I'd worked so hard to stay healthy. Then I started thinking about all I loved about biking and that it was over. All the friends, the joking, the teasing and bravado, the times when my legs just soared, the ability to hold on and sometimes pick up the pace against all odds. The admiration I had for these crazy, competitive, fun-loving people. Young guys, older guys like me, powerhouses, and those who had to work their tails off week after week just to hold on, but they were always back for more. They were both competitive and supportive at the same time. And just good people.

The doctor asked what was wrong. Connie told her. "Oh, no," the doctor said, "you'll be racing again." She said it so casually, even with a small chuckle, like, what was my problem?

They gave me a nitroglycerin tab under my tongue. Then my blood pressure plummeted. Athletes often have low resting heart rates and their vessels are so dilated that any further opening can drop the blood pressure into the danger zone. The nitro was supposed to ease the pain by getting the blood to flow into my heart again, but any further tabs were out of the question. "Get the morphine." Option B. I was put on a morphine drip. It made me drowsy and it eased the pain somewhat, but it took a while. In the mean time I was wheeled to the cardiovascular building and into the operating room. Three nurses were prepping the area furiously. This was the first time I realized, through my dopey stupor, that time was important. Within minutes this amazing new room that looked like the Starship Enterprise control room was shifted into place for my operation.

They'd decided to put a catheter into an artery in my groin and work through it to access the left lower coronary artery where the blockage took place. Apparently I'd had a crack in my artery that was seeping blood and filling it with a clot. This cut off oxygen to that part of my heart. Once that happens and no oxygen is reaching the heart muscle, it begins to die. That's why getting to the hospital quickly is essential.

They did an angioplasty to open the vessel, then inserted a metal stent to keep it open. The stent is now a part of me and will be for the rest of my life. It is metal and I do need to lubricate it with WD-40 on occasion. I'm good for 5000 miles or six months, whichever comes first. Kidding.

The operation itself took just over an hour. Then I was taken to another part of the hospital and put in the cardiac ICU. There, a nurse named Andrea watched over me for the night. She took my pulse and blood pressure about three thousand times. Another fellow came in and removed the catheter, then stood over me for nearly an hour holding pressure on the area to prevent the artery from leeching blood and causing a hematoma, and waiting for it to clot enough to plug the hole on its own. He was a good natured, patient man and one time I fell asleep while he was doing this and he startled me awake, saying that I couldn't fall asleep because he needed my feedback. I thought he was doing a darned good job and I'd only mess him up, but it was obvious that I wasn't going to get to doze under his watch.

If you get a nurse for this kind of thing, try to get someone like Andrea. She was so darned patient, intelligent, friendly, and good humored that the experience was fun, minus the heart attack part. She helped me understand the specifics about what I was going through and reassured me that I was doing well throughout.

HEREDITY, MAYBE
We used to take the ferries to Door County in Wisconsin from Frankfort or Ludington. My dad sold farm equipment and the cherry industry was big in Door County and dad loved the people over there and they loved him. It was business and party time all in one. Beer sometimes foamed out of the bottles at breakfast. We used to transport the gangly red Friday cherry shakers on those big boats that swallowed up whole trains and parking lots full of cars and other odds and ends. We were the odds and ends. I once went over on a balmy summer night that felt like a Carribean cruise. It was beautiful with a sun line buzzing west across the water toward Wisconsin, a rich blue sky and breezes that made you inhale over and over to fill your lungs with memories for the upcoming bitter months.

Dad often went over on his own. It was little boy time for him and you could feel the energy when he headed out. On the evening of July 7^th, 1977 he drove away in his green pickup truck and at about 7am on July 8th we got a knock on the door. It was a sheriff. Mom answered the door. I stood behind her as the officer told us that dad had died in a berth on the ferry. Massive heart attack. They'd gone to awaken him and he wasn't getting up. It was a beautiful blue sky day. I was way too young to lose a father and at 56 he was way too young to go. It certainly wasn't part of any plan I'd laid out. I'd always imagined him as a jovial grandfather to my future kids. He was a kid magnet. I had to go clean out his pickup truck. In the seat was a jumbo bag of jelly beans. It was nearly empty.

He was overweight, overworked, and out of shape, but so were many other men of his generation. I’m skinny and athletic. But even with our differences, my heart issues may be genetic. That’s one possible reason. The other is unknown. About 30% of all heart attacks occur in people with no risk factors. Those are basically lumped into the hereditary pile, since there’s no other known explanation at this point.

NOW
I feel good. After a week, my cardiologist let me go back out on the bike. In the mean time I did a lot of walking. He wants me to take it easy for a while, but by the end of a month he says I should be able to work at a level of fitness similar to the one I’d had before the heart attack. Apparently, recurrences are rare in cases such as mine. He says the rest of my heart looks pretty good. He doesn’t think cyclocross racing would be good this fall, but maybe next year. Fine. I can ride. That’s what’s important for now. I’ll take it.

I want to thank everyone who’s supported us through this interesting little exercise. There are few things in life as heartening or as humbling as the realization that there are a lot of good friends out there.

Dirty Critty Brunch Race

Babbling
"Somebody's calling your name," Matt yelled to me as we pedaled hard up the rise. "Back there, somebody called your name." I think that's what he said. I don't know. We were into about the second of six laps and battling it out for a live chicken. He'd said something to me earlier that I didn't understand either, something about the number five. He's a nurse. Works weird hours. I don't always count on Matt for coherence and he wasn't letting me down during this race. He'd probably been up for fifty hours straight and I know that I babble by mid-afternoon of most days even with a good night's sleep, so I let him ramble on. He was pulling ahead of me, though. At the beginning of the race (he'd shown up late) he was complaining about not having it together.

The Poto & the Fly
He'd already done that a few days earlier on the Poto. I'd called him up at the last minute to see if he wanted to go do a loop. I woke him up. It was 2:30 in the afternoon. He was game, though. He hadn't ever told me that he'd made ripping people's legs off on the Poto a blood sport. I'd like to say that I sat in his draft, but it wasn't that pretty. I saw him up ahead every once in a while.

That same ride I got a fly in my ear and I pushed it into my head. I've never done that before. A fly buzzing in my brain. It's an experience everyone should try at least once, especially if you're not sure it's a fly. If you're worried that it's a bee then the thrill factor rises right off the charts. And there's not much you can do with a bug inside your head with only a multi-tool at your disposal.

Oh yeah, Matt's a nurse. They do get some kind of medical training, right? He didn't have a great urge to use that training in this instance. He just asked me what it felt like. Not a real medical question in my opinion. Helpful Matt kept looking at me like I was some freak with his eyes spun round looking inward. He had no suggestions like jump on one leg and tilt your head, or wiggle your ears, or anything of any significance. I think it was a good show for him and he didn't want to spoil it by getting the fly out anytime soon.

Anyway, Matt, to answer your probing question, it felt like a fine digital fly recording through Sennheiser headphones. Only it was really in my head. I felt claustophobic and I wasn't the fly. In such a tight space it hadn't yet stung me, so I thought it must not be a bee. Then buzzzzzzwhit! It flew out of my head. That was it and off we went. Matt looked a little disappointed, but he was out of sight pretty soon, so it didn't make much difference.

DCBR
That's my experience with Matt on the Poto, only now we were on a dirt road flying along with about fifteen or twenty other people in the First Annual Dirty Critty Brunch Race (DCBR) on Labor Day morning put on by Wendy and Ben Caldwell. The weather is seventies and sunny. The bikes are cyclocross, with a few intrepid mountain bikes thrown in, including Jason Lummis's 29er (which I think is equipped with some kind of silent motor because 29ers don't go as fast as his does just with legs alone). There's food and beverages waiting for us when we're done, put together by many of the people trying to pass me and make sure my legs hurt a little more.

Rich keeps going off the front even though he sounds like someone who just crawled out of the ocean after sixty hours, mostly submerged. Respiratory Rich. He says it's a cold, but I think it's a ploy to throw off the competition for cyclocross season. I can sound like him if I want with just a few dousings of my salinated netty pot up each nostril.

And what the heck is going on with Mike S.? Low key all year and all of a sudden he's slamming along with the pack in the DCBR. Looks like I'm going to have to do something about getting his brakes to rub on a continual basis rather than just when he wants them to.

We'd just passed the start/finish line and Andy's standing there in full TWiT outfit, but he's not on a bike. I thought it was an interesting tactic, but I do know that it's really hard to race from where he was standing. Especially without a bike. Apparently he'd raced the day before in the Erie Street Race in Windsor and the Cat. 1/2s had raced for two hours at about a thirty mph average. One long string of pain. His excuse. Here he was standing by the side of the road. He wasn't sitting. If he was in so much pain then why was he standing? If he could stand, then he could ride. If he could ride, he could race. It's simple logic.













Preems
At the end of the fourth lap I decided to go for a preem instead of doing the smart thing and waiting for the finish to rip my leg muscles apart. I never go for preems, but I thought what the heck. So from about five back I sucked right up the line and catapulted off the front, thinking nobody could have come close to such drafting prowess. I looked back to my left and sure enough, I'd intimidated all of them and there wasn't a soul on my wheel. About ten feet from the line I'm wondering what kind of great thing I'd picked up among the numerous prizes available. Five feet from the line I hear a crunching sound to my right and catch sight of a wheel passing mine. Rodger! Damn, I thought he was my friend. I immediately let him know my feelings on the matter and he said it was all right because he was toast and out of the race from there on anyway. So? All right? He still stole my great prize, whatever that might have been. I actually like Rodger a lot, but I had to let him know that it isn't right to pass me on every sprint. It's just a little too consistent (read dull) for my taste. One way to spice things up is to let me win. Once.

Speaking of preems. At the end of the first lap, Mark L. had one of the greatest sprints I've ever seen roar out of his legs. A few hundred yards from the start/finish line he exploded out of the pack and took a solo flyer for the line. He was total focus, never looking back, lasered on that line ahead, even beyond the line, as is the approach of all great sprinters. Of course, if he would have looked back he would have seen a pack lolling along with quizzical looks and in deep discussion about what the hell he was up to. There was no preem to shoot for on this lap. It was the first lap, Mark! A bell has to be rung to let you know that a preem is imminent and a bell doesn't go off at the start of the race. Great sprint, though. Man it was impressive. All the more so, since we all had the opportunity to carefully evaluate his form as we shook our heads.

The Chicken
Here's Wendy's story. She and Ben were watching the Tour de France and they noticed that every town the race finished in had a prize for the winner that represented the local character. One town would give away a goat, another town would give away a wheel of local cheese, another a bottle of fine champaign. So her idea for the DCBR was to give away something of the character of where they live out there on Valentine Road. In this case, a live chicken. Tour de France/Dirty Critty Brunch Race. I see now where the two have a symbiotic relationship.

Now, I know it's easy to just buy this story wholesale because it sounds so, well, I don't want to say romantic, but it does kind of give the whole race a greater gravitas than the image of a bunch of dirt spewing heathen bike nuts crunching around a 5k dirt road loop at high speed. Throw in a live chicken and voila, there's a grand tradition to it all.

Or...there were a bunch of the neighbor's damned chickens pecking around the yard driving B & W crazy and one good way to get them off the property for good was to make them this grandiose prize in the race. Did I mention that there was one unlive chicken all cut up and sitting in B & W's freezer? This was the alternate grand prize if the winner didn't like to chop heads off chickens and watch them run around their yard in a residential section of Ann Arbor spouting neck blood and freaking out the neighbors. In other words, one of the neighbor's poulets was no longer laying eggs.

I need to warn the neighbors now that Wendy is talking about upping the size of the grand prize each year until eventually they're giving away a whole cow. Guard your livestock! Especially around Labor Day each year.

The Finish
Matt won. Live chicken boy. I sat on his wheel. I don't know if it was a real race to the line or if nobody wanted to win a dirty chicken with fleas. I won a wonderful bottle of maple syrup with a great personalized 1st Annual DCBR label designed by Wendy. I think Brian came in third and he got a jar of honey with the same label. We don't have to pluck any feathers off the jars. Chickens don't come with cool labels. So who's really the winner?

The Truth
Ben and Wendy put on the best crit of the year. Fun and friendly and wacky with good food at the finish instead of week old bananas and stale bagels. Next year it's a grand prize turkey, or so Wendy says. Only she knows which neighbor has what livestock.

Ore-to-Shore 2007

As I was leaving Marquette Sunday morning early, I stopped at a Quik Gas, or whatever you call it, to get coffee, and there was a woman behind the counter who was real chatty. "Hot," she said. "Humid as hell. I'da walked in today, but it's too humid." She was a large woman with teeth that looked like they'd shifted around in her mouth quite a bit, kind of like those number puzzles that you have to move the numbers around to get them into the right order. And these numbers were all out of order. But she was nice and friendly. "I don't live up here for the heat," she continued. "Lived here all my life. Never been anywhere else, and it isn't for the heat. My sister moved downstate, down by Clio. She's locking the doors every time she goes out. Don't have to do that up here."
"It is a beautiful place up here," I said.
"Though there was a guy," she continued, "out in the parking lot when I opened yesterday morning. Stark naked and cutting himself all over with a big knife. Twenty year old with a thirty-six year old girlfriend. She's out with some other guy cheatin' and he's going berserk in the lot out here. Police came and hauled him away. Put him in the psycho ward."
I nodded. Long pause. I was thinking that I'd probably keep my door locked, even up here. Not that I'm against naked guys with knives...I just don't want to risk one of them walking in with my back to the door as I sort through my box of cycling hero cards.
"I was up for the race," I said.
"Oh," she said, "the bike thing."
"The bike thing, yeah."

She actually looked like one of the women Andy described chasing down near the end of the race. There were quite a few of them, since they were the last of the Soft Rockers (28 miles), chugging in after a long day in the saddle. My sense is that Andy spent a lot of energy chasing many of them down. He'd see the prey, pick up the pace, blast by, then they'd wave happily as the manly stud left them in the dust. It must have been quite rewarding.

Then again, Andy did do well with this tactic. He ended up 35th overall out of 518 Hard Rockers (48 miles) total. He was the best of us TWiTs, rolling in at the three hour mark. That's a 16 mph average over a brutal course. Of course, he did it at the expense of crushing the egos of the larger, slower participants he chased down, but whatever it takes is what I say.

Eight minutes later I crossed the line after getting jumped by two of my young compatriots who I dragged for the last few miles of open trail and road because they must have thought taking a pull at the front was undignified. Not that I'm bitter. Nooooo. Actually one of them was a good worker who did a lot of up front stuff for many miles. The three of us were together for about the last 20 miles or so, along with Rich for a while, until we hit the technical rollers and the sand where a cross bike has its limitations. More on that later. But one of the guys, the one I'll call Sparky, was a complete wheel sucker the whole way. There was a point where I made him ride in front of me (the other guy was still ahead doing the majority of the pulling), but Sparky kept looking back at me trying to find an opportunity to get back to his comfortable position in the rear. (Hmmm, was he riding in a suppository type vehicle in the Black Bear perhaps? Hmmmm.)














Rich, Rob, Brian, & Andy

Anyway, Sparky sat at the back most all the way and just talked. And talked and talked. It was an endless stream. Thank goodness I'm getting older and my hearing just isn't that great anymore. (It could also be all those years of headphones cranked up to ear bleed levels.) All I heard was "drone, drone, drone," but man could that guy keep up the stream. Interestingly, at one point there was a short 50 meter single track section and it spurred him to action and he passed me with vigor yelling, "Oooooo, single track, I don't think I can handle this. Oooooooo." As soon as we dove into it, his wheel flipped off of some roots and he went smack face down in the dirt. I asked if he was ok and he said no problem and a few of us sailed by him. I was hoping that was the last I'd see (and hear) of him, but sure enough, a few minutes later I heard this droning voice behind me, blather, blather, blather. Then, as I pulled his sorry butt toward the finish, I looked back and he said clearly, "don't worry, you're doing all the work, I won't jump you." True to his word he...um...jumped me. Youthful exuberance I guess.

I had the joy of riding with Rich for part of the way. At about the thirty mile mark or so I was hauling through some sand, of which there was a ton, since there has been little rain up in the UP this summer. O2S is renowned for sand, but this year it was hors category sand. It was soft and deep and, unlike that major credit card, everywhere that you didn't want it to be: uphills, downhills, flats, everywhere. I was slogging along and all of a sudden I round a bend and there in my view is a nutcase TWiT on a single speed cross bike. I slogged away until I caught up to him and sure enough, it was who else? There are people who do the O2S on cross bikes and there are those who do it on single speeds, but few have combined the chocolate with the peanut butter to come up with such a leg crushing experience. But Rich, as we all know, is Rich. Nothing will ever be the same again once he's crossed your path.

Actually the last I'd seen him was climbing one of the three wicked hills at the beginning. Up ahead of me was this TWiT guy with his legs spinning away and I thought I'd catch him soon and go on my merry way. But it took thirty miles before I saw him again. And they accuse Floyd of abusing things for exploits that are simple compared to riding a single speed cross bike through this Yooper version of dusty hell.

So, anyway, we ride along together for a short while and some other guys join in and we're rolling well and I'm thinking that it's great and all, but since I've caught up to Rich, he's probably starting to fade a bit and since this isn't really a stay together kind of race I'd be rolling on ahead soon. The trail pitched up and the next thing I know, Rich is up front of all of us and pulling away. A couple more turns and he's out of sight. Interesting, I think. I'm on this plush dual suspension MTB that floats like a cloud and there's this nutcase on a SS cross bike that's probably giving him the bashing of his life and we've gone thirty miles through everything that could be thrown at us and he's pulling away again. It was one of those life isn't fair moments for me.

Thank god for sand. That's when I found him once more not too far up the trail. He was slogging again. I slogged along with him for a while, then the trail did a series of fast downhill S turns through boatloads of sand and this time I was gone. It wasn't exactly what I wanted really. Not that I had any soft feelings for leaving a good friend behind, but because I knew that after this battle with the sandy S turns there was going to be a long road section and I thought it would be great if we could pull each other along that. But Rich was slogging and I had a duty to press on.


I got to the road and paced along at a steady tempo, anywhere from 20 to 22 mph, feeling pretty good because it hadn't pitched up yet. I looked back and nobody was behind me. I kept rolling, looked back again and saw a crew of about five little dots back in the distance. A few minutes more and I realized those dots were gaining quickly. As they drew closer, I saw why. There was Rich pulling away at the front, then somebody else for a short pull, then Rich. As we neared the Dead River Bridge (or whatever they call it) we were one happy group. (Beautiful views, by the way. If you're ever not racing over it it's worth the visit. We were a bit busy to sightsee.) From there on it was a series of ruthless uphills, so I was happy to have the crew. What Rich and I soon learned, however, was that the crew willing to pull consisted of two people: Rich and me. Sparky was there and we know his thoughts on the matter, don't we. One of the other guys came alongside me and said my buddy on the single speed had formed a paceline. He got a real kick out of that. A wacky single speeder forming a paceline. Who'd a thought.

And it's here where Brian's saga begins. At the end of the race we waited for Brian to come in from the sand. He took a while, but when he finally joined us in our post race stupors we learned why. At about the bridge he claims he saw me or Rich up ahead. He dialed it up to catch us and just then his tire blew. Interesting it would blow at one of the most majestic sections of the race--on pavement. Understand that up to that point we'd slammed against rocks, plowed over ripped up roots, ridden through razor sharp gravel, and been subject to intense G-forces at the bottoms of plummeting hills. But Brian's tire blows on the smoothest section of the course just as we're in sight.

I don't know, Brian, I'm struggling with this one. Especially since there are blogs out there claiming that they spotted someone in a black jersey with the name of a well known bike shop in southeast Michigan emblazoned across it fishing off the Dead River Bridge. No names have been named or bike numbers given, but it certainly sounds, um, fishy, don't you think? I'm not making any accusations, I'm just putting this out for discussion. I did ride in the back seat with you to retrieve our cars in Negaunee, Brian, and to be honest you didn't smell good.

Speaking of, I did smell good, because I have this great time-release deodorant that really works. It's still working two days later. Heavy exertion actually increases its effectiveness. I have yet to take a shower simply because I don't have to.

Brian asserts that we inhaled at least a cup of ore dust throughout the race and I think he's willing to go into arbitration on this if it's disputed, confident that we actually inhaled over two full cups of dust. There were sections of the race, especially during the early parts when the pack was together, that I couldn't see a thing and depended on faith that none of my fellow riders would do anything stupid. It was dust like darkness is dust. There was no visibility. And for the rest of the race, except for a few exceptions (and especially when that "guy" was seen fishing) there was always dust in the air. You'd spit and it would be red, which was kind of scary until you realized that the region is renowned for ore mining. ("ORE-to-shore"). Duh!

And then it gets into your system, which is like 90% or more water and you get something very special. You've heard the term I could, um, you know, like, expel a brick. No wonder it's called Hard Rock. Duh 2!

The pictures that Alicia took of us are great. I feel like they should put them in Highlights magazine so the kids could "find the raccoon in this picture. The Badger?" We do look scary, but we are smiling after all. Andy thought we looked like coal miners.

After lunch, I went back to my campsite and napped in my tent, flaps wide open so the breeze could flow in. I was out for nearly two hours when I heard a rustling near my ear. I looked up to see an Oberon descending near my left eye. Looking up the long neck I saw fingers and a guy attached. He placed the nectar down and traipsed off. The Oberon Fairy. I knew he existed, but I didn't think mortals were allowed to see him. It wasn't a dream. It was a real Oberon. It roused me out of my slumber and got me motivated to go to the awards ceremony. Off I went, about an hour after it had started. I walked into the arena and saw they were handing out awards. I asked a woman next to me where they were in the order of things and she said "I don't know." I could have said that. I didn't need to ask her for that answer. Jeez.

Then I heard the announcer say, "and now for the Hard Rock 50 to 54 year olds. These guys REALLY deserve a hand for making it through this race." What the hell did that mean? Not that I'm touchy about my age. Then she said, "is Robert Pulcipher here? Apparently the Oberon Fairy had sprinkled some dust on me and I was still in wonderland. I raised my hand and walked forward. I was third place in my age category. There are some perks to age. You can finish 67th overall, but still get a podium position. It is a fair world after all and the Oberon Fairy does exist. (By the way, I bumped into Jason Lummis a few minutes later and he told me that he and his buddies left the beer. They were camping a few sites down from me and thought I could use one. They were right. I like everything about Bells, including Jason now that I know he gives away free beer.)

Rich finished 94th overall, and I can't remember where he placed in his category. Brian was farther down because of the fish, I mean flat tire. Wink, wink.

That's the race from my distorted view. It's my favorite race of the year. It's challenging as hell, but there's a fun spirit to it. And even though Sparky tried, you really can't hide behind anyone to do well. You still have to have the legs to make it work. It's well organized brutality and if you're going to be brutalized you might as well get beat up by the best. And it's a great time to be in the UP. Awfully pretty, even through the dust.

Black Bear 2007

The first surprise was the requirement to put the bikes into these log racks about a block away from where we got the pre-race info meeting. Rodger and Dave knew the best strategy was to put them far up the racks rather than nearby so you didn't have to weave your bike in and out of others trying to extricate theirs before you could actually mount and take off. It worked great. At 8am sharp the race bell clanged or the buzzer buzzed or whatever and 265 of us were off. I was carrying two water bottles on my back and a bunch of food, my cell phone, and an extra change of clothes and a six pack as well as a lug of cherries that I'd purchased in Traverse the day before. It felt that way, anyway, as I ran with all the stuff clonking against my back. But really, you didn't have to worry too much about the run because once you were under way on the bike it wasn't hard to fold into the pack and move toward the front.

The pace was fast early on, though, due in part to our magnificent Two Wheel Tango team, Dave F, and a few Wolverines (Tim something? was one) fresh from Super Week. We were just juiced to move I think. After a bit I got a little worried that I'd fry myself long before the race was halfway, but I couldn't help myself. The air felt good and the energy was certainly there. There were also some independent riders who were hammering at the front, particularly some muscle laden tri-guy who had amazing stamina throughout the race for all the energy he expended pulling people back.

Within a few miles we settled into a pace and had time to look around. It was like a mummer's parade, bike tour, bike race with all these crazy mixes that you wouldn't see in the typical MBRA crit. Recumbents, guys in complete time trial outfits, a few mountain bikes, bikes with fairings, and one or two land speed record capsules that looked like rolling suppositories. "It was a come from behind finish!" Sorry. One of these guys motored on out at about the five mile mark, I think, and we never saw him again. I later learned from Geirdra, Rodger's wife, that he fell over a couple of times at the tops of the steeper hills and, like a flipped over turtle, couldn't right himself without a lot of work. He'd try to get momentum to the top of the hill, peter out, teeter, then plop! because he couldn't put his feet down. I'm not sure how he got going each time, but he only beat the lead pack by five minutes and I imagine the margin would have been much wider without these issues. Yes, he did win overall, but he was the only version of a recumbent to beat us. Recumbents, by the way are a little freaky to ride alongside, because they don't seem to have the same stability as regular bikes. Either that or they aren't used to riding in packs. Nothing against recumbents. They're bikes and that's good. Just an observation.

At about the thirty mile mark some guy who'd been pulling his tail off the whole time was talking to a guy next to me and he said, "this race will be the farthest I've ever ridden in my life." A few miles later I never saw him again. What was he thinking?

The route wasn't too hilly, but it was rolling and there were certainly enough steady uphill grades to keep it interesting. There were at least two good size hills, maybe three that kind of hurt, and one of these in particular at about the 70 mile mark came as more of a surprise than I'd anticipated. I thought I was reaching the top and I was still somewhere near the front when it took a turn and continued on up. That was not my favorite moment. I'd dosed my efforts for my version of the top. I even cramped for a minute, but I told my muscles to cool it and everything settled back to somewhat normal.

At about the 45 mile mark or so a couple of Wolverines got away with this Time Trial guy laden in the complete TT outfit with his water pack on his back under his jersey and the sweat inducing TT helmet. Must have been a clambake under there. He was really acting weird through most of the race to that point, going off the front, getting caught by a few of us, then dropping his speed way way down. It got annoying, to be honest. If he was TTing, then why not just do the TT thing and pull whoever wants to be along? He finally did that in the break and they were out for about twenty minutes or so and nearly out of sight. Five of us worked our butts off to try to pull them back, but it was the same small group who'd been doing a lot of the work all along and we were getting pooped. I dropped back to look for help and talked to a guy named Cliff who put together a new team out of Traverse named Haggerty. Everyone saw them as the Big Blue Wave because there were so many of them in the group. But they'd done nothing to pull at all up to that point in the race. I asked Cliff to get his guys to help out and soon we had quite a lot of blue at the front and soon the Wolverines and Mr. TT were back among us.

Cliff had muttered that he was saving his team for the second half and he didn't disappoint. From there until the end they attacked over and over, but they didn't quite have the strategy down or the legs to pull it off or something, because we always brought them back. But it was fun and kept the race rockin'. There aren't many places to race up north, so they're still trying to get their act together, but it looks like they have interest and they were definitely into the scene.

At about the 80 mile mark the pace slowed down considerably and a few guys were frustrated that we weren't able to keep the pace up to beat last years time of 3:52. But nobody was into it and I think a lot of the slower riders who'd been dropped got a chance to latch back on. The Wolverines and Haggerty kept going off the front, but nobody was letting them stay. Our group just settled in for the finish. We'd done a hell of a lot of work up until then and I certainly wasn't in the mood to kill myself needlessly any more. Even Dave, who'd been yanking at the front all along told me he was kicking back until we saw the banner.

There were some great "natural break" issues along the way. Early on in the race I was cruising along and realized that a guy a short ways ahead of me was in mid-stream while still in motion. He was still clipping along at a good pace. It was one of the most impressive things I've ever seen in a race. He was just cocked sideways on the bike and a great natural stream was arcing into the gravel shoulder well away from him and from anyone else. I gave him wide berth as I passed, but it really wasn't necessary. Later, Andy was in need of a natural break himself and, now this is somewhat hearsay, but he apparently began the process of the "stream in motion" then thought better of it and pulled over, nearly endoing in the process. (Andy, please correct this if I've got the facts wrong, but I like the story this way). He did his thing and by the time he was done the pack was gone. But, there were scads of vehicles behind us. Support for the riders, drivers wondering what the heck they got themselves into, and support vehicles for the paddlers (there are paddlers involved in this race, but you'll have to read about that somewhere else). So, Andy paced back through the cars and caught back on. He came up to me at this point and told me it was like we were in the TDF with all the vehicles back there and I wondered how he knew this, since I didn't know his escapade had unfolded. Must have been pretty exciting, though. He asked for water after that, so I should have caught on, but hey, I'm oblivious most of the time.

At the end we never saw a banner. My computer had glitched a couple of times along the way, so I didn't know if we were even getting close, but after we crossed some railroad tracks I noticed Rodger and Dave kick it into high gear. There was a flag person ahead and I figured something was up, but I thought we were just jockeying for position before some big turn, so I got onto Rodger's wheel. Apparently Andy got on mine. The next thing we knew, we were herded into a narrow slot defined by the race table on one side and orange road cones on the other. Then we crossed the chip timing mats. I was barely into my kick and the race was over. A few people missed the mats altogether and were still outside the cones. But we finished 10th (Dave), 11th (Rodger), 12th (Rob), and 13th (Andy) with the suppository well ahead thank god because my butt was really sore at that point. Anyway, I'm not sure where the others finished in their age groups, but I was second in mine (41-50). We did pretty darned well for all the work we did throughout and it was just fun to ride as a team for once as well as to ride with Dave, who's an old hand at this race. Ian was there, though he wasn't into the sprint because he's saving himself for Nationals in Northern California next week. That was the only real disappointment of the whole race, learning that Ian's moving to California because he can't live without racing alongside Paul Kundrat. I think that's the reason, but you'll have to clear that with Ian. I'm sure he'll love it there, but he's awfully fun to know and to ride with. Maybe we'll have to get the team to go out next year to race with him. Andy, you want to get on that? We finished at about 3:58, so about 25mph for the 100 miles. I'd do it again. It was just wacky enough to be interesting, yet there were some awfully good riders in there keeping the pace up and spirits were good throughout.