ROCKY (and MUDDY) and BULLWINKLE, or Mollifying a Moose

Algonquin Fauna
They were between me and the route back to my campsite. Moose are very big animals. They gaze impassively. I was wearing my Spam Stops Here jersey, which is kind of brownish orange. And I had my white Specialized helmet on. I looked down at my jersey and touched my helmet. Maybe to her I was a deer with my butt in the air. Maybe the bike looked like an interesting arrangement of stag horns. That impassive look of hers was going on a long time. The calf half turned on the trail and took a couple of steps as if to say, "c'mon mom, let's get away from this stranger. That butt in the air thing has me worried."

But mom just kept staring. I didn't know if it would be worse to be perceived as a threat to her or to be courted as a possible mate. Maybe dad was off on some tryst with another cute cow. Maybe I was just the guy she was looking for to fill the void. "Sure," I heard her thinking, "I'll take a scrawny stag in a pinch." I felt a chill flutter through my skin. I slowly turned my bike around and eased back on down the trail in the direction I'd come. I listened for hoof steps, but none followed. Fifty more feet down the trail along a wooded turn I waited.

The Lie
These were my first hours in Algonquin Provincial Park. Connie and I had set up camp and I wanted to get out immediately on the only marked mountain bike trail in the whole 4578 square mile park. (To get a sense of the scale of this place, Rhode Island is 2000 square miles.) Mountain bikers get a 16 mile loop. It's quite a big section of trail, considering that there are numerous hiking trails all along Highway 60 and few go this far and deep into the park. The way to get to know the heart of darkness that is Algonquin is by canoe or kayak. There are nearly endless lakes and portages. You come across the portages as you trek around the trails. But kayaking didn't happen for us this trip. Connie and I hiked and I slipped in a bit of biking each day, because I'm a pedal addict.

Minnesing Mountain Bike Trail is "rated at a moderate level of technical difficulty." That's what it says in the official Algonquin trail map. Whoever wrote that is a twisted human being. I'd consider myself a reasonably advanced mountain biker and Connie is an advanced beginner. For as little mountain biking as she does, she's really pretty darned good and can fly through sand and other obstacles that I've seen some very advanced riders struggle through. So, we thought that a "moderately difficult" trail would be within her skill level and still give me enough of a challenge to keep me interested.

Before we started I wanted to reassure her that falling is part of mountain biking. At least it often is for me and for the people I ride with. She didn't believe me. She thought I was just trying to make her feel good. I was. But I fall a lot. That was the truth. Little falls, big falls. They just happen. So I was able to give her a demonstration of my art of the fall when I came upon a wooden bridge over a large ditch.

It was really beautiful out. The rains had created a vernal wonderland of bright green grasses and heavy lidded foliage. The sun dappled through all those leaves and made treacherous little obstacles look like cute postcard shots of happiness and playful joy. This bridge was cute. It was nestled in the grasses at the bottom of a slope and it had a lip on it that you had to hop your front wheel up on. It would have been easy at speed. I was poking along, really enjoying our ride together as we chatted and pedaled up and down these lush slopes of fantasy land. I approached the bridge, popped the front wheel to clear the wood lip and looked down to see a mean spirited little ditch running parallel to and a couple of feet in front of that lip. The front wheel was up as the rear wheel hit the ditch, immediately driving the front wheel back down and into that lip before it could quite clear it. It was a nice, slow motion roll over the handlebars and somersault onto that sweet little bridge, where I continued on over to a sitting position as if it were a planned acrobatic move into a moment of rest and reflection. After Connie's eyes receded back into position, she asked if I was all right, thinking that our ride was probably over. It was my demonstration of Reassurance 101. Proof that falling is an uninhibited craft I've mastered

The Slippery Slopes
There has been a considerable amount of rain in Ontario this year. I think they've broken all kinds of records for wet. But, even in the best of conditions, this trail is definitely a tad above the "moderate" level, particularly the eastern side. It's narrow, twisting, and full of spiky leg ripping hills that are not necessarily short. Most of all there are rocks and mud. Just mud would be one thing. There are many sections that are just mud. These are the deep, long patches of glocky mud that make your heart patter as you approach. But after a half an hour or so I was able to rip through these like they were just spongy hardpack. Even the deepest mud was ridable.

Except when the mud was part of some major ditch mixed with roots that you had to pitch down into and climb out of, usually rutted with other bikers' attempts to do the same. I'm sure there are those who specialize in this kind of thing. Every time I tried, my bike was pitched all over the place until I was dabbing, then giving up in exasperation, my shoes schlupping up the slippery slope.

Mix in the rocks and the game changes completely. These were rocks anywhere in size from baseballs to soccer balls. And almost nowhere on the east side trail were there just rocks. They were almost always mixed in with the mud. I'd head into the fray with a strong resolve, but soon my front wheel was kicked north and my back wheel was slamming south as it combined with a slippery spin in the adjoining mud. Then the front wheel would ram into a soccer ball and the whole thing came to a sudden halt.

Now, like those helpful music lesson cd's that start with the drums, then add the bass, then add rhythm guitar, then the freewheeling saxophone, think of all this--mud, rocks, occasional flowing water--on a 14% slope. That's the true heart of Minnesing. That's what takes this to a technical level that blows "moderate" right off the rim. And this type of condition wasn't the exception, it was the rule, over and over and over.

It was finally Connie's undoing. I felt horrible, because we'd planned a week of this kind of thing and it was painfully obvious that the level of difficulty on this trail was far beyond even the hopes and aspirations of an intermediate rider. There was just too much grunting and grinding up and down these treacherous rock strewn slippery slopes to make it much fun unless you live to prepare yourself for trips to the emergency room. It was definitely challenging me to the limit of my abilities, much less to someone who occasionally gets out on a mountain bike. We realized that unless she was in the mood to walk 16 or so miles of this trail pushing her bike, we needed to find the first turn-off and head back.

We did. It was a half-mile non-stop uphill climb through a rutted wash that was all the things I'd previously mentioned. It was the drums, bass, guitar, and saxophone with a touch of Dizzy Gillespie's twisted trumpet wailing and squealing its tortuous highlights. We walked much of it, in other words. I was able to clip in and scramble up a few sections, but often I'd end up with a tire's width of trail dropping into a rock strewn central ditch glazed with mud and water. As soon as the tire dropped into the ditch there was the choice of trying to ride up through the slick rocks, not really an option, or crank up the opposite mud caked embankment and see if I could ride the tire's width of trail on that side. It seldom happened. There was just too much slipping, bouncing and up. Always up.

And the mosquitoes and deer flies had their way in the midst of all this. I'd slathered myself with deet all over my exposed face, head, neck, and hands, but nowhere else and they soon discovered the joys of gossamer lycra and they zapped away at will, particularly the deer flies. I'd grind uphill in some precarious position with my butt sticking out and wiggling away and sure enough that's where the little pecker jammed its spike. I'd suffer through it and keep pedaling, both hands clamped hard to the handlebar.

Once over the hill it was a short glide down to the west side trail, which was wider and less muddy, but often strewn with rocks and boulders and with long sweeping uphills and downhills. There were parts of this where the downhills went for a long ways and they were peppered everywhere with all sizes of rocks, but it was dry for the most part, and it was a dream if you like to just skip and dance down long spines of two track at speeds over 30mph.

A short while later, we got Connie back to reasonable lengths of trail and then the connection to our campground at Canisbay Lake where she could hang out while I did the next loop in the system. I headed back out and popped easily over the endo bridge with my new awareness of its sly little ditch. I opened the throttle up where I could and found a lot of the obstacles and particularly the mud much more ridable than the first time through. I was hoping that the trail would open up a bit after the spot we'd turned off. It was not so. The constant change of grade, more rocks, more mud, and the new inclusion of streams in the low areas made the going even tougher.

Nearly everything was ridable except for the rock/mud/hill climbs. I really wanted to watch someone do this. I was hoping through the week to find others along the trail who could give me pointers. But to my surprise there was only one pair of riders in the parking lot on the Sunday we arrived and from then on no one. It was my trail for a week. There were plenty of muddy tracks on the trail, but the riders were nowhere to be seen.

It was like trying to find moose or bear. They appeared when you didn't have the camera or when you felt most vulnerable, but try to find them when you were fully prepared and it was like they'd left the forest for a bar in Madawaska to sip Moosehead Ale and snicker away. I know that if I'd done something really stupid on the trail, like go over an embankment into a lake, I would have had an audience of fifty bikers on a group tour, but otherwise they didn't exist. Not that I was really that shocked. After a week on this trail I realized that it would take an intrepid soul to want to venture in. On my last day I did the complete loop and it was exhausting with one mud/rock climb after another. I spent about a third of the time off the bike and pushing.

I never learned about the dynamics of the terrain, but it was hard to figure out how hills can be seeping water all the way up and down, but at the bottom be completely dry. This phenomenon happened a few times and opposed all rules of logic to me. But, more often, the bottom would be many degrees rockier and muddier, often with a stream to ford.

But there was one time as I'd rounded Linda Lake at the far north end and was arcing back southward in the direction of camp that I crossed a sweet little bridge with panoramic views of the lake only to confront a steady uphill climb on the other side. It was ok, though. It was dry. It wasn't even rocky. But it was a long, long uphill. At least it was dry. I could stay on my bike for a change. Nice. From here on, I thought, it will be a smooth steady rhythm back to camp. Then, when I thought the hill couldn't go much higher, it did. And it got wet. And muddy. And rutted and muddy. With muddy washouts and muddy ditches. I slipped and slopped away. I made every attempt to keep pedaling, sometimes with one tire tread between me and dense shrubbery on one side and a muddy ditch on the other. Until the shrubbery reached out into the ditch and I had nowhere else to go. Then it was slip, drop, hit a muddy ledge, and spin to a complete halt. There was no way to hop up and ride from then on. It was off the bike and push. "Moderately technical."

Talk to the Animals
We did more than bike that week. We hiked every hike we could and saw more moose and a bear. And the hikes were varied and gorgeous, sometimes with climbs to the top of large escarpments that revealed views out beyond anywhere you could bike or hike. Out where only the kayakers and canoeists ventured. But Minnesing trail still haunts me. It was green, lush, overgrown and rife with slippery challenges. I wanted to learn to ride it with only an occasional dab of the foot, but I certainly wasn't in that league yet, if I could ever be. But even in its treachery it was alluring.

I did finally get around that Moose cow and her calf by the way. It was either confront them or ride back through the hell from which I'd emerged and that wasn't going to happen if I could help it. It was my first day and I cursed two things: one, that the camera was back in camp with Connie, and two, the fact that I hadn't read any of the park literature yet about how to deal with big wild animals. But at this point my stomach was beginning to rule and it said I wanted to get back to camp on the easiest, quickest trail and that meant passing mom and shorty.

I rode back up the trail toward camp hoping they'd moved on, but of course they stood just as they had before. I stopped and we did the stare thing for a while. Then I did what anyone who's watched Rocky and Bullwinkle from a formative age would do. I talked to them. "You can go now," I said to the mom, like she'd grown up with good English grammer classes and understood my clear enunciation. "I'm coming through," I said in the most mellifluous voice I could muster. (Let's be happy together. Aren't we happy?) I even waved my hand forward, like I was shooing a bad performer off stage. Then I did something really stupid. I pushed my bike ahead of me, thinking I could put it between me and a two thousand pound charging moose and it would protect me like the steely shield of a Spartan warrior. I even puffed my chest up. You can find a picture of me somewhere in my blog. My chest is fearsome, puff or no puff. You'll see.

And with a big gulp I awaited my fate. But either her amorous feelings had subsided, or, more likely, I was an annoyance, but she slowly turned and stepped--in her own version of slo-mo--off the trail. ("Ok, if the jerk wants by I'll move, but I'm not rushing it so he can get back to camp and make up some lame story about how tough he is facing up to a big bad moose.")

I was free. I slipped past them and I was the scirocco along the dry two-track back to camp. It was my first day and I'd seen two moose up close. I was exhilarated.

Yeah... and...they were both big moose. Big...ummm...bull moose...Not bull-winkles, but real mighty, mean bulls. Yeah, that was it...with massive racks. And they were ornery SOBs. When they charged I knew that running was not an option. I stood my ground and tossed my bike to the side so it wouldn't hinder my ability in hand to hoof combat. I looked at each bull, deciding I'd take the big one down first, leaving the smaller four thousand pound bull intimidated. I did all this in the time it would take to clip into a pair of titanium Eggbeaters. When the largest bull came within a few feet he lowered his head, preparing to ram me full on. I dug my right leg into the soft earth behind and leaned forward on the left, lowering my shoulders and helmet donned head, ready to take the full brunt of the blow. As the feet drew to inches, I smelled the moose's roaring breath and heady musk laden hide. I thought, as everything went into slow motion, this guy could use a Chlorets and a dab of Old Spice...

Ore-to-Shore '08

ONE GEAR TO GUIDE US

"We made it through the hard part," Rich said as we crested the endless luge climb at the beginning of the race. I couldn't talk. I couldn't think.




Rob, Andy & Rich
I think I see Andy's problem...too many leg muscles.

For me it was just the beginning of 48 miles of the hard part. Then again, I wasn't on a single speed cross bike grinding away at the only gear possible. I had a whole smörgåsbord of gear options and still I was nearly comatose with oxygen debt. I know this race all too well. It's my third. I know that the hard part never ends. The definition of hard just constantly changes.

There was a light rain overnight, not enough to tame the sand or keep the dust down. Last year's race was the Beijing of particulates. Dust was everywhere and always, particularly in the early part of the race when it was nearly impossible to see the riders around you at some points from the surrounding red cloud. My kit from last year still has a patina of red where the white used to be. Iron oxide is good if you like permanent russet stains.

A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall
Rich, Andy and I arrived in Negaunee and did our usual putsying about before the race. The clouds were big and dark in places with large patches of surrounding blue. Then nearly all blue. Then a little blue and a lot of clouds. More blue. More clouds. A lot more clouds. Dark clouds. Dark clouds spitting water. More water. Darker clouds. A major drencher. I'd just hopped on my bike for a warmup ride and turned right around and climbed into the car. Cascades of rain poured down. It was only half an hour before the start of the race. The Soft Rock was already underway. Hard Rain/Soft Rock. Yuck!

I'd parked beside a man and a woman who were riding a tandem. A couple of people came up to the guy and I overheard them talking about meeting him at some beer festival somewhere. He looked familiar, but a lot of people look familiar. Some people remind you of one-off versions of Clint Eastwood or Sally Struthers or Bart Simpson. And I'm often wondering when I look at someone with their helmet off if I ride with them sometimes. Anyway, he apparently drank beer and that's where people knew him from and maybe I met him drinking beer.

Then Andy, who parked next to me, said hi to him and chatted amiably. He mentioned that Rich and I were racing from our team. The guy said who's Rob (of course, everybody knows Rich) and I raised my hand. Then I wondered if he was one of the South Lyon riders who showed up at Runway on Tuesday nights. I asked him. Sure enough, that was it. He was Craig. I'd never seen him without a helmet. He and a woman named Cristin were riding the race on a tandem. I figured that those people who rode tandems in this race were paroled inmates forced into it as further punishment. ("No, please, anything but that judge! Anything! I'll never do wrong again in my life. Pleaaaasssse....not Ore-to-Shore on the tannnnnnndemmmmmmm..") But these two were doing it willingly. I don't understand human beings sometimes.

The rain ended about ten minutes before the start. It's not that the sun came out and draped us in its warm embrace, but the dark clouds headed off to pummel someone else and we had dryness as we all climbed on our bikes and clipped in.

In the announcements we were told of a beaver dam that was across the trail somewhere between stations one and two. At least a foot of water. We could plunge in or skirt it on a small earthen ledge, our choice. It was funny because before we actually got to it, I thought we'd passed it at least twice. There were a couple of wide spots on the route that were completely submerged in that renowned russet water. But when we finally did get to the beaver dam it was unmistakable and none in the group I was with were willing to take the chance riding through it. It did look ominous and there were bubbles coming up, which could have been bikers who'd tried to ride through and were now permanently out of the race, among other things.

Sing-a-Long Long Drive
For a minute I have to talk about the ride up. It's a long way from Ann Arbor to Marquette. You have to have a good reason to want to be in a car for that long. I'm still deciding whether Ore-to-Shore is a good reason (8 to 10 hour drive, just to self-inflict a ton of pain), but I do it. I get up early on Friday before the race and I'm off by 5am. Around 12:30 I'm in my campsite in Marquette and setting up my vulnerable little tent. Jason Lummis is usually nearby, already part of the camp scene, spinning his son Zak in the air at propeller speeds.

The drive is long and I did it alone because...I don't know why exactly...but I did it alone. Alone for that long in a car means a lot of music, preferably with a strong beat. The drive up is all excitement and anticipation anyway because of the race. This year I sang. I did this ride with my wife, daughter and our exchange student from Germany one year and the exchange student put her I-Pod on and sang the whole way. She had this very eerie register and every song from her lips sounded like high pitched wind trailed by ghosts. I'm being generously complimentary about this. It was our first week together, and we didn't want to make her feel self-conscious, so we let her eeeeeeeeiiiii away. (We later learned that self-conscious was not a concept that ever crossed her path, but that's a whole different story.)

My singing is no better, probably worse, definitely louder, and simply different. And, again, I was only subjecting myself to this. I was, "riding the love train, love train..." and " I went to school with 27 Jennifers, 16 Jenns, 10 Jennies, and then there was her..." and "If you don't know me by now, you will never never never know me oooOOOoooooO..." There were moments, especially after crossing the big bridge, when I was belting it out. No karaoke here, I was right on stage with the O'Jays, Mike Doughty, and Harold Melvin. We were in the groove.

Mid-race, I was still trying to feel that love and there were a few moments when maybe it was there. Not sure. I felt a lot of pain, though, and in love there is a lot of pain, so there was something simpatico going on.

Powers of Compaction
Let me make one thing very clear about this race. Nearly everyone does it on a mountain bike and still suffers like a dog. It's 48 miles of leg bashing, suspension banging, arm hammering fun (if you think suffer and fun belong in the same sentence). Rich has his own ideas of a good time. He does this race on a cross bike. A single-speed cross bike. Last year he picked too high a gear and paid for it in pain on the hills. The tires are wide--for a cross bike--but not so wide compared to MTB tires.

And much of this race is about sand. Deep, loamy, leg sapping sand. I both caught him and rode away from him on sand last year. This year his gearing was lower. I caught him on one of the less steep parts of the first climb as his legs were zipping along at some warp speed, but he passed me not too much later. I didn't know it at the time. I was apparently already in race stupor mode. The whole race I thought he was still somewhere back and awaited his smiling face alongside me, but I didn't see it until I crossed the finish line and he and Andy were already there.

The rain just prior to the start was Rich's best friend. The rest of us would soon be pleasantly surprised with the joy of compressed sand as the race progressed. But for Rich, it was a wonder. He was able to power over areas that last year were just one big mire of a daymare. It shows in the overall speed of the race. Times were up. I know, I beat my time from last year by about five minutes. It was a fast course. So it was a trade-off. Smoother course, more hard charging. There were moments along the way when I wondered if I could keep up with the pace of the group I latched on to. But we all seemed to fade in and out of strength at odd moments, trading times of power and weakness. But I think for Rich, these long straight on power races are his thing.

I was with a guy I've cyclocrossed with for a few years, Karl. Karl's a couple of years younger than I am and very strong. There was a point midway when I thought he was waning and I passed him with a good acceleration. But a couple of miles down the trail he was still there. It went that way, back and forth for most of the race.

Feeling Good
With around 15 miles to go, the mile markers were prevalent and bold every mile thereafter. I was feeling pretty good at that point. We'd crossed the bridge over the Dead River and done the long climb up the paved section and my legs were still sparking. We went back into the trails and came across a wild downhill section where I let everything go and danced full speed down to the bottom. There are caution signs in varying terrain in this race and most mean absolutely nothing. There was one that warned about a sand section and there was far less sand there than in many other places on the course. But one sign was not to be messed with and that was the one warning about some sketchiness at the bottom of this long downhill. I paid it no mind and flew around a blind curve full speed only to confront a major drop-off into a ditch on the left, directly in my now unavoidable line. I clamped on the brakes and nearly endoed as I went into it, but was able to come to a complete stop at the bottom still upright. The guy directly behind me did the same, but about ten others saw our predicament and slipped to the right along the smooth section of the turn. The guy I messed up was very nice under the circumstances and we jumped back into the pack.

From there it was up, down, up, down through a great series of trails and by mile 10 I thought everything was going to be all right to the end. There was one particular short dig of a climb that was actually fun to chew up. Karl was right on my wheel as we motored over together.

Slower Than Chug
Then we hit mile 9 and the group accelerated once more. But I didn't. My legs wouldn't respond. One minute I felt great, the next my legs felt like they were filled with concrete, particularly my quads. Acceleration just wasn't on the agenda. I couldn't believe it. Karl's wheel went with the rest and I was left on my own.

There's something to be said for food. You should eat it all along the way during an intense race such as this one. I tried. I really did. I sucked at my Hammer Gel and drank all the Gatorade in my Camelback. I had attempted to eat my Powerbar, but it was just more sugar and one thing that was not going right was my stomach's response to all the sugar. It was sick of it. I used to eat Powerbars often. I don't any longer. They're full of fat and I'm off of most fats these days. But I'd forgotten my home made low fat high carb/protein power bar back in the freezer at home in Ann Arbor, so I had to do with the Powerbar. But after attempting to eat some of it earlier in the race, it just wouldn't go down. And I thought I was ok. I'd eaten about a third. i hoped that would carry me those few more miles.

But I need food. I must burn through it like chaff ablaze in a furnace. I bonked one other time in a race and that was at the first Tour de Leelanau. I was climbing the last big hill and feeling great at the bottom, but by the top the whole pack just whizzed right by me and there was nothing I could do to power back up and catch on. I hadn't eaten enough then either.

There's no greater exhilaration in biking than feeling your legs go to that next level up. They respond to an attack or they incite one. Either way it feels so good. There's nothing worse than bonking. The will is there, but the legs won't go. And that's what I was going through at the 9 mile marker. The legs wouldn't respond.

I once drove my Ford Pinto from Traverse City to Eureka, California. It ran great until the west end of South Dakota. And then, for some reason two cylinders blew out. I don't know much about cars, but I do know when one loses power and this was a big thing as I headed toward the mountains. The ride through the Rockies put a new meaning in the word slow. It was crouching dragon slow. It was slower than chug. It made backward look fast. We had lines of cars behind us that stretched east across three Montana counties. Backpackers passed us. Dragging kindling for their fires. My friend Dave once got out of the car and walked to the top and waited for me to arrive.

That's how I felt. I was my two cylinder Pinto. I was now in my own little race, just surviving to the end, hoping that I wouldn't lose too much time after all I'd worked to this point. At the wicked little steep climb near the end of the race I just hopped off the bike at the bottom and walked up. I'd climbed it last year when it was much sandier. One of the guys in my age group went by me and cranked slowly up it, over the top and out of sight. One more place down. Grrrrrr.

In the last few miles, my legs began to reinvigorate. I pedaled hard through some single track on the wheel of what would turn out to be the third place woman finisher. But apparently I was more fatigued than I thought and I crashed when my wheel skipped the wrong way off a root. I was fine, though my right knee now bears the skinned reminder of that moment. Fortunately, two guys were standing there to watch the whole thing. A whole forest to stand in and they had to pick right where I decided to crash. I dragged the bike up and cranked hard those last few miles to the finish and was so glad to see that banner and hear my name called as I passed under. My time was 3 hours, 2 minutes, 50 seconds. I'd really hoped to beat the three hour mark, but it wasn't to be.

Over? So Soon?
And there were Rich and Andy. They'd come in together a few minutes before. Rich was doing well. Andy wasn't jumping up and down. Here was a guy who just tackled a debilitating bout of Mononucleosis through June and July and he was less than enthusiastic with his finish. For one thing, he beat me. By a lot. (Ok, it's not that big a deal, but it was to me.) And for another, how was he supposed to train for this race with Mono? But he did, had a downhill crash along the way, and still did well. My vote is that Andy was monster man post mono. And, hey, he looked good. Andy always looks good. I'll bet the pictures, when I get them from Laurel and the web site, will prove that.

I learned that Jason's pedal fell off halfway through the race and he still managed to finish in 8th place overall. On one pedal! (Ok, he lucked out and found someone to help get it back on tight, but wouldn't that have been a great story?) Maybe I needed some catastrophic event to pick up my game and finish well. I'll work on that next year. Karl was third in our age category. He stayed with our group to the end and rode the wave in. I'll have to see what I can do to him in cyclocross this year.

The results were posted the next morning in the Mining Journal, the Marquette local paper. Rich finished 4th overall in the singlespeed category. On a cross bike. I mean, give me a break. Rich always has to go and do the impossible and make it look like just another day at the races. Annoying, but what can you do? That's our Rich. I think we should take away his one gear. That would do it. That gear has to go.

An opinion: found in Canada.