SIR’s Mucho Macho 600K Brevet
In “Andy Pruitt’s Complete Medical Guide for Cyclists,” Andy explains that in some men over 50, who have accumulated abdominal body fat, “unwanted aromatase enzyme activity” can develop.
Well?
Well, this enzyme activity converts testosterone to estrogen.
It is possible that this is happening to me and that’s not good because I signed up for the SIR 600K Brevet that ran this past weekend. The conflict is that testosterone seems to be the hormone de jour among some of the Seattle Randonneurs and my testosteron/estrogen ratio may be skewing toward the estrogen side.
Imagine my horror then, when I read these words in the pre-ride report -- the report that was posted only hours before the brevet was to begin and after I had already paid my entry fee and asked for time off from work -- “As you may often hear, ‘There is no such thing as an easy 600K’. This course is no exception. It is difficult, but doable.’”
Doable!!!??? I don’t do Doable. Doable is for people pumping testosterone, not for those of us who suffer from unwanted aromatase enzyme activity.
I like Pleasant. What’s wrong with Pleasant? As in: “This will be a pleasant point to point 600K that is mostly downhill, with a following light wind, thinly overcast skies, no rain, and temperatures between 67° and 67°.”
Huh? What’s wrong with that?
This season, I rode two brevets with the Oregon Randonneurs, where Susan France is RBA. These words come from their route descriptions: “Mostly flat course,” “A tailwind should blow you gently home from here.” That’s nice. That’s better than, Doable.
The thing is, there are a lot of hills on a “mostly flat” Oregon brevet and the tailwind doesn’t actually start until you make the u-turn into the parking lot at the finish, but you start out encouraged that the ride will be a piece of cake and each time you crest another hill your think, “That’s probably the last one.” And every minute the wind blows in your face, you expect will be the last minute the wind will blow in your face.
What if the ride report for the Mucho Macho 600K had said, “There will be almost 15,000 feet of downhill on this ride with lots of fast coasting in the last 75 miles.” And, “There might be a tailwind after Packwood.” Wouldn’t that have been encouraging? Wouldn’t I have slept better on Friday night? Wouldn’t I have popped out of bed at 3:15 Saturday morning eager to bag the first ever easy 600K?
Anyway, it came down the way it came down. Sixty-five randonneurs and randonneuses left the Seattle waterfront at 6:00 on Saturday morning and sixty-one finished the brevet on Bainbridge Island within the 40 hour limit. Ten others did a pre-ride of the course the week before and nine of them finished. With all the dire talk of “Doable,” most of us found the course enjoyable.
For me, the ride out of Seattle was extremely interesting. We rode up a couple of deserted streets and turned onto a bike path. Before I knew it, we were over Lake Washington and out of the metropolis. Traffic was light and the temperature was perfect. There was lot’s of saying, “Hello,” and introducing myself to riders I hadn’t met before. And, of course, looking at bikes.
Because randonneuring is such a special facet of the bicycling scene, I would think that more bikes would be special randonneuring bicycles. There are a lot of those, but there are also a lot of straight up race bikes on these rides and there are riders who just don’t seem to carry anything with them. As it turned out, I carried a light shell, leg warmers, and a long underwear top that I never used so I could learn a lesson from the light packers. I will pat myself on the back here though, because with a tremendous effort of self control, I didn’t stop to pick up the Vice-Grips on the shoulder. Oh, I wanted them so bad, but I knew I shouldn’t carry them for the next 350 miles.
Our first control was a secret and, even though I got my card signed and made a comfort stop out of it, I don’t know where it was. The first regular control was the Boise Creek Grocery where a little girl signed my card and her mother sold me a pickled egg for a dollar.
At 59 miles, we turned onto Orville road, named, no doubt, for the famous bicycle maker, Orville Wright. The sign said we were on our way to Electron and I realized that I have cycled these roads before. I would be on familiar roads for the next 230 miles.
We passed lots of motorcycles throughout the day and a lot of antique cars. It seems that they, and bicycles, are about the only people who just go out to see the countryside. The rest go to some place, some destination, so they stick to the quickest routes and leave lots of roads to the few of us who like to just go out for a ride.
On the way into Eatonville, I stopped at a spring next to the road to fill my water bottles and wash some of the grit from my eyes. The water was cool and, I’m sure, full of the minerals I was sweating out. At Eatonville I grabbed a bean burrito and got my card signed. Then I was on my way again; on toward Mount Rainier and a beautiful ride.
Just before the entrance to the park, we turned onto Forest Service Road 52. I was excited about this because I came through here in a car with Nina’s and my bike strapped to the back. I’ve wanted to come up and ride the road on my bike ever since. Now I have. The road was quiet because most people either go through the park or over White Pass. There is very little traffic between Ashford and Packwood.
There were some rough parts on this road, and with the sun doing a strobe light thing through the trees, some of the dips and holes were hard to see. I hit one so hard it knocked my helmet down over my eyes. I’m glad I wasn’t sticking my tongue out at anyone. The picture at the top of the blog was taken on this road.
On the way into Packwood we passed a cemetery where my friend, Mike Emerson, is buried. At the Shell station, I got a Veggie Delight sandwich and a V-8 Juice. They also signed my card. We were at the 200 kilometer mark and lots of us would be seeing each other again and again from here on.
Packwood is the start/finish for the SIR Three Volcano Brevet in July. I think that brevet is just about a perfect ride. From Packwood, we ride down Route 12 to Randle. At five in the morning, with a big group of riders, it is a very fast downhill ride. I was looking forward to that long 15 mile downhill followed by 18 more miles downhill into Morton. What a bummer I had instead. There was a strong headwind and no coasting at all. I figured on an easy hour and a half and spent almost three hours on the road, with one brief -- I didn’t get off the Red Randonneuse -- stop to fill my water bottles at a spigot I saw from the road.
In Morton, I ate some Jo-Joes, drank another V-8, and filled one of my water bottles with a Sobe Green Tea. Then I was gone. Some roads washed out this winter so the biggest hills between Morton and Centralia were dropped, but we still had some nice hills to climb through the woods and the wind was gone when I went through. The last hill before Centralia is a long downhill to Salzer Valley Road. It was coming on to darkness here and I had my headlight and tail light on, but thought I could ride to the control before stopping to mount a headlamp to my helmet and put my reflective sash on. There is a palm tree between Morton and Centralia. I took a picture of it.
Eat a berry pie, attach my headlamp, put on my arm warmers and sash, and I am on my way; with Carole and Frank behind me because I am familiar with these roads and it is dark now.
When we rode through Rochester, we passed a road I could have turned up and been home in 17 miles. I wasn’t tempted. It would have been too late to enjoy a bath anyway. Once we turned onto Elma Gate Road, we had a very pleasant finishing ride into the overnight stop in Elma.
The control was at the Micro Motel and it was just great. They had two conference rooms set up for us with salmon chowder and secure, inside bike parking. I was assigned a room and asked for a wake-up in three hours. It was 30 minutes into Sunday when I came in and 5:00 when I left. Somehow I frittered away an hour after my wake-up call. I don’t know where the time when, but I think half of it was wasted. I would say this was the only control where I squandered time.
There is a lot of clear cutting between Elma and Shelton, but the roads are nice and quiet and there was a light misty fog. It is really green this time of year. All the “Fire Danger” signs say “Low.” At work on Monday morning, Brian told me that he saw a bear cross the road about 8:00 as he drove through Dayton. We rode through Dayton on this stretch.
No one was in the yard at the prison in Shelton as we rode past and none of us picked up any hitch hikers.
The stop in Potlatch is on Hood Canal and right next to a church where two friends of mine served as pastor and had hard times. It is all part of the Skokomish Reservation and it can be a tough life on a reservation. It is beautiful country though, and a ride up the Skokomish Valley is really a nice ride. We passed by without turning up the valley on this trip, though. I had Jo-Joes again and stashed two burritos for later.
On the way to Belfair, the tandem train passed me again, as they did after every control since Packwood. From Belfair on, I was on new roads for me. Kay’s Korner is really a cool place. It is just an awning with some plastic chairs in front. There are coolers full of pop and Starbucks Frapaccinos, a guy making sandwiches, another guy signing cards, and everyone saying, “Here, have some of this. Do you need something else?” I don’t know how the brevet planners found a place like Kay’s Korner, but they really scored when they did.
After Kay’s Korner, the “dreaded” Tahuya Hills began. I actually like riding up hills. Except for coating down long gentle descents with tailwinds, I think hills are my strongest point in cycling.
I navigate with a watch -- four minutes to a mile -- and we were supposed to turn right four miles up the road. With the climbing, four minutes to a mile was probably off, and the right turn looked wrong, but I went right anyway. It was right. Jan was not far ahead of me and she thought the turn to the right looked wrong so she went left which was wrong and after a while found herself back at Kay’s Korner, but not hungry enough to stop and eat again. She didn’t have much trouble catching and passing me so the detour must not have taken much out of her.
The Tahuya Hills are very nice. There are a lot of short, steep hills, but the scenery is so nice that you don’t really notice them. All through this area, the native Rhodys were in bloom; mostly pink and white. The trees weren’t very big so the area must have been logged years ago; or a big fire may have come through. At one turn, next to a small river, there was a perfect little house. In the yard, was a cement Saint Francis of Assisi statue with some little birds picking at the ground in front of his feet and chirping, “We believe. We believe.” It is a long way to anyplace from that house, but it sure looked like a serene place to live.
The cue sheet was very good for the whole ride, and this area was no exception, but I was still encouraged when I reached Seabeck Holly Road and knew I’d made all the right turns. The traffic started again on Seabeck Holly Road. I would like to have had a shoulder on some of the busiest roads from here on in to the finish, but some people don’t like shoulders and they are winning the argument.
Seabeck Holly Road started with a hill. It is the kind of hill you notice, but there was shade along the edge, and I watched Jan ascend it without pause, so I dropped onto my 34 tooth chainring and away I went. I think a compact crankset is a good choice for a randonneuse. A road double, with a 38 or 39 tooth small ring, is still a little high when I’m tired or the climb is long, but a triple just slows me down too much because it’s low is too low. Besides, a triple is more weight. If I was going to carry extra weight, I might as well have stopped for those vice grips.
At the Seabeck General Store, with the red door, I met Jan. I was going to get my card signed and grab something to eat on the way because I was feeling strong and realized I could finish with a very good time for me -- and to think I began the brevet wondering if I could even finish within 40 hours. Instead, I sat down with Jan at a big, round oak table and ate a dove bar while I drank another V-8 Juice.
Lew came through the door, looked at me with a big grin on his face, pointed, and said, “Ice cream! That’s what I want. Where did you get that?” I pointed and he was off to the freezer.
Rick and Jim came in and I said, “You didn’t catch me this time.”
Rick said they didn’t have the tandems on the last stretch. He sat down and said the tandems had really worn them out. These tandems are beautiful bikes and Don and Elaine and James and Ann truly know what they are doing on them, but hills are not the tandems strong suit. I saw them pulling up as I left the store and then I didn’t see them again.
Through this part of the ride, as on the way to Kay’s Korner, we rode next to Hood Canal with breath taking views of the Olympic mountains across the canal’s water.
On this brevet, we rode up into the Cascade Mountains and at Potlatch, we were just across the street from the Olympic Mountains that come straight up out of Puget Sound with barely enough room for a road in places. It is beautiful country, but overdevelopment is killing Hood Canal. There are so many sewage leaks into the canal that the oxygen is depleted from the water in the summer and there are terrible fish kills. It’s sad that people so want to live in all the pretty places that they destroy them by building houses where ever there is a view. I guess it’s really the developers that like the look of a fat bank account more than a mountain rimmed canal, and the permit granting bureaucracies that never say, “No,” who are really to blame. “It’s the economy, stupid. Got to fire up the economy.” I wish more of us could find happiness living in town and visiting the countryside on foot and on bicycles.
Port Gamble was the penultimate control, but first we had to climb Anderson Hill. There wasn’t any shade on this one and it was pretty hot. My jersey had big patches of white sweat on it and the patches grew on Anderson Hill.
As I said earlier, I like hills, but I think some of the hills after Seabeck were a bit gratuitous. On the other hand, after 338 miles, we were in pretty good shape having had plenty of exercise to build strong legs muscles.
Port Gamble might be a quaint little town in the winter, but it was filled to overflowing on Sunday. They were either hosting a Renaissance Faire or an SUV parking contest. If it was a Renaissance Faire, I don’t know how it went because, from the street, I couldn’t see over the Suburbans and F-350’s, but if it was an SUV parking contest, they must have scored very high indeed. It was a short hop back to SR-104, but it was a one way street and SR-104 was the wrong way. I went up the sidewalk and that was no mean trick with all the bumpers hanging over it.
When we reached 104, I suggested that Jan go on since I knew I couldn’t keep up with her. Agate Passage Bridge was another no shoulder bridge, but I caught it when a red light created a perfect break in traffic.
I built a schooner at the turn of the century -- steel, of course -- when the women were women and the men still had testosterone. We sailed up in this area so the view brought back memories.
And then I arrived at the final control. I finished almost four hours earlier than I finished my previous, and only other, 600K.
I think there were several reasons for my good -- for me -- time. The pre-ride report really spooked me so I worked hard to stay ahead of the clock. The weather was very nice. I felt good the whole ride and that kept my spirits high. I had lots of fun with lots of other riders. For me, doing a ride like this all on my own would be hard to impossible, but with lots of companions, it’s fun. There was lots of downhill coasting in the last 75 miles. And most important of all, the Red Randonneuse was perfect. As I said before, there are a lot of different bicycles on these brevets and lots of different riding styles, but I think I am just about perfectly matched to the Red Randonneuse.
In the end, I had two very enjoyable days this past weekend. As far as I am concerned, this was a great route and a perfect weekend for it. Maybe the pre-ride report was overly severe; or, perhaps, Andy Pruitt is wrong about this aromatase enzyme activity testosterone thing.
On Monday morning, before work, I was telling Brian, John, and Mike about the brevet. I remembered I still had the route map in my handlebar bag, so I grabbed it and showed them. They were impressed.
Coho Thoughts
Tuesday, June 5, 2007