Team Raw Hinies
by Badi Mata
I just finished the MS 150 bike ride here. It went from Wheat Ridge, CO to Fort Collins, CO and returned the following day. I've been training since about March and felt pretty good about being able to make it except for the climbing. There was 1300 ft. gross of elevation change going to Ft Collins, most of it maybe 900 ft. on a 10 mile long, sometimes steep climb up to and past Horsetooth reservoir about 20 miles before Ft. Collins. After that it was down hill into Ft Collins for the night. Also had to repeat that climb from the other side first thing the next day. I was pretty sure I could do the 75 mi. each way and figured if the climbs got too tough I'd just snag one of the SAG (Support And Gear) wagons for a ride up the hills.
The first 50 miles of the ride went fine, I'd done training rides tougher than that. I felt good approaching the big hills just before Horsetooth reservoir so kept on going not really even considering a SAG wagon of which there were none in sight anyway. In retrospect, I might have felt a little too good. The skies were cloudy, the temperature was a nice cool low 70's, maybe endorphins had kicked in.
I kind of cranked up the energy level more than necessary to get up the hill and felt a little twinge in an old ski injury in my "good side" knee. My spurt of energy might have had something to do with all of those good looking girls that kept passing me. I think the team name was "Raw Hinies" although some of them might have been "Megasoreasses".
Anyway I crested the big hills and coasted into Ft. Collins and across the first day finish line after six and a half hours and still felt pretty good. I certainly felt good enough to get to the free beer tent for some medicinal muscle pain relief. Thank You Breckenridge Brewery, they came through again!!
The people at these events are always so great. Even the ones you can tell are probably usually real jerks are fun to be around. Must have something to do with being so exhausted that you're just happy to experience that still alive feeling and sit down and enjoy a beer in the company of some stranger(s) who've been through the same ordeal. A number of MS sufferers were wandering or wheeling around. One lady and her friends sat next to me and she told me she had just been diagnosed in February and that the company she worked for had sponsored a team for the ride. It might have been Bank West or something like that. She looked good, you couldn't see any symptoms. She talked about getting a bike and starting to ride. I seconded that and I told her about the yoga classes and some of the research I had read about recently. I never told her I had MS but I'm pretty sure she guessed by the end of the evening.
Up at 4:30am the next day, grab a bite of breakfast (did I mention that these people feed you about every 60 minutes) and back on the road at 6:00am, heading for the climb back up Horsetooth. The knee didn't feel too bad but I figured I'd look for a SAG wagon to get me up the hill just to be safe.
Damn, no SAG's in sight, probably could have waited for one but it was actually cold that morning, maybe low to mid 50's so I kept going at a moderate pace to stay warm. The girls were blowing by me in droves but that's OK, maybe I'd catch them up on the downhill.
Didn't see a SAG for the next 10 miles, tried to rely more on my "weak side" to get me up the hill, crested an hour and a half later with my knee screaming, only thing that kept me going was the certain knowledge that the next 10 miles would be down hill. Pulled into the next rest stop looking for food and water and a SAG.
I ran into a guy and his daughter riding a tandem bike, the daughter had Downs syndrome. We shared the hill climb experience for a couple of minutes and although he was a younger much fitter specimen than me, I figured if he could do what he was doing I could at least keep trying, besides, if it got that bad I could pull over and wait for a SAG.
A little over 35 miles into the second day ride now and starting to figure out that if I kept the bad knee pedaling with minimal pressure on it, it didn't scream nearly as loud. If I stopped pedaling and just coasted even for a few seconds, the knee let me know about it when I started back up. Only another 12 or so miles to go to the lunch stop, past the half way mark, and mostly down hill, piece of cake, I could do this.
Ran into my brother and his friends at lunch. They were doing a version of the ride too except their version stopped at a little lake on the way up to Ft. Collins for some water skiing and didn't include the hills which is why we weren't riding together. They also wanted to lounge around in the cold mist tent for a while after lunch while I figured if I didn't get back on that bike pretty soon I might just not get on it again at all. And so I went.
Most of the next 15 miles were OK, the only memorable hill being one that had a left turn at an intersection kind of in the middle of it. There was a very vocal cop directing traffic to assist the riders and when he signaled us through some girl came from the back of the pack like a bat out of hell and blew up hill past the whole group of us who were just getting up to speed after waiting at the light. The cop turned around and yelled something to the effect of were we really going to let that girl blow past us like that. Somebody yelled back "Who put this damn hill here anyway" and we all laughed and pedaled and puffed our way up the hill. Of course, that hill set my knee off again. It was really screaming now. The next hill would definitely be the end of it.
I made it to the next to the last rest stop 20 miles from the finish, bound and determined to find a SAG wagon for a ride to the end. It wasn't a particularly good rest stop; the road into it being rock and gravel which is not conducive to staying upright on those skinny road bike tires. Also the food and water kiosks were located a good city block or so down hill on that rough road. I dismounted after about 20 feet, laid the bike down and stood there to survey the situation.
There were at least two SAG wagons about 100 feet further on up the main road and only a couple of bikes waiting to get on them. Seeing no need to try to get to the food and water at the stop because salvation looked to be at hand and not feeling particularly rushed, I grabbed one of my water bottles off my bike and stood there savoring it slowly. After 10 minutes or so I righted my bike and walked back up to the main road. Thinking it would be easier to ride than walk the 100 feet or so to the SAG wagons I mounted my bike and started pedaling.
GOD AND THE SAINT OF BAD KNEES BE PRAISED, standing on that gravel road in the sun for 10 minutes drinking a bottle of water had curred my knee, at least mostly. It felt good enough anyway to pedal right past the waiting rescue vehicles and keep on going. I was sure I could at least make it to the next and final rest stop.
That's about all I remember of the ride until the finish. It started getting hot and I know that I refilled my bottles somewhere along the way, must have been at the last rest stop. I also remember several more hills, and riders commenting how this must be the last one, always the last one and always one more after it. I remember crossing the finish line, dismounting my bike and getting a big hug from the lady in the wheel chair with MS greeting the finishers. I wanted to tell her that I was a sufferer too but I was just too dazed.
I looked for the nearest shade and ditched my bike on the way to it. I thought I probably looked like an old guy who bit off just a little more than he could chew. I didn't think I was listing to one side any more than the other since the bad knee on my good side offset the weakness, which was definitely exaggerated by the heat now, in my bad side. I grabbed a bottle of something cold with the arm on my good side and seven and a half hours after starting that morning, sat down in the shade so happy to be off that bike.
Upon reflection, I found it curious that it wasn't the MS that nearly derailed all of the hard work training for the event but rather an old nearly forgotten ski injury that got reactivated by an ego that made me chase some "Raw Hinie" up a hill.
Of course, on the other hand maybe it was the pain from the knee injury that took my mind off the MS and got me through the ride.
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