The instant consequence of this desire was a powerful loneliness. I crossed the border into Slater, Colorado, and began climbing up the impossibly loose gravel of a ranch road right at sunset. My back wheel spun out every time I stood up from the saddle. The steeper pitches forced me to walk, and as I walked, the silence was maddening. I could see clouds building in the dusky sky, and sprinkles of rain were starting to fall. "Man, screw getting close to Steamboat," I thought. "I'm just going to camp."But all of the trees surrounding me were peppered with "No trespassing" signs. A sign at a cattle guard warned that private property continued for at least six miles. I looked out across the canyon, almost desperate just to see a porch light, just some evidence of humanity in the distance, but all I could see were the silhouettes of tree tops and the dim glow of my headlamp fading into a black expanse.
I turned my bike around and approached a woman standing at the door. "You hungry?" she asked.
"Excuse me?" I said.
"Are you hungry?" she repeated, but before I had a chance to answer, said, "Of course you're hungry. What kind of question is that? Come in!"
Wide-eyed and confused, I parked my bike and stumbled in the door as the woman beckoned me toward the kitchen. She placed a huge bowl of fruit in front of me - grapes, cherries, watermelon and mango. "I just cut that for you," she said of the mango. "It's a little soft, but they're better that way."
"How do you know who I am?" I finally asked.
The woman looked at me with a smirk as though she were both surprised at my ignorance and happy about her surprise. "Tour Divide!" she said. "I've been watching you all day. I thought you were never going to leave Rawlins."
"Neither did I," I said.
"I almost missed you, too," she said. "I just updated the site and saw your dot right on top of here, and I looked out the window and saw your headlight."
"Wow," I said. "I'm glad you did."
The woman told me her name was Kirsten. She ran the Brush Mountain Lodge and she was a huge fan of the race. She had helped out other racers in front of me, providing them with fresh fruit, meals and a bed if they needed it. She whipped up a quesedilla and chips to go with the fruit, a big glass of water and hot tea. We sat down to check out the Tour Divide standings.
"Did you know Michael Jackson died?" she asked.
I smiled. "No. No I did not."
She shook her head. "That must be so cool, really being out there like that."
She set me up in a room and asked me what time I wanted breakfast. "Um, maybe 7 a.m.?" I said.
"That sounds great to me. Those other guys all wanted breakfast at 4," she said.
I laughed. "Welcome to mid-pack! It only gets better from here."
The fog thickened and the rain grew heavier as I climbed. I crested the pass in a near gray-out and started down the steep descent, where rivers of mud flowed between basketball-sized boulders. It was a hard descent to pick a good line, made even harder by the wheel-sucking mud that would have stopped my bike altogether if I wasn't plummeting down a 15-percent grade. The mud scared me more than gravity and I took it fast, pressing my butt deep into my seatpost bag, bouncing my tires of rocks and generally hanging on faith to get me down. I applied the brakes hard on a regular basis, until, at a pivotal moment as I was bouncing over a particularly gnarly rock garden, I pulled the brake levers all the way down and absolutely nothing happened.
In a split second I pulled one more time and then panicked, leaning hard to the left and bashing my left knee against a sharp rock as I skidded through a geyser of mud to a painful stop. My shoulder burned and my knee was screaming, so forcefully I was sure I could hear it, and I had to spend several minutes lying head down in the mud until I could hear something besides audible pain. When I finally stood up, the rain had resumed echoing loudly in my helmet and my knee had calmed down a bit. I tried bending it and realized it felt stiff but not broken. My rainpants had torn and I could see blood seeping through my leg warmers, but I didn't quite yet dare pull them up to inspect the damage.
I checked my brake pads. The brand new front pads that I had just barely installed the day before had worn to medal. The brake rotor and even hub were coated in a sticky black goo that I can only assume used to be the pads. They had completely disintegrated. The rear pads were worn to almost nothing, but there was a little life left in those. I adjusted the dials to their maximum setting and was able to get the back brakes to catch again, but the situation was precarious at best. I had at least six more miles of that nasty rocky descent followed by a dozen or so more miles of graded gravel descent before I finally hit pavement. I thought about walking. But the rain fell harder, the mud became stickier, my knee throbbed painfully, and I just wanted to be somewhere else. I decided to ride, said a little prayer, and held on.
"Oh," he said. "Are you with the Tour Divide?" I nodded forlornly. He beckoned another mechanic over and they immediately lifted my bike onto a stand. Within minutes they were pulling off my bags as I filled out a form of the myriad of things I wanted done, in order of importance, knowing they only had until 6 p.m. to work on my bike: new brake caliper, rotor and pads, new freewheel, new cassette and chain, new chain rings, new cables and housing, and a new bike computer (my old one broke in the crash). I limped over to a natural foods store to stock up and assess whether I could continue on. I had only covered about 50 miles that day, but my bike was held up until at least 6 and my knee was throbbing. I finally decided it would be best just to call the day a loss and hope things improved in the morning.
Ahhh, the fateful day. Well we know how this story ends though :).
ReplyDeleteWow, Kirsten is an awesome person.
BTW, you've got some kick ass co-workers.
BTW#2, Jill, you keep on calling it you freewheel whereby it really is your freehub. A freewheel is a cheapy version of your setup.
Great post! After a day like that, how did you find the strength or motivation to go on?
ReplyDeleteAmazing... and wonderfully recorded here. There's a special place in heaven for people like Kirsten, I'm thinking!
ReplyDeleteQuoted from Jakub "BTW#2, Jill, you keep on calling it you freewheel whereby it really is your freehub. A freewheel is a cheapy version of your setup."
ReplyDeleteNot one to nitpick, but it is actually a cassette body onto which the cassette mounts to. ;)
right. freewheels are old school.
ReplyDeleteBackwards Karma. Someone does something good for you and... you have to suffer for it later?
ReplyDeleteLife is weird sometimes.
Has been a great journey so far for me (in following you, Jill). For those who might be as dumb as I, I just today figured out you can click on the photos and they look even grander!
ReplyDeleteWeird timing - I just had a smoothie in that natural foods market and walked right past the Orange Peel bike shop just this morning... Was in town for the Tour de Steamboat, which I rode yesterday.
ReplyDeleteWow, that rainbow (fogbow? mistbow?) shot is fantastic!
ReplyDeleteThis blog is outstanding. It's great to have such a strong writer actually chronicle experiences like this. I look forward to reading more.
ReplyDelete