Flow motion

There are a lot of roads to nowhere; many are fun and scenic places to ride bikes. Rare, however, are the collision of factors that tiptoe toward a more transcendent experience. On this day: A cold northwest wind, much cooler than we anticipated for the East Bay in mid-May. A steep, rolling backroad cut high above a gorge, waiting for the canyon to come to it. A 146-mile day ride over two big mountains and the physical reactions associated with that effort. Mile 89 — the gorge rises to road level and suddenly we're wending along a trickle of a stream. The grade is just uphill enough to always have to work for it, to never coast, and the route begins to trend southeast. Crosswind becomes a tailwind; I spin the pedals harder until I feel no air at all. The wind and I are moving in the same direction at the same speed. Everything becomes silent; even bike vibrations quiet, as though the wheels have lifted off the pavement. I feel everything else more intensely — the tension and release of leg muscles, the relaxation of shoulders, the hard leans into turns, acceleration against gravity. My hands, hot and calloused. My skin, chilled and sweaty. My breathing, soft and urgent. Everything else stands very, very still, as though I am moving in direct correlation with the Earth. Centered.

Just recently I came across the story of "Slomo." You may have heard about Slomo, as a documentary about him was recently featured in the New York Times and has since been brought up in discussions about the biology of bliss. Slomo is the alter-ego of John Kitchin, a 69-year-old former neurologist who has spent the past fifteen years skating the same stretch of boardwalk on Pacific Beach in San Diego. He's perfected an odd-looking technique of balancing on one leg for as long as possible, giving the appearance that he's skating in slow motion. This is effectively how he spends the majority of his waking hours. Skating up and down Pacific Beach. Every day. For fifteen years.

Ever since I read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow" last year, I've been fascinated by the different techniques people use to achieve, as Kitchin calls the state he's seeking, "The Zone." My friend who recommended the book plays the saxophone; some people paint or compose music, others ski, surf, run, ride bikes. Some people find flow in meditation and yoga, others while working an assembly line, still others engaged in pastimes as mundane as generating repetitive rhythms with their fingers. What's intriguing is all of these wildly different activities aim to achieve the same end. There are many short and long ways to describe "Flow" (the book is quite long.) But they way I see Flow is an alignment — to, at least briefly, tap into the pattern underlying the chaos of life, shed self-consciousness and all the baggage of ego and individual perception, and just be.

When I contemplate my happiest moments on a bike, patterns emerge — I am usually somewhere surrounded by subtle beauty, a place that feels remote, riding a road or smooth piece of singletrack that traces the contour of the land. The terrain is generally nontechnical, so I feel no stress, and requires my physical input to create motion — meaning long downhill coasting doesn't usually generate the same level of joy. Another integral component is the endurance factor. The accumulation of distance and effort wears down mental barriers and helps pry open the gateway to this state of mind. If I were to ride the wending contours of Mines Road at mile three of a day's bike ride, I would find the experience enjoyable, pleasant, still completely worthwhile ... but bliss, that only comes later.

On Saturday Liehann and I set out to ride from the start of a 50K trail race Beat was running in Oakland, and ride home via the summits of Mount Diablo and Mount Hamilton. We pedaled through the Oakland hills in cool morning air but then had to cross a long swath of freeways and crowded streets in Walnut Creek. I have a love-hate relationship with road cycling. I love how much ground I can cover and all the things I can see riding roads, but don't cope well with traffic, and sometimes other cyclists. Diablo was an unsettling experience. It was a beautiful spring day and there were lots of bikes on the road — which is great, but there were some tensions. I got a few derisive comments about my backpack and platform pedals (I get it, I'm a dorky tourist who likes my comforts.) There was one narrowly avoided head-on collision with a cyclist who took a sharp curve really wide. And the descent was just terrifying — mostly because impatient drivers pulled out to pass long groups of climbing cyclists and other cars, with no regard for those already in the lane, riding at 20-plus miles per hour downhill.

As we rode away from the mountain, I thought this road ride was a mistake. But as we passed into more rural areas, I began to perk up because it was still a beautiful spring day, traffic became far less of an issue, and the joy of distance was beginning to set in. We devoured chips with Coke and Gatorade while propped against the window outside a gas station in Livermore. (Liehann said, "I feel so classy," and I said, "This is the best part of bike touring. You just don't care.") Then it was on to Mines Road, rolling through the remote heart of the Diablo Range.

By the time we descended into the San Antonio Valley, I had savored a few moments of bliss and felt genuinely excited about the next section — turning directly into that 20 mph northwest wind and climbing the steep backside of Mount Hamilton. We were north of a century and pedaling a section of road that climbs about 2,500 feet in five miles — punishing, but wonderful. I rode up to the closed observatory on the peak, gazed out across far horizons, and put on a thin wind jacket for what promised to be a frigid descent. My surly Mount Diablo demeanor had turned into a big dopey Mount Hamilton grin. When I thought about the reasons why, I thought about Slomo.

Slomo's lifestyle is based in advice to "do what you want," and one of the best parts of life is a freedom to do so. That freedom is a privilege, no doubt, but it takes courage, too — the courage to seek those things that spark passion, and do them for one reason — the sake of doing them. Life of course is more complicated than a quest for bliss, and Slomo's philosophy of a simple, individual path to happiness certainly has a lot of detractors. But it's an important thing to consider, especially after rare moments when the slate of self-consciousness is briefly erased. Questions like, "what is a life?" and "what does it mean, to do what you want?" 

Adventures, with and without anchors

Photo by Liehann Loots

This was an enjoyable but full week effort-wise. I'm hoping to pull a sort of "peak" week in two weeks, but this one will be hard to top — 28 hours, 29,178 feet climbing, 26.1 miles running and 214.2 miles cycling in all of five workouts. And yet the fun, beautiful and adventurous nature of those five workouts made them feel like no work at all — abundant playtime, tempered by above-average work productivity because I've more than satisfied my outdoor cravings and am grateful for the couch time. 

On Saturday Beat and I set out to run the Slate Creek Trail down to Portola Redwoods State Park. Portola is a place you can drive to, but we like to pretend it's only accessible by descending from the grassy spine of Long Ridge into the bowels of an ancient forest.

Portola is home to some Coast Redwoods that have seen some things in their time, including the decimation of most of their kin. A few big trees still stand, and it's always awe-inspiring to stand at the foot of primordial giants. 

We dilly-dallied on a meandering loop around the base of the park, and went to visit Old Tree, a 297-foot monster that's estimated to be more than 1,200 years old.

Beat was buzzed about the chance to touch something that's been alive since the year 800. There are very few objects of any sort in North America that are that old, and it's interesting to contemplate something so enduring as a 1,200-year-old tree. The wildfires it's seen, the storms, the earthquakes, the succession of hundreds of generations of animals, the climate changes, and finally the plague of people that chopped down everything surrounding it. I have much respect for Old Tree.

Slate Creek Trail is such a fantastic place to run — loamy soil, rich green vegetation, swoopy singletrack and the shelter of hundred-foot-high "young" redwoods. Add another to the list of trails I want to run as often as possible this coming summer ... Slate Creek, Lonely Trail, Black Mountain, the list keeps on growing. This run was sixteen miles and had 4,000 feet of climbing — not a small effort, but relatively relaxed compared to what I had in store the next day (Beat would opt to run a 50K loop around this area with Steve on Sunday, rather than submit himself to my plan.)

Meanwhile, Liehann and I headed out to Henry Coe State Park. Coe is an idiosyncratic spot in the Bay Area —an isolated and surprisingly remote enclave just a half hour south of San Jose. It's an arid place that comes alive for a very short time in the spring, and sees few visitors for such close proximity to a heavily populated valley. Coe's biggest tourism draw is the Fall Tarantula Festival, and visitors are also likely to run into rattlesnakes, territorial turkeys, wild pigs, bobcats, coyotes, and lots and lots of ticks. The topography of the southern Diablo Range is relentlessly steep, and remote enough that if you fell and broke a leg somewhere farther back in the park, it's possible you wouldn't be found for days. Coe is also mountain bike friendly, and is uncharacteristically relaxed (for California) with its rules — giving wheels almost free reign of many trails and fire roads throughout the park.

 The reason Coe isn't overrun by mountain bikers is because not everyone with a mountain bike will find this kind of riding to be "fun" — at least in terms of Type One fun. Gluttons for 30-percent grades, skilled downhillers who don't mind paying a steep price for their descents, geocachers, and dirt tourists with camping gear and no fear are the main citizens of the Coe cycling community. I can't honestly say I fit into any of these categories. I love a good relentless climb, but all some point bikes become more of an anchor than a useful machine. Unless you want to burn all of your leg matches on the first climb, hike-a-bike is usually in order. Singletrack is always steep, often loose, and cut for hikers and horses rather than wheels, so descending is also a strenuous affair. Five miles per hour is a reasonable average speed at Coe; I can maintain a running pace near that fast for long distances, and it tends to be less stressful for me than wrangling a bike. Still, hike-a-biking is a good training practice, and damn if I shouldn't take a few more chances with downhilling ... so I agreed to my first Coe outing since I visited the park with a bike in August 2011 and have been purposefully avoiding it ever since.

 It was a beautiful day at Coe, with green hills and wildflowers blooming. One aspect about Coe that I appreciate is the vistas — thanks to the relentlessly steep terrain, there are many, and at each one you can look out over the rippling hillsides and see no sign of civilization. Cities, buildings, highways, smog, and people are all safely tucked away beyond the horizon.

 We parked at Hunting Hollow and started the day by climbing 1,500 feet in 1.5 miles because, well, what else is there in Coe? My hike-a-bike muscles are clearly lacking, as my shoulders ached within minutes. I had also frozen three liters of my water to a block of ice, then stuck it in my 25-liter Salomon pack that I am testing out for biking purposes (It's a newer version of my PTL pack, which is robust and waterproof, and I am a glutton for big packs.) But the resulting looseness of the pack caused the ice block to bounce against my spine, and I soon regretted my brilliant plan to ensure cold water for the entire ride. Okay, it's going to a hurty sort of day. At least expectations were cemented early.

 Cresting a 2,500-foot hill was rewarded by a fun singletrack descent. As soon as we dropped into the woods, we were inundated with poison oak, which is flourishing in late spring moisture and had overgrown across the narrow trail like a poisonous tunnel. Yikes. Even though I was wearing pants, I skidded to a stop in front of the thickest patches so I could tiptoe through the minefield. Great, downhill hike-a-biking to go along with the uphill pushing. At least expectations were cemented early.

 The most fun sections were along the grassy hillsides, navigating barely-there trails across steep rollers. We'd plummet down one pitch and surge up the next, punching the pedals and breathing fire. I tended to lose heart while trying to pedal up the many steep fireroad climbs, but was more willing to give that extra rocket boost for singletrack, where it's more difficult to push a bike.

 For about two miles we followed the bed of Coyote Creek. For much of the year, the creek is dry and bikers just ride the cobbles. Dab-free lines are harder accomplish when there are several inches of water, and wet feet resulted in blisters later in the day.

Riding through hub-deep eddies and over wet cobbles made for one of the most fun sections of the route, although just as exhausting as the rest of it. Only about four percent of Coe is what one might consider flat, and even flat terrain provides little reprieve from the shoulder-burning climbs and focused technical descents. I feel the need to explain my outfit since it was visibly dorky. I wore hiking pants because baggy nylon is more effective than tights at warding off brushes with poison oak and stinging nettle, as well as another (as yet unidentified) spiny plant that I'm allergic to, and causes a rash when it cuts my skin. Hiking gaiters to keep out ticks. And sleeved elbow pads because I took a hard fall while running with Beat in Portola the day before, and bashed up my right elbow. This elbow has been extremely sensitive since I ripped it open in a mountain bike crash three years ago. Now, every time I fall on the scar tissue, the resulting bruising and bleeding hurts much more than it should. It already felt like raw nerves were exposed, and I feared another fall would render the arm too painful to use. The light elbow pads were a precaution against further damage, and three Aleve pills helped temper the remnant pain from my running crash.

 We diverged away from Coyote Creek and began the climb up Bear Mountain, on a fall-line road so steep it's ridiculous. Seriously, who drives up this stuff? First you climb 1,100 feet in one mile, and then proceed along a series of heartlessly steep rollers for the next two miles to gain a mere 300 extra feet of elevation. Mean, mean, mean. Liehann took the challenge to ride most of it. I had a tough walk, having just re-upped my water supply in Coyote Creek and feeling acute soreness in my shoulders and elbow. The upper body, as usual, needs work, which is why it's good to do such silly things as hike-a-bike training ... but also why I greatly prefer my hikes without bikes.

One of the early pitches of the Bear Mountain fire road. Hard to depict the steepness, really. Liehann did walk the sections that were nearly impossible (25-percent grades on loose dirt and chunky gravel.) But he did ride most of it, arriving at the top fifteen minutes before me.

 Bear Mountain is one of those places you can look around and see nothing but oak-dotted mountains and grassy hillsides, over every horizon. It's a cool spot to stand in coastal California.

 At the top of Bear Mountain, we had traveled a whole 23 miles in nearly six hours, after much strain and only enough stops to filter water and take a few snapshots. At this rate on our original planned route, we weren't going to find our way home until nearly midnight. So we made some route adjustments and cut out some trail to finish up with a rolling fireroad descent. I won't call it a long fireroad descent, because nothing in Coe is that flat. Every mile was punctured with multiple climbs of one or two hundred feet, and we didn't really start to lose elevation until the sun was low on the horizon.

Still, it was wicked fun, after such a grueling day, to just sit in the saddle and flow, even for a relatively short period of time. The ride clocked in at 45.5 miles with 8,200 feet of climbing, nine hours total and 7:51 of that moving time (I think moving time was actually higher than that. There were probably just times I was moving so slowly that GPS thought I was stopped.) Route map here.

There's something inherently ridiculous about working as hard as you can for nine hours to ride (and haul) a bike 45 miles, and yet also something so satisfying about it. I still wonder if I'd fare better on foot, but the next time I return to visit Coe, it will probably be with a bike. 

What's next

Wednesday was the target for a mid-week long ride — before I learned about the latest California heat wave that's making the rounds in weather news. High of 92 degrees, not so comfortable any time of year, but especially rough in the early season. Since I'm training to haul weight anyway, I figured I could go full-bore with the water — a gallon of liquid, half water and half solid ice, which would offer cold water access for the better part of a ten-hour day. Crowd-sourcing ideas on Twitter had netted a great route plan from a local road rider named Janeen. Road rides around here often fit in a unique space between true road cycling and mountain gravel grinding. This was that kind of route, bouncing along broken pavement and narrow backroads between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz.

Schulties Road was seemingly in the process of converting back to forest — badly eroded dirt with broken chunks of pavement and loose gravel. My mind hadn't made the conversion from mountain bike to road bike, and I was descending way too fast for skinny tires. I somehow narrowly avoided a spectacular crash when the rear wheel skidded and slipped sideways, forcing me to throw down a shoe and drag the dirt at about 20 mph. (Thank you, platform pedals, even if you seem ridiculous on a road bike. I probably would have terrible road rash right now if I had been clipped in at the time.) After that, descending slowly with both rim brakes locked resulted in a blister on my right palm.

But I do love long rides all to myself. As the heat bore down, I slipped into a peaceful headspace, mapping out my Iditarod race report in my mind. Images of Alaska, of Beat, of ice and snow and many happy and harrowing moments filtered through the present like sunlight through the trees. Sometimes I'd come to after miles-long lapses, still rolling under redwood trees and thinking, "My, this is pretty. Wow, is it hot." I ran out of my gallon of water, just as I was climbing a short diversion out of Santa Cruz at mile 75. Coping with being out of water was easy; I just disappeared into ice dreams until I found a nice city park to refill my huge bladder and eat a sandwich. Most of the day passed like this, actually. I tend to do my best writing when I'm out on a long, solo ride or run. Sadly, it disappears as quickly as it comes, like scrawling thousands of words with an inkless pen. I suppose that's appropriate for a long ride — writing only for the moment, and nothing more.

The park picnic returned me to normalcy long enough to realize that I had sustained a patchy but bad sunburn on my upper legs and hands, and a bunch of bug bites around my ankles. I was feeling feverish and bummed that I was out of cold water. Argh, summer, you are just not my ally. I called Beat to let him know that this ride was stretching out longer than anticipated (actually what really happened was a much-too-late start) and I was going to be home late, as usual. Twilight settled in as I crested the long climb up Mountain Charlie Road. Although heat remained, the lack of sun made me feel peppier, and I took a few longer diversions on the way home to stay away from traffic (and also, admittedly, to bump the distance up to 200 kilometers.) Total was 125 miles with about 11,000 feet of climbing. Only a couple of big climbs, but constant steep ups and downs. Route overview:

My training ... er, practicing plan right now calls for two long rides a week, one (and sometimes two!) rest days, and three runs. Because I opt to run with Beat as one of our favorite couples activities, these runs are typically not short or easy. My overall volume of activity is pretty high right now, but it's working well. I'm feeling stronger and experiencing fewer nagging issues, with the exception of sunburns and bug bites.

 On Sunday we joined Steve for explorations of the semi-secret trails through Teague Hill in Woodside. It was fun singletrack, steep and relatively technical for this region. We wrapped up the loop with a descent of the ironically well-established Lonely Trail. If I could practice descending Lonely Trail once a week, I would probably greatly improve my downhill running confidence — it's technical and steep but not to the level that makes me feel insecure enough to soft-step everything. Project for later.

On Monday, our friend Daniel from Colorado came to visit on business, and we went for a run to the top of Black Mountain via Rhus Ridge. Daniel is trying to convince me to stick with Hardrock this July. I suppose I haven't actually blogged much about that yet, nor what I'm currently training for  — the Freedom Challenge, a 2,300-kilometer mountain bike race across South Africa that follows a similar structure, albeit slightly more supported, as the Tour Divide. My friend Liehann had signed up for this June's event and wanted company; he's from South Africa and has participated in the Freedom Challenge before. A plan to ride with him took the edge off some uneasiness I had about being alone in rural parts of Africa. The landscape looks incredible, stark and diverse. I've never visited Africa, and this route takes riders through some definitively remote spots that will undoubtedly provide unique cultural experiences. Plus, June is winter there, which means challenging weather conditions. Frequent rain, possible snow, temperatures ranging from 20F to 90F, horrendous mud  ... just like Tour Divide! Freedom Challenge has more singletrack and more hike-a-bike sections as well.

I wrestled with it for a while but decided I couldn't justifiably turn down an opportunity to ride a mountain bike across South Africa for three weeks in favor of two days of grueling hiking/shuffling through the San Juan Mountains. Even Beat agrees, and has been amazingly supportive of the whole endeavor (he's even invented and is currently refining a little cue-sheet device to aid in navigation, which is a hugely daunting part of this race. No GPS allowed.) But Hardrock is a shot that only comes once in a lifetime, especially if you're me and don't plan to run qualifying hundred-mile races every year. I know I need to withdraw from Hardrock, but I can't bring myself to do so, as FOMO burns strong within. Schedule-wise I could participate in both, but would have no chance to acclimate to high altitude and thus almost no chance of actually finishing Hardrock. There's probably someone high on the wait list who will read this and start sending me thinly veiled death threats if I don't opt out soon. The culture surrounding Hardrock is funny like that.

Still, every day that I feel stronger on the bike, and every day that I spend more time staring at maps, and every little favor Beat does to help me get ready, have accumulated in zealous excitement about the Freedom Challenge. It's yet another amazing opportunity. I'm a lucky person, I get it.