I bailed on this one before I finished it, and I’m still wrestling with that for some reason. I know I made the right call, I had stomach issues, knee issues, and a handful of other things going on that were just getting worse. Had I not pulled the plug I would likely have had to take some actual time off the bike to recover, and I’m not sure how useful I would have been to the family on Sunday, maybe even longer? Which at this point, means a lot. But…younger me would have almost certainly pushed on and just gone through with the misery, probably damaging things a lot worse BUT would have finished what he started. I think that’s the hard part for me right now, it’s sort of been part of my identity, at least to me, I will finish what I’ve started unless for some reason I absolutely can’t.

When I had to bail on this ride 2 years ago, it was because I really couldn’t walk or pedal on my left ankle. That injury took me a long time to fully recover from, to be honest it still bugs me from time to time. In hindsight I probably should have pulled the plug on that ride sooner to minimize the impact. So, I’d like to think that I’m learning in my old age? I’m not sure how I like it though. I like these long rides, these challenges where, to complete them you must get uncomfortable sometimes and I almost feel like I backed away from that uncomfortableness. I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about that, even though the reality is that I still rode 12 hours, 80 miles, with something like 13k of elevation, which is a huge day. I did that without having a training ride over 2 ½ hours since October, which if you’re asking, I don’t recommend.

Anyhow, I’ll stop complaining, just something that’s been bugging me and I wanted to write it down. It’s probably an irrational thing, but it’s still there.

Preamble

First, P99 isn’t an event, it’s just a decision to commit to a route at a certain time, that ends up getting discussed among friends and folks, the full route is about 115 miles with like 18-19k of elevation, it’s big. Nobody organizes it so to speak, there’s nobody timing, just a line in the sand to provide some excuse to get out and do it. Just like last year, the weather on Friday was a total mess. Rain all day, and heavy rain, and it was cold, it was about as gross as it gets. The bright side here was that the forecast for Saturday was improving…supposedly it would get warmer, sunnier, and nicer than originally thought. We’d just have to deal with the extreme wetness early on. Hey, that’s how it goes sometimes.

This year I wasn’t going to try and leave a vehicle up at the cache spot on 1206, just taking up a plastic bin with some water, food, and a few dry goods. It’s a lot easier not trying to coordinate two people to leave a vehicle. I took the kids up, we listened to terrible kids’ music and had a grand old time.

Then it was back home for dinner and trying to scramble around to get all the other things ready. Of course, I can’t leave well enough alone and decided I’d go ahead and get the new Garmin I just picked up that day ready. I mean what better day to use a new device? Right? I mean one of the main reasons I got it was for the amazing battery life. Anyhow, the setup went smooth and other than some uncertainty of how to actually use it and what to do if it started to blow through the battery, I was good with it. I mean last year I was messing with my saddle while we were trying to leave so. It had to be better than that.

Ride

I was up in plenty of time in the morning but as I should have come to expect at this point, I was rushing over to the Forest to meet the other crazies on time. I rolled up to the intersection at 5:02, right on time. 6 Single speeders and me on my Epic Evo, but a lot of times the people interested in this sort of masochism are also single speeders since it has its own brand of self-loathing (or something like that). Oh well, this isn’t my first rodeo, and I knew what gave me the best chance of having a decent day.

Riding up Clawhammer with Matt Shumaker was fun; his dad lives here in Brevard while he lives out in Washington most of the time. He was just visiting, apparently here to crush big routes. We had some good conversation going up clawhammer, but once we hit black, he let me know that was the last I’d see him for the day. Matt was riding a fully rigid single speed with a high post and 28-22 and crushed the day, so technology be damned, good old youth and fitness can take you a long way.

Anyhow, I settled into my own pace, I know the day, after all the rain on Friday and overnight everything was amazingly wet. The roots were slick as snot and all the branches, leaves, and even the air was still saturated. The view from the top of Black Mountain was different than the years in the past which were totally clear, this made for a cool picture with all the clouds. Turkeypen and Squirrel Gap were extra spicy as they’re full of roots that just wanted to send you sliding off the trail. I had already hit the deck twice before finishing up Turkeypen, so I was adjusting my approach a little.

Squirrel Gap is still probably my favorite trail in the forest even though wet, slick, and partially terrifying I found myself at home having fun. It was no doubt slower than normal but felt good to be back out there, it’s been a minute.

The first Loop really went mostly as planned, the crossing of south mills river at Wolf Ford, I took off my socks, put my shoes back on and trudged across. Then put the socks back on so at least they weren’t completely saturated, which I think was a solid call. Also, those woolie boolie’s, soooooo goooood.

Loop 2

Stopped at the cache, emptied my trash, picked up new food, filled bottles, ate, did all the things. I kept the stop to a decent time, about 15 mins, I think. Then headed up to the parkway. I was still feeling good, picked an effort and sort of just put it on cruise control all the way up to the Pisgah Inn before “cresting” over the top and starting a little bit of a descent down to Big Creek. Big Creek was about as fun as it’s been, maybe that was just because all the trail up to now was so slick and this had already started to dry some?

The trail was still slick under the leaves, but it felt good, Feeling the flow. That is until you get down to the bottom and the bowels of Pisgah. The bottom of Pisgah, sort of all feels the same. Downed trees, some boggy sections, creek crossings, there’s several places like this in the forest. Anyhow, I was still moving along well, but starting to feel some uneasiness in my belly region. I just kept on with my plans, food, water, some drink mix, etc. Hoping it would settle down.

I came out at North Mills River to run into Brad from Charleston and his wife. He mentioned that Matt had come through 15 min or so before and was moving along nicely. We chatted, he chided my choice of bike, and I moved on and started up Fletcher Creek. Soon after my stomach said that was enough and I needed to take care of some business. So, I found a good spot, made a hole, yadda yadda, but I didn’t have TP (rookie mistake) so leaves and whatever I could (spoiler alert this did not pan out).

Continuing up the Fletcher/Spencer climb, the stomach wasn’t settling out. I kept working on more water, trying my milder foods, but it didn’t want to settle. At the top of Trace Ridge, I walked a little extra and ate a little more diligently. Which helped for a minute or two, but the damage was there. Through North Mills, where the spigot I was hoping for to get some more water easily was off, I didn’t “need” water, but I was hoping to grab a little extra for the climb up 1206.

At this point I’m starting to have some knee pains too, I think my bottomside was bothering me and I shifted around my pedaling. On the way up 1206 I stopped once or twice to do some stretching and try to just get things in line. I was starting to wrestle with the idea that today might not be the day for me. I was texting Katie, which was nice, she was supportive, but ultimately this was all me. I decided to stay the course for now and see if I magically got a 2^nd wind on Laurel…. anyone who knows Laurel Mountain is likely thinking “ha, good luck” but it’s happened. Last year I felt pretty good there.

Not this year, at this point my bottom was ruined, knees were flaring, and eating was not fun. Then to put the cherry on top, I was riding along, actually smiling and having fun when a vine grabbed my handlebars and tossed me into the woods while ripping one of the boas off my shoes. So now I have a broken shoe…I think that might have been the nail.

I finished up Laurel, down Pilot Rock and back to the cache to get some water for the pedal down 276 back to the car.

Ride of Shame (but not really)

I was still on a decent timeline. It was 4:20 or so when I got back to the Cache, with a 15 minute stop I would have been back on the bike before 4:45 giving myself over 7 hours to get done by midnight. Today wasn’t my day though. I hung out for a few minutes and Chad and Chris came in, we chatted. As I sat for a little bit, I was able to get some salty chips down and almost thought maybe I’ll go, but that would have been a bad plan since as soon as I put any effort into riding back to the van my stomach reminded me of why I made the right move.

I got back to the van, headed home, the kids were in the garage waiting to scare me as I got out of the car, which made any thoughts of regret go away quickly. They didn’t care I had bailed; they were just happy I was there. Katie had food, which I was lucky with timing. I managed to ride most of the day and get home to have dinner with the family, at the end of the day it was about as good as I could ask for. I’ll have another chance at this route and even if I don’t I’ve completed it twice at this point (I will do it again though).

I love these rides, they hurt, there’s no guarantee you’ll finish, you need things to go right, but it’s ok if it doesn’t all go as planned.