training ride 1: cookie monster cookie
As you know, it’s Lance Armstrong ride season again. The ol’ blog wouldn’t be complete without a couple of training maps to give you a taste of life in the saddle. Not that you want to taste a bike saddle after it’s been underneath a butt for 60-plus miles, but you know what I mean.
I was looking for an appropriate route for the first big test of Shiki, my vintage road bike, when news of the upcoming Monster Cookie ride fell into my lap. Life is like that sometimes, and thank goodness. The Monster Cookie ride, for the uninitiated, is a metric century (100 km, or 62 mi) that goes from Salem to Champoeg and back. That’s pronounced “sham-POO-ee,” by the way. Anyhoo, the money raised benefits the Salem Bike Club.
Far too early in the morning, I donned my Cookie Monster bike jersey and hopped the MAX train to a co-worker’s house. She, her husband, her riding partner, and I took our bikes apart and fit them puzzle-like into the back of the minivan. Don’t ask me how—I think Escher himself would’ve scratched his head at this one. We got up onto I-5 and joined the caravan of vehicles headed for our state’s capital.
As early as the parking lot of the Capitol building, I proved myself to be a complete Prestard. That’s a new made-up word which means, “one who knows nothing about bike tires with Presta valves.” My old Schrader valves were much easier: just slap the clamp on, pump in a little air, feel the tires, and you’re done. But Presta valves are high-maintenance. They have to be unscrewed. “Burped.” Coddled. Opened by brute pressure. Babysat. Pacified. In the end, I guess it’s nice that they can hold onto all that air, but damn, do they have to be so finicky about it?
Anyway, registration fees paid and pockets stuffed with energy bars, we pulled out on the road. Suddenly, the day had gone from a very theoretical idea about testing endurance for the Lance ride to an overwhelmingly real sink-or-swim evaluation of that endurance. Scary. Nice weather for it, though. We had clear skies, warm roads, and the hint of a breeze. And it felt great. Great enough, in fact, for me to leave my friends behind for a few miles. Something about gritting my teeth into a breeze just kicks me into gear.
The first rest stop at around 15 miles proved the Monster Cookie ride to be true to its namesake: oversized cookies were there at the treat table, right alongside the more traditional peanut butter, bananas, and nasty corporate drink. My companions caught up, and we moved on.
This time, we stuck together in a mini-peloton to bear up under the slightly increased wind. They even let me lead the pack briefly, so I could learn what the hell I was supposed to do. It’s tougher than it sounds: you have to make zillions of tiny adjustments to your speed, so that you neither leave them behind nor make them impatient. Ah, screw it. Lynne-with-an-E and I left ‘em behind anyway. Shiki wanted to cruise at 17 MPH, and she would settle for nothing less.
On to Champoeg State Park and a welcome vegetarian boxed lunch. The treed expanses of grass were beautiful, even with resting bikers draped all over. I stuffed my face with potato salad and got to know the members of Team Bag Balm (an unoffical “bicycle gang” of kindred spirits who occasionally meet up at group rides like this).
During the third leg of the ride, it was all about working the stiffness out of our legs, getting back into our rhythm, and finding a seat position that wouldn’t pinch anything important (don’t ever buy a Selle Italia Nitrox saddle, by the way!). I had my first close call with another bicycle—when you’re all drafting each other, a safe distance can become a hazardously close gap in less than a second. Reflexes can be a little sluggish when we’re still fat and sleepy from lunch.
After the final rest stop, I decided I’d offer to be the windshield again, so I headed towards the front of the pack. But my fellow riders called, “There he goes,” thinking I was just going to leave ‘em in the dust. So I did. I didn’t mean to, but Shiki wouldn’t let me slow down. I paid for it with sweat on the lonely, windy back stretch, but eventually the roads filled back in with bikers and my spirits lifted. Jason, one of the Bag Balmers, caught up with me, and we chatted on the way into town.
We followed the Dan Henrys (secret coded paint marks that cyclists leave for each other on the streets) back to the Capitol, stretched out in the afternoon sun, and washed down chocolate chip cookies with stale coffee. Shiki and I had proven we could handle the kind of miles we’ll need to be able to do in July. Now we’ve just gotta raise the money.