Learning the Hard Way

My wife and I did two half century bike tours in 2007, again both in the month of September. The first one which this blog is about was the Tour de Whidbey on Whidbey Island. My wife and I spent a good portion of the summer that year cycling or training as some call it. It entailed several 40 milers in the Walla Walla area, a mountain stage from Dayton to Bluewood Ski resort, and a return trip to Friday Harbor where we logged well over seven miles this time. I felt well prepared in my conditioning for the Tour de Whidbey. All of this would be negated however by a few poor decisions and a little bad luck.


The ride started from a large commercial farm located near the center of the island. We arrived on time and ate the pre-ride breakfast which was included in the event fee. The breakfast was simple, pancakes and link sausage. I had three of each and then I made my first poor decision. Overeating. I would have been fine if I would have left my breakfast at that but one of the event volunteers came by our table with more sausage and asked me if I'd like some more. I said sure. The volunteer said, "Here have the whole plate" which had six link sausages on it. Stupid me not saying no to free food and greasy food at that, I downed every single one of them. This came back to haunt me right from the start of the ride with my stomach feeling like a grease filled balloon. The discomfort was hard to describe. It was like a cross between wanting to go to the bathroom and mild nausea. I felt like the character Fat Bastard (from the Austin Powers movies) on a bicycle.


So right from the start I didn't feel well. To make matters worse, the weather was "iffy" that day. The weather forecast was cool, mostly cloudy and it looked like there was a good chance for rain. So preparing for the worst I layered up. I wore three quarter length cycling short that went below the knee and layered up on top. A long sleeve cycling jersey under a light cycling jacket under a cycling rain jacket. Needless to say I was not cold on the ride but probably experienced the closest thing to male menopause in the form of hot flashes sporadically throughout the ride. This was due in part to two things. The weather and the geography of Whidbey Island.


A light rain fell a couple of times but not enough to warrant the rain jacket. We went from overcast cold to partly cloudy warm to sunny and hot. As the day progressed, the sun would come out to stay. Depending on the location of the island, we experienced no wind to extreme stormy wind. Then there was the geography.


Let me start off by saying this, if you like cycling up hills Tour de Whidbey is for you! As I would climb up a hill I would get hot. Really hot! So I would start unzipping layers and since I was wearing three layers I had alot of unzipping to do. Then came the descending which got really cold so I'd start zipping back up again. Zipping and zipping and zipping... . The weather and gorging myself like a pig however would not turn out the worst things of my day surprisingly. My worst enemy that day would turn out to be my bike itself.


Prior to the tour I took my bike in for a tune up. From a practical standpoint this is a sound decision. The mistake I made was that I did not test ride my bike prior to the tour. I learned the hard way at the Tour de Whidbey that my bike was not tuned up properly. In fact, my bike was in better condition before the tune up then after. It became horrifyingly clear right from the get go that it was not shifting properly. It was skipping gear rings on the rear cassette and when I applied torque on my pedal strokes for climbing, the chain would come off completely. I counted seven times during the ride my chain came off and every time it was climbing hills. My joy didn't stop there however. There was even more suffering to come.


It wasn't enough to just have shifting and chain problems though. My right pedal was adjusted too lose. This caused the cleat from my right shoe to pop out of the pedal several times. On scenic stretch along the waterfront, lined with nice houses I started my attack on a low rolling hill that curved to the right. Pedaling hard and fast up the hill, my cleat came out of the pedal again which this time threw my foot forward like it was shot out of a cannon in a kicking motion. My foot hit the rim of my front wheel since it was turned slightly to the right for the curve. After impact my foot came downward where it caught a spoke which sandwiched it between it and the front fork. The pressure from that caused my right foot to shoot back out from the wheel and back to my pedal. So basically in the middle of a full sprint, I kicked the "you know what" out of my front wheel. Mind you this all happened in just an instant and I almost crashed trying to regain control. Thankfully I was wearing cycling shoes with soles that do not to bend at all. That protected my foot from being folded in half. With a bruised and slightly lacerated leg I examined the wheel. I had bent the front rim and it was now rubbing against the front brake. Great... Just great. Now I had to cycle half the remaining tour with a bent rim giving me even more rolling resistance climbing the hills of Whidbey Island!


On an up note, I found a remedy to eating an insane quantity of pork sausages. That remedy came in the form of a peanut butter and honey sandwich on white bread which I consumed at the first break station. That sandwich soaked up all the grease in my stomach like a sponge. Within minutes I was feeling much, much better.

Despite my hardships I did enjoy the Tour de Whidbey. To encapsulate the fifty mile ride here is the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good was the beautiful scenery despite the weather. You could see the Puget Sound for about 80 percent of the ride and the break stations were well equipped with friendly volunteers. The bad was the island. Whidbey Island is one hilly son of a... well you know. The ugly would be the route. I don't think it is possible to have a route on Whidbey island to avoid all the hills, but shame on whom ever decided to make one of the longest legs of the route on a busy state highway. Not only that but through an active construction zone as well! On one stretch of the highway my wife pointed out to me an actual paved bicycle path that ran parallel for a couple miles. We found an access point to it and used the path instead deciding it was safer. Of all the bike tours that I've done I still think Tour de Whidbey was the most dangerous from a traffic standpoint.

On the last major hill before the finish my wife pulled off to the side of the road and doubled over in pain. I ushered her and her bike to a near by wide spot across the street since the road we were on had no shoulders. She was complaining of generalized pain throughout her body and had visible shortness of breath. I told her to try and concentrate on her breathing because it appeared to me like she was about to hyperventilate. To this day I still don't know what affected her. We rested there for a good twenty minutes while she sat on a large boulder and regained her breath. Still in a lot of pain, she rode on the last mile to the finish.

Tour de Whidbey 2007 turned out to be quite an adventure in cycling.