Alpineophobia

Not to be confused with acrophobia, alpineophobia involves a fear of mountains. This malady is quite common among old, out-of-shape, cyclists from the swamplands of Florida. Thus, the one thing we do not want to see during trip planning is a Day One profile like this:

Okay, so it's not an HC climb, just a measly Cat 1 of 15 miles at an average 4.2% grade. Starting a half mile into the ride. Did I mention it's the 1st day? Unfortunately, it doesn't get much better the 2nd day as the ever playful bike gods save the climb for the last 8 miles of the day.

Well, of course, they made it shorter so it could be a lot steeper. I don't know about the math, but I'm pretty sure elevation grade is logarithmic. Keep in mind that, last trip, we decided we were getting a little old for all this physical exertion. Of course, we couldn't just face our own mortality and stop doing it, so we just added one or more SAG (Support and Grub) vehicles. If you have six riders and one SAG, everyone gets to drive once every six days and that becomes their rest day. We decided to chose by drawing straws (not yet able to determine if drawing the short straw and driving is considered winning or losing). We allowed for "volunteers", or as we identify them, "wussies". I'm guessing for the 1st day we will have multiple wussies and will have to draw straws to see who actually has to ride.

The Holy Grail

As mentioned in a previous post, part of the training regimen involves a diet scientifically designed to provide the complex nutritional demands of an endurance athlete. After many grueling rides and thousands of hard miles, we have discovered that the perfect balance is provided by the Breakfast Sandwich (or colloquially, "Brefas Samich"). Nothing is better after riding for a couple of hours than finding some hole-in-the-wall in the middle of nowhere that serves a great breakfast sandwich. So, this morning, on a 43 mile loop through Monticello, I continued my demanding training schedule by consuming one at the Brick House Eatery. Oh, the sacrifices we endure.

PS to Yesterday's Post

Anybody need a rare, vintage, full-suspension Woodstock 770 MTB? Hand crafted by a small internet-only shop in Woodstock, GA, in 2008, that went out of business shortly thereafter. Only been ridden on segments of the Great Divide and the frame has only been welded twice.

Well, it's new to me

My Dad (or somebody’s Dad, I forget) always said “You don’t need to be rich, you just need to have rich friends”. How else could someone of my questionable standing in the community and limited means get to watch FSU football games in a skybox? And so it is now with my new (to me) bike. Luckily for me, Alan has always got to have the latest and greatest equipment and technology. So when he built a Trek Project One 29er on line and picked it up at the LBS, he had to get rid of his 5 year old Gary Fisher HiFi Plus 29er. I guess I can’t legitimately claim that I couldn’t afford this bike new, just that it would never occur to me to spend that much on a bicycle (I’ve bought serviceable cars for less). My primary reasoning, other than having parents that lived through the Depression, is that a rider of my ability is not capable of knowing, or more importantly, taking advantage of, the difference between a $5,000 bike and a $500 one. An expensive ride can obviously save you several pounds. But I could theoretically (emphasis definitely mine) lose several pounds easier and cheaper than buying a better bike. So, anyway, now I have this bike that is way beyond my abilities. The biggest downside for me is that I won’t be able to use the bike as an excuse for my poor performance. Having run and ridden for many years, I have a vast repertoire of other excuses.  

Introduction

I guess I should explain a little bit about the Idaho Hot Springs Mountain Bike Route, since that's, ostensibly, what this blog is supposed to be about.. The route is a new one just developed by Adventure Cycling and entails a 517 mile loop through central Idaho starting in Idaho City that passes through over 50 hot springs. The Adventure Cycling link provides more details at http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/adventure-cycling-route-network/idaho-hot-springs-mountain-bike-route/. I'm being relived of the oppressive responsibility of planning this trip, that task being assumed by Bill Hunter. I can not express what a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. It appears that, since I am writing this blog, I am still the CIO of the Sloths, about all the responsibility I can handle. So far it looks like about 40-50 miles per day with a couple of rest days thrown in (unfortunately, Mac is not going on this trip so he wont be around to complain about rest days being for wussies). I suppose I should also talk about the incredible preparation required for a trip of this magnitude. Basically, this is broken into two primary regiments: diet and training. My diet will consist of primarily switching from real IPAs to "session IPAs" (beer snob question: isn't a session IPA an oxymoron? isn't a session IPA just a Pale Ale?). My training will consist of increasing my weekly ride mileage to 100 miles a week from its current zero. As we invariably say when starting these rides, we can always just "ride into shape".

Blog Creation

Okay, so the background photo is a complete misrepresentation, so sue me. Yours truly has decided he must go on another one of these bike rides because he won't be able to go on them much longer. Plus, other than me having to buy a new mountain bike, my wife encourages it because she enjoys the quiet, clean house and being able to enjoy chick flick marathons without the juvenile sexual background banter. So at this point, I'm not even sure who's in (Sloth motto: "I'm out"), other than me, Hunter and I think, Alan who will just mysteriously appear from points west like Ted Kaczynski coming out of the woods.Of course, the trip out involves a stop in New Orleans (and, yes, I guess it coincides with Southern Decadence again. Coincidence? I think not.) And then we get to head to Arlington, TX to see the Noles begin their juggernaut to National Championship #4. (what could be better than Cowboys and Indians in Texas?)  From there, a couple of boring days to drive to Idaho City (Hunter says: "Kansas is why God invented flying - though we will actually avoid Kansas and go through Colorado, which may actually take longer since pot is legal there but we wont care). I'm guessing Idaho back woods doesn't have great cell coverage (Verizon: "When cows have cell phones, we'll put towers out there"), so updates will be spotty, as usual. Stay tuned...