RIDE REPORT -- WESTSIDE DIRTY BENJAMIN 2017 -- hot in yo face news from the backroads of MN
[archive dug out of email cavern -- originally sent on June 10, 2017]
CHASKA, MN (Gravel News Network) -- DIRTY BENJAMIN --- (unedited --- so read it during your "free time" because I'm not providing refunds if you read it when you shoulda been doing something else and feel disappointed with your decision.)
This story has a happy ending. Even two hours before it was over, it was pretty happy times. Even before the devouring a "Q Ban" pulled pork sandwich and a pile of baked beans at Q-Fanatic BBQ post-race with friend and fellow rider Mike Pasdo. That happiness is because there was a tailwind for maybe the last 20mi of an otherwise grueling day in the saddle. It's also because there were no wild animals chasing us during the windy sections when we could've been caught and eaten by an army of slugs, or whatever they call a group of those things if they even travel like that at all.
Yes, we are talking about hot wind in yo face today. We're talking 95 effin farenheitin' hot with winds around 25mph from the SW, gusting to hell-if-I-know speeds that nearly blew my skin off. No, it wasn't always a headwind --- there were crosswinds that whistled through the spokes and blew the front wheels to the sides forcing riders to swerve and then lean sideways into the wind.
If you've never been to a velodrome, you should get that fixed. It's a wooden cycling track that has 45 degree bank on the ends of the oval. When you are riding through the ends, you are pitched sideways at such an angle. that if you are up "high" on the track (near the top) then you actually have people riding underneath you, which is a pretty crazy experience. So we were not pitched at 45 degrees, but damn if we weren't wobbling between 0 and 10.
I suppose I may be making too much out of the heat, because we didn't really notice a whole lot except when we stopped, and especially when we hit the most convenient of stores in Henderson on the way back to base camp. Nope, it was not the heat at all somehow. It was the wind and it was the sandy-est gravel I've ever set wheel into. The gravel had tracks 2 inches deep, marking the way ahead with evidence of the riders ahead swerving and catching their balance. Miles without a decent "line" to follow. I'm looking down at the ground slowly passing under my pedals and I'm looking for shells and sea glass, then I swerve a bit and look up and it's grass and trees and a crow flapping and not moving.
Let's go back to the beginning. A little structure will help. We rolled out from Michael's Cycles in Chaska at 8a with about 150(?) riders. After a section of nicely paved bike path, we ended up on the first gravel. We noticed that during our chatting, the field ahead had split and we needed to move up a bit to get with a larger group. So at mile 5 we were pressing uphill through some of the first dispatched riders off the back of the two packs ahead. We landed with one and tucked in. It was only a few minutes before the sandy depths yanked down the speeds, the group trying to ride in a couple of lines, with everyone balancing through unseen dips and gusts, swerving and correcting, picking a path that looked like it wasn't as deeply sandy as the rest of the road.
I took it into the "gutter" in several sections, rolling over the grassy edge of the road, taking chances with the unknown surface below and nearly getting blown into the ditch more than a few times before swerving back in line with the pack. Through one straight headwind section, some riders took it a step further ---- riding through the tall grass off the side of the road (see pic of Pasdo). There was no peace to be had. I think we had one tailwind section in the first 40 miles and it felt like it was a half mile.
Along the way we road with some solid small crews, with characters like Big Pink. Mr. "+", Single Speed Sam, Red Bike Bill, Blonde Hubber, Tonka Tim, Low Rider, etc. Taking turns pulling at the front into the headwinds, echelon formations in the cross-winds. Collective head-scratching sessions where the route was not making sense --- especially when you see riders going in both directions from a fork in the road. At least one of them was left to the wilderness, as we shouted and whistled in his direction only to have our sounds blown back into our faces as he pressed forward to what was probably going to be the low point of the day. He may have been eaten by slugs. I didn't get his name, so I can't say for sure.
So then we are around mile 40, maybe 45, still rolling headlong into the wind when Mike let's out the alarm ----- "CRAMP!" ------- then stops, lays down his bike in the road and himself in the grass. He moaned a few times, pointed at his leg, then I saw it ---- a living being just under the skin above his knee ----- evidence of something alien in his leg trying to come out --- a little baby kicking in its patellary womb, twisting and pulsing. Practically speaking. Then he said something about "bearing down on the hill", and then I knew for sure that I was about to witness a birth of an alien knee baby, or some devilishly mini hot wind demon. We had one small nugget of good fortune, though, a brick farmhouse was right across the road from us. We walk-limped over there an camped out a bit under a big pine tree for a bit. A few riders passed by, not many, and nobody looking to spry either. (see video in folder)
Back in the saddle with an adjusted routing --- we would trim off the southern 30 of the course, and shortcut to Henderson, then put up the sails and cruise back to Chaska --- but not before facing back into the wind.
I've ridden in some wind, and even some hot wind before (Almanzo 2013 or something around there), but nothing quite like this. At any minute I was expecting a fence post or a cupola to whiz past my face, maybe worse. Dorothy's house spinning past a cow, maybe the lady in the black dress with Toto in a basket on a bike. I wasn't looking up much so maybe all that was there. I did stop to take a video of Pasdo, and no flying cows in there either. (see video in folder)
I didn't let that get in the way of science, however --- I faced down the road and spit into the air and then watched it travel over the road and land about ten feet away in the ditch. So I did that a few times more --- maybe because I didn't have a kazoo or a flute to tape to my bike to find out if there was music blowing overhead. Like I said, I didn't have any of that, so I had to just chuckle at the craziness of the whole situation, jump back on the bike and catch up to Pasdo in case he needed someone to count the contractions from his knee-baby.
Let me tell you part of what all this madness is about. Mainly it's about building up to something extreme --- beyond what I have thrown myself into before. The DAMN is the Day Across MN, a 240-mile fun-filled ride across the state, from S.Dakota to Wisconsin on dirt roads and trails --- to be completed on Aug 5th, in 24hrs if you want to get your free beer (well maybe, since I am not sure I am officially registered, but I am planning to be out there with Rittler and Pasdo). So, this thing with the wind at mile 50, it can be laughed at a bit because it can be managed and eventually the course would bend around to a tailwind. The DAMN is a straight line, west to east, so humor in such conditions may be harder to find, and consider
Eventually, we rolled into Henderson and the convenient store was chill, chilled, cooled, cool, and all that, plus it was attended by several bikers sitting on stacks of Morton salt pellets outside in the shade. Fugitives of the course, all of them, just like us. Escaping the route for the fast track to Chaska --- 27 miles to the northeast with a tailwind expected. We relaxed and chuckled and chatted, loaded up on fluids and then got back to business of getting ourselves back home in one piece.
Over the river outside of town, left turn onto the gravel of the scenic byway, things started to feel better real fast. Instead of sliding through the sand at 8mph, we were at 15-18 with tree cover. Ahead of us on the road, the shadows of the clouds above were moving up the road --- they were following our exact line, pacing us up the road in waves (though they were going about 20-25mph, so we weren't chasing them down).
The gravel turned to pavement and we were on some highways, holding tempo through East Union ---- nobody moving in the town, like they were all rehearsing for roles in a Cormac McCarthy novel. Then there was a sign for "H20" in a yard with a hose next to it under a tree. We watered up and learned it was maybe 7 more miles to Chaska, so we hit the road, wind at our back, on the paved rollers of Highway 40, past Maplewood Drive (former start of the gravel for the Dirty Ben), past the sand pit, then through the historic town of Carver. Onto the bike path, where the grasses and the trees waved us by, down the old rail line into Chaska town.
Rolled up to Pasdo's truck, and leaned over the handlebars. Had a few chuckles with Mike and then after loading up my bike, I sat down in the car with the AC blowing fierce. I looked down at my legs. I saw my calves there. I thought I saw them quivering a bit. Maybe they were still pedaling some revolutions of an unconscious ride. The pulses grew and they alternated. I couldn't feel it but I could see it happening. This was definitely not cramping ----- there was something living inside there.....then.....
Mike opens the other door and said "where do you wanna eat?" ......
PHOTOS (and a video of Mike's knee-baby): https://drive.
STRAVA link: https://www.strava.com/
-ng
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