Bicycling as Breathing

 

Question: How can a year happen in one day?

 

Answer: On a bicycle in the hills during an adventure on John’s birthday, March 7, 2004.

 

It seemed so nice. It started so calmly. I woke up after sleeping in slightly (compared to normal Erma ride time). It was John’s birthday. Our tradition calls for all the chains to come off our lives for that one day and for the freedom to find full expression on a notable, if not epic, bike ride of the birthday rider’s choice.

 

Last year JB’s choice was the Sierra Century, which meant doing Slug Gulch in early March. Somehow I was sort of prepared for that. But that was last year.

 

I thought I was prepared for this year. I’d been riding. I felt good. Little did I know what lay ahead.

 

A long bike ride into new territory always holds the chance of adventure.

 

When JB arrived at my house, the day was warm and sunny and as innocent as a baby sleeping.

 

A baby gorilla, as it turned out. Innocent ourselves, and with the enthusiasm of renewed youth, we loaded my car and headed to our starting point near Auburn, where we parked near Machado’s, the fruit stand and pie bakery. The icing on our plan, as usual, was to buy celebratory pies after the ride.

 

We rolled easy out of Bowman, past Bell Rd and Dry Creek Rd. Up and around the pond called Lake Somethingorother and into Clipper Gap. Applegate. Just as the hills were beginning to warm our legs and our bodies were settling into the rhythm of riding, we stopped at our friends Mike and Sharon’s house for a short visit. After discussing GPS systems, life in general, and getting a tour of his latest home improvements, we had anything but a short visit. In fact, we were, in effect, starting our ride all over--at approximately NOON.

 

OK, now a bit of hurry-up was involved as we both tried to do the math in our heads, while riding, talking, looking at the scenery, and just plain soaking in a beautiful day. I gave up doing the math since the math depended on our ability to traverse quite a bit of terrain I’d never seen and John had seen only once over a year before.

 

We knew somewhere between 25 and 30 miles of what turned out to be a 65-mile route. If I had done THAT math, I might have reconsidered. John’s description of the route after the part I knew (to Iowa Hill) characterized it as just undulations, rolling hills, along a ridgeline.

 

Well, I guess you could call it that—but only if you consider Mt. Ventoux an undulation.

 

After we reloaded our water and food and drank as much as possible at Colfax, we headed down the canyon to the north fork of the American River. There we paused for photos of the high water, the kayakers, and the historic bridge.

 

Then “The Climb.”

 

The first two miles out of the canyon are steep. For Amador riders: it’s not as steep as the steepest parts of Charleston, but steeper than Slug Gulch—or maybe as steep as the steepest part of Slug, but unending, unrelenting--for the entire length.

 

OK, I’m lying. It does level off. About a mile up, there is one slight leveling-off (about to the grade of Rams Horn’s steepest) that lasts about 12.5 feet. I made that part last as long as I could. I pedaled just faster than the fall-down point. Then The Climb starts again.

 

While I was climbing, I progressed through several mental and physical plateaus.

 

At first, I was confident, even cocky. I felt strong. I was warmed up. It was such a beautiful day even the rednecks were friendly. I’d taken off all my extra clothes. And we’d done this climb before—in fact for my birthday last October. It had been a grind, but a doable grind.

 

Fortunately, I had enough sense not to be too cocky and “attack” the hill. I just settled in and pedaled. The very first part is just climbing—like the steepest part of Sutter-Ione Rd, but steady. Then came the point where I could no longer sit and turn the pedals, even with my “compact” crankset (30X25). John had disappeared up the hill with his 39X27.

 

OK, this was not easy climbing, but I was turning over the pedals. “Just get into a rhythm.” Breathe. Breathe. Pedal. Pedal. At first, it was one complete breath cycle to 3 or 4 pedal revolutions. Eventually, it became one gasping breath per half revolution.

 

But meanwhile, I was starting to sweat. That feels good, I thought—a good, lubricating, warming sweat. Suddenly, around one bend, it’s full-on summertime. We left the river in mid spring. A mile up the road it was Death Valley. I was entering one of the first rings of Dante’s Inferno—I was pedaling very slowly into Hell.

 

I keep getting ahead of myself because that’s how my mind was working then. By mid-climb, I was racing through scenarios—no, they were racing through me. I had reached that point at which I was no longer in control of my thought process. I could not “point” my brain, my attention, at an issue or a thought or a problem and deal with it. My brain was trapped in a hot bony cage atop a very very heavy body twisting itself rhythmically over a swaying bicycle.

 

The bike seemed to want to aim for the cliff. If I let my attention go for half a second, I seemed to awake from one attention level to another as if from sleep, with my vehicle headed over a road edge and down the shear canyon wall toward the inviting river.

 

I forgot to put my gloves on at the river. My hands were so sweaty that I had to concentrate simply to keep a grip on the bars. There was nothing casual about this climbing now. It was 100% pure physical effort. But I still had to find a way to tame the brute physicality with meditation of some kind. If pure physical strength is the flour of climbing, thought and technique are the yeast. I knew that if I fell into the trap of purely muscling the bike up the hill, I would collapse. Then I would cry. And John would have to ride back down the hill after a long wait to find me lying immobile with cramps and humiliation in the middle of the road—where, if I was lucky, the next pickup would simply run over my head and pop it.

 

So I kept going. At that first stage, it was not because I wanted to. I wanted to do just about anything else at first. But I had just enough long-distance mind, just enough Zen mind, just enough residual riding mind, just enough adventure mind—I don’t really know what it was—but I knew that I was physically capable of more than I was comfortable doing and then even more beyond that.

 

I was beyond the comfort zone, far beyond. But when I regrouped my attentive powers enough to reintroduce my mind to my body, I could tell that my legs were not overwhelmed, even if struggling. It’s a fine line, but they had not crossed it. My lungs were doing OK. In fact my heart rate was shockingly low—not even 150.

 

That fact added another scare. My HR should have been more like 160 at least with that effort level. A low HR means general fatigue. That means everything would be hard, this hill and everything after it. Mind wanted to excuse itself again and escape.

 

I remembered how to breathe, how to use my leg’s levers to pedal instead of the muscle. I remembered the larger rhythmic leverage of my body’s weight swaying between the bars and the pedals. My sheer weight not pushing but softly levering down through the pedals and being transferred into forward motion—no matter how slight.

 

I reached the next plateau of acceptance. I can do this. I can manage. I can survive. I am not overwhelmed. I’m not conquering this mountain. I’m not showing off. I’m not even proud of what I’m doing or how I look. But I’ll make it. I . . . just . . . have . . . to . . . keep . . . pushing . . . one . . . pedal . . . and . . . then . . . the . . . other . . .

 

I’m breathing into my belly. I’m breathing out from my belly on a downstroke. I’ve finally found a rhythm, even if a very slow and labored one.

 

And then the hill actually got steeper.

 

Why am I here? Why do we do this? Where has all that arrogant confidence gone? Why can I not even remember what it felt like? Why am I now not only willing but eager to hear out the reasoning behind the comments from people who’ve said “You’re crazy” when I described our rides?

 

But I reach back down farther into my mind-belly and pull out yet another mental and physical state. The State of Pure Survival. The mental tricks flash behind my eyes like playing cards sent flying past by a fast dealer—the reasons for not stopping—embarrassment, self-testing, reward for continuing, learning my limits, moving back those limits, training. The one that finally made me keep attempting one more pedal stroke and then yet another was thinking of walking and how embarrassing and slow it would be in these shoes. And how dumb I would look.

 

Finally, I settled even into that plateau. I got used to it. I knew I could keep going even at that level—at least for a while. I had gotten past the point where I could not afford to let myself look up and see how far I had to go. I could look up now. I was not afraid. I was not strong. I was not confident. I felt, in fact, that I had been nearly completely dismantled mentally and physically by my interaction with that mile or two of roadway. But I was no longer afraid.

 

I knew more than I did at the river. And I was still pedaling.

 

And then around a bend, when I looked up from the trees, I saw sky instead of more trees, and knew I was reaching the ridgeline, the top of The Climb. There was still some of the steepest climbing to go—just a few yards, really, but so steep I had to stand and I had to concentrate on putting every bit of my weight and effort into each pedal stroke to keep myself moving.

 

And then there was John, waiting. He was not looking as fresh as he had. He was soaked with sweat too. I don’t know what he went through, but I’m sure it was at least something like what I did—probably not quite as bad.

 

Almost simultaneously, we said, “That was hard.” A simple sentence with a novel behind it.

 

The last yards of the climb to the ridge are simply pedaling. Just being able to pedal the bike, even in our lowest gears, felt like riding on flat land. We were riding something about the grade of Rams Horn at that point.

 

In a matter of seconds, then, we were over the hump, cresting the ridge above the canyon. We moved from open, exposed, hot, nearly desert-like roadway into a dark forest that hugged the road like a soft tunnel. It was a green twilight in there. We rolled luxuriantly next to a tumbling creek, muffled by thick moss on every stone. The pine views were softened, muted, darkened by wild grape vines, ferns, and mosses on everything.

 

From “The Tunnel,” we emerged into more typical pine forestland—open, airy, bright. Here we could see distinct pines standing on carpets of deep needles and oak leaves. In The Tunnel, everything was hidden below vines and brush.

 

And then a couple of manzanita sweeps and curves produced Iowa Hill. The entire town was in the bar. We could smell that no one seemed to heed the “No Smoking” sign. When I went in to ask if it was OK to use the hose for water, the people at the bar stared unsmiling.

 

Not a single person even nodded acknowledgment of our being fellow humans. They seemed to have their doubts. The two most obvious accouterments of humanity in Iowa Hill were Marlboros and Budweiser. Since we had neither, I guess it was an understandable oversight on their part.

 

Watered up, we moved on into what was for me the absolute unknown. John had ridden this road once before. He was my guide from here on.

 

And that fact turned out to be one of the next problems we were to face. John seems intelligent. His feet seem to be on the ground. He calculates his gears and calories on spreadsheets. I’d forgotten one aspect of John that is almost completely the opposite of the spreadsheet-careful, detail-exact guy that everyone he works with encounters. Have I finally put my finger on what we have in common? He can be a go-for-it plunger, but he rarely shows it outwardly. He can take full advantage when the ties are cut to work and other obligations. He gets absorbed and transported by rocks, vistas, flocks of wild turkeys. Behind the exactitude and sociable professionalism is a kid, a rock-and-roll flower child, a exuberant Sufi monk on wheels, twirling in colors in a world of pure sensation.

 

OK, that’s all fine—except when you make the mistake of believing the terrain charted by such a person.

 

When he said that Iowa Hill would be the highest elevation we’d reach. I was slightly disappointed that it was only 2840 feet instead of something more majestic and different from our usual foothill rides. From Iowa Hill, according to John, we would ride 13 miles on “undulations” along a “ridge,” tending “downhill” if anything. I’m sure he said that—no matter what he says.

 

Then we would reach Foresthill Rd and coast downhill for 9 miles to Foresthill. I used to be the garbage man for Foresthill—that’s another lifetime and another set of stories. In fact, even before that, my girlfriend at Sierra College was the daughter of the owners of the hardware store in Foresthill. I digress—that’s all my mind wanted to do at this point in our ride.

 

The “undulations” turned into what anyone else—say, anyone in his right mind—would call HILLS. We climbed steep pitch after pitch. In between was just regular climbing or flats—or even worse a little sharp downhill into a valley we had to climb back out of.

 

From “topping out” at 2800 feet, we climbed to 3000. OK. Good. That’s fine. That would sound better in the stories and reports. But after John read the 3000 feet off his altimeter watch, I turned to him and pointed out—gently, calmly, I think—that we were still climbing. I think I made some remark about his memory and his definition of “ridges” and “undulations.” He just rode off ahead of my, lapping up mileage and scenery.

 

Right in this area—about 3000 feet, we were in some pretty spectacular scenery, I admit. One area, which I will call The Cathedral, was as quiet as Earth can be without being dead. We rolled through it not saying anything, our heads swiveling from mossy redwood to spring rivulet to gnarled pine bent over the roadway. It felt as though we’d entered one of the English cathedrals that we’d just been talking about (John’s brother is married to an English woman). It was as if we sat lightly on our saddles to make our tires quieter. It was as though we tiptoed our bikes through The Cathedral. I can’t even say what made the area feel like that. It just was.

 

When we emerged, we could talk again. It was an obvious exit. As JB promised, we left the high, deep forest for an open, brushy area, mostly just manzanita. We actually were on undulations for a while then—just rolling hills. We seemed to be making progress as our watches were moving toward a time when we should begin to panic about running out of daylight.

 

Our concerns about time only added to the adventure at this point. We rode on—not that we had any choice in this area where there were no homes or cars, much less other signs of civilization, such as stores or towns—or taxis.

 

Somewhere in here I bonked—a full bonk. I had not just the low energy level, but the cold sweats, and the mental shutdown that forced me to stare at my front tire and just pedal slowly, making circles with my feet as smoothly as I could. I’d been there. I knew I’d recover. In fact, as I was coming out of it, I convinced myself to be grateful it was happening then—even though we had a long way to go and apparently more climbing to do. Typically when I recover, I do fine from then on.

 

John keeps reading out our elevation from his magic watch—3500 feet. “OK, now we have an official adventure. We had begun to see little patches of snow along the roadside. I was thinking it was great that we could brag that we’d ridden up to where there was still snow on the ground. It sounded like an accomplishment.

 

We passed 3500 ft. 3600. 3700 3800. Then we were joking about 4000. Both of us—since the day was still warm—were probably hoping we’d reach 4000—but assuming we wouldn’t. Then we were just below 4000 feet. It seemed a ridge, a crest. I had a fleeting, vague disappointment mixed with relief. The crest didn’t last. We started to climb again. 4100. More jokes—but shaky ones. I asked John if he was sure we were on the right road. Since we’d seen only one other road, I didn’t really have much doubt, but wanted some kind of reassurance, I guess.

 

I jokingly told him that no matter how little more we climbed I was telling people we climbed to 4500 ft—it seemed my right to round up at least that much. It sure felt as though we’d climbed that much.

 

4200 ft. 4300 ft. 4400 ft. It was not a joke. It was not even rounding anymore. Then 4500 feet. By then we had hit some cold. We descended to Sugar Pine Reservoir and then climbed back out to an even higher level. And we were riding among snowfields and with the roadside snowbank at the same level as our heads.

 

We both realized that this would not be a ride we would have to do any exaggerating about. We topped out at 4515 ft.

 

It was in this area that I started to have regular problems with my saddle. It kept coming loose and tilting up so that I could no longer sit on it. That made for some very uncomfortable climbs. I had to stop several times to adjust and retighten it.

 

But then Sugar Pine Road ended, as promised, at Foresthill Road—a wide, smooth highway of a road. It’s a ribbon on a wide ridge between two canyons. The one on the left as we descended is the middle fork of the American. I know that much. We began flying down the wide ribbon of road. Lines of pine forest reeling by us like teeth in a huge comb at times. Without effort we were doing 30-40 MPH, when 10 MPH up to then had been an impossible dream.

 

Off to the left—to the east—was not only the huge hole, the dropoff into the American River canyon, but in the distance the huge snowy tops of the Sierra crest. Not just the little tips we can see from even down here in the valley, but huge monuments of granite, looking as if one or two steps could bring them right next to us.

 

There were genuine undulations on this road. Below and in front, we could see huge mounds of hill that the highway just ignored and ribboned over. It looked like more climbing from a distance, but once we got there with our 40 MPH momentum, we cruised over them with a few pedal sweeps in our biggest gears.

 

John pulled this entire way. I was still a bit unsure about my energy level, but I also recognized in him that he was in the zone. Over the years I can just tell when he wants the front. He’s just on cruise control. But he and I were still looking around, still pointing out things occasionally to each other.

 

At one point, as we blew smoothly downhill at 35 MPH, he screamed over at me, from pure piled-up and overflowing exuberance, “Bicycling is FUN!”

 

Baker’s Ranch. Long ago memories slightly stirred. Then Foresthill. The town with two main streets side by side. Lots of memories stirred, but distant. A town I once knew fairly well now a foreign place, but with a cast of memory over it.

 

We refueled—hot peanuts and Starbuck’s DoubleShot. The perfect fuels for the final nearly 20 miles. It was mostly downhill. Much more traffic now, but a wide shoulder.

 

A few false summits and false turns, where we thought we were just about to come to the famous Foresthill bridge, but didn’t. The sun was setting. It was pretty, but it was in our eyes and in the eyes of the drivers behind us. A little scary at times. We pedaled hard to get there as soon as we could and not get caught by dark.

 

Around another set of bends—by then we knew were we were—and the vista opens onto the bridge. No time for anything other than pedaling since we’re losing the light. The final climb is the last bit of ascent immediately after the bridge—about a half mile—up to Bowman. My saddle slipped again on that climb, so I had to finish it in an odd sitting position.

 

Fixed it at the top. Then we took off and were both astonished at the feeling of riding on FLAT land for the first time in 8 hours. We loved it. It felt as though our bikes had motors and were propelling themselves over velvet.

 

In our 65 miles today, we’d done over 7200 feet of climbing. In the 117 miles accumulated on the weekend, we’d climbed the equivalent of the Death Ride.

 

We’d taken so long that Machado’s, the pie bakery, was closed. No birthday pie this time. But neither of us cared. We wanted to get home and eat pasta and bask in the afterglow of an adventure.