The Uphill Battle: Travel

Give a LOTOJA racer a hand

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 13:08:16 GMT

Ladies and gents, Dan, of Uncadan8 fame, is doing a 206-mile road bike race this Saturday. Unfortunately, there's a slight problem with his logistics. He's going to do the race from Logan to Jackson, but then when it comes to his trip back to Jackson (ahem, 206 miles, in case you didn't catch that), he only has a few 'maybe's from people with regard to getting back.

Now, granted, he'll have a bike there he can use ... but do you know anyone who can ride for 12 hours one day and then get up the next morning and repeat it? Yeah, Jay Petervary doesn't count, and neither does Chris Eatough, Jure Robic, Johnny G, or Tinker.

Anyway, the guy could use a hand. If you know of anyone who can make that trip that day, please leave a comment. I'd do it myself, but I have some prior obligations I'll be compelled to attend to.

Teton Pass

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 15:05:09 GMT

For this special weekend edition of The Uphill Battle, I just want to take you for a photo tour of my challenge for the next month ... year ... decade, whatever. Teton Pass is the reason this blog is called The Uphill Battle. It's a 4.7-mile, 2,300-foot menacing climb (believe me, the gradients on this thing are a killer) where the local cycling club holds a race every year. Unfortunately, circumstances make it impossible for me to race the Pass Climb this year, but I'm still going to attempt to conquer the 40-minute mark against the clock before the season ends. And yes, when my baby has been born, the season will officially come to an end.

Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to imbed photos yet (Tom, when you get a minute, I could use another of your blog tutorials--thanks for those, by the way), so you're just going to have to follow my guidance as we go along.

When you start out, the climb isn't so bad: it starts a little steep and then evens out, and then it starts turning around the side of this mountain and increasing in gradient. Eventually, you get to a point where if you were to look behind you, you'd see photo number four, and way off in the distance above you, you'd see photo number three, which is the top as seen from mile 2. Seeing the top from this point can be pretty discouraging--it leaves you thinking, "I have to go from here to there?!" so, as a general rule, I try not to look up at all during that part of the ride.

By the time you've reached mile number three, you feel like you've been climbing for an eternity or more. The road pulls a nearly 180-degree turn and continues upward, but it levels off momentarily. For just thirty seconds or so, you see your speed bounce delightfully up into the teens ... then the gradient begins again. The last two miles (photo one) are torturous, twisty road that lead up to the final sprint.

In the final half-mile, the road suddenly turns upward even sharper than it has before this. This is the point where I had to outsprint that world-famous skier back in my first race (or face the shame of being beaten by a girl!). This is what you see in photo five. That's also the point in the race where I really felt the puke coming on last year. It came, and it went ... right out onto the pavement. But when you get to the top, you get to look out over the view in photo two at what you've conquered. And believe me, all the puking in the world couldn't ruin that moment.

Anyway, be prepared for many blog entries on the subject in the weeks to come. I'll let y'all know how Saturday goes.

Two Reasons ...

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 05:16:30 GMT

... why Grand Teton National Park is cooler than Yellowstone.

P.S. I promise to write a real blog entry tomorrow night. Really.

My Anniversary Was Great ...

Mon, 22 May 2006 22:06:53 GMT

Thanks for asking.

No really, I'd planned to take my woman to a show in West Yellowstone, Mt, at the Playmill Theater, but alas, they don't open for another week. Same situation with the Bar J Wranglers in Jackson Hole. So instead, we took a little road trip.

I've been living within two hours of Yellowstone National Park for six years now, but I've never been ... don't say it--I know, pretty ridiculous. But hey, I've been there now. We threw some food in the car on Saturday and headed out for Old Yellerstone ... er ... Faithful.

Do you do this too?

As we rolled up and around the twisty roads, through the mountains, between trees, within range of buffalo, elk, and thankfully no bears, across the continental divide (in three different places) and through the scented clouds of natural geysers and stinkpots, I couldn't help but think aloud, "Gosh, it'd sure be sweet to have a bike with me through all of this." Prompting an eye-rolling from my wife. Go figure. I guess I do that just about everywhere we go that involves mountains--Oregon's Blue Mountains, the Teton Range, the Rockies in general ... I suppose I can understand how that would get on my wife's nerves a little ...

But really, I've decided that a bike trip through Yellowstone would be awesome. In fact, I may actually pay the $50 and go on the tour of the park after they close it to cars in the fall. That could be a really fun little trip--although I doubt they'd let me take on the mountainous areas. Bike touring sounds like fun.

However, I must interject, the best part of the whole trip came after we'd left Yellowstone. Out of the south entrance, toward Jackson Hole, there's a smaller, much less famous national park, Grand Teton, just south of there. And perhaps it was just the fact that we got there just after a rainstorm, or perhaps it was just the way the setting sun knifed its way through those mountain peaks and hit the lake, but I'd have bought a whole calendar of images from that vantage point.

Successful Cycling Commute!

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:19:25 GMT

My wife has a reading day today (they never had those when I was in college--last year), so we had to work out some kind of transportation arrangement. After reading Fatty's post about losing base fitness yesterday, I came home for lunch, saw the dry pavement outside, and decided to find out where my fitness was at. I think I completed five miles on the ol' road bike (granted that a mile and a half of the five was the toughest climb in town) and nearly froze my toes off in the process, but I did go for a ride involving REAL OXYGEN this time.

So when I got up this morning, I thought to myself, "I only have to work at the nearby office today, and I can fit my laptop in that junky freebie backpack I won for writing the best news story at the college paper in 2003." Okay, so I didn't think all of that, but I had to gloat. What's the point in winning a junky backpack if you can't toot your own horn about it? So I loaded up everything I thought I'd need: deoderant, power cord, water bottle, etc etc. I kissed my wife goodbye and rode out into the cold. Gosh was it cold at 7:30 am! But it's not the temperature that has been keeping me from riding; it's been the ice on the roads, and that wasn't a problem this morning.

I had a blinking red light I attached to the back of my backpack (because the laptop was of course more valuable than my life), and I imagined to myself that the passing motorists appreciated my courtesy in announcing my presence. To my surprise, someone in a large diesel truck waved at me as he passed. Maybe Idaho is more bike friendly than I'd previously thought. I picked up the pace to lessen the frostbite damage. Still, it felt good, and it was probably less than 20 minutes before I got to work, sat at my desk and began sweating like the fountain at Trafalgar Square. (There IS a fountain there, right TimD?)

So now I'm at work. I have feeling back in my chin and fingers, and I've already eaten the lunch I packed. I just called home to find that my wife just barely got out of bed. I wish I had a reading day.

P.S. If you haven't yet read the article I linked from InsideTriathlon, "Man, 30, killed by water bottle," take the time. It'll make you wish you lived somewhere warmer and were a professional athlete training for an Ironman Triathlon full time. http://www.insidetri.com/news/fea/3119.0.html

Update: It's been snowing since I got off my bike (in fact I think it was snowing while I was riding[????]) so my wife arrived for lunch and promptly confiscated my bike. It's in the back seat of the car now. That's okay, the temperature has been steadily dropping too, so the snow that melted this morning has since become a thin sheet of ice. Maybe I'll reread that triathlon story while I ride the spinning bike tonight. Fatty, do you have any epic ride stories you're not telling the rest of us?