November 7, 2023 – Yesterday was the Texas Alzheimer’s Association Ride for Cure event in Wimberley, Texas. It’s a 100-mile ride through the Hill Country. What should have been another fun hundred-mile ride turned into a not-so-fun ride in the blink of an eye.
All was well until about mile 20. I was climbing a very steep hill when SNAP! I thought my chain had broken. I instantly lost momentum and all forward progress stopped. Since my feet are clipped to the pedals, the malfunction caused me to crash. Luckily, I crashed exactly as you should; Elbows and hands pulled in, and go just go limp. My only injury was a scrapped elbow. My bike, however, did not fare as well.
It took me a minute to get my feet unclipped from the bike. Once I was upright, I began the inspection of the bike. I checked the chain, and it was fine. The back and front chain derailleurs appeared to be intact as well. When I pushed on the shifter that moves the derailleur, I had nothing. I messed with the shifter for about ten more minutes before I decided my best bet was to limp into the next rest stop and hope a bike mechanic would be on duty.
The next rest stop was at mile 28. I was at mile 20. Although my bike would “work” it was stuck in one gear on the back sprocket; The smallest. The gear configuration on my bike is made up of ten gears in the back, and two gears in front. The smallest gear in the back, which was the gear my bike was stuck on, is for accelerating on slight declines. It’s the fastest gear. This is NOT the gear I need to climb the extremely steep hills that remained between me and the next rest stop.
I picked up my bike and pushed it to the top of the hill where I had crashed. At the top, I was greeted by another hill. I tried to power up it, but it was so steep I couldn’t turn the crank. I got off and walked my bike up the hill again. This was a routine I would repeat several more times. It got old real quick. Had I been wearing regular shoes, this would not have been a big deal, but I wasn’t. I had on bike cleats that fasten my foot to the pedals. Regardless, I continued this cycle of riding my bike on the flats and descents and then pushing the bike up the hills. As I said, the ride took place in the Hill Country and they call it that for a reason. The course has a total elevation of over 6,000 feet.
I finally made it to the rest stop. Yes! There was a bike mechanic on-site. I told him what had happened and he put my bike up on his rack and started working. After about 5 minutes, he gave me the bad news. A piece inside of my shifter handle had broken. There would be no fixing this bike today. A nice lady who was really concerned about my bloodied arm said I was in luck because a sag wagon would be here in a jiffy to pick me and my bike up and return me to the starting line. I looked at the mechanic and said, ”So I can’t shift the back but I can shift the front. Can you fix it so that I can have one gear on the back?” He laughed and said he could but didn’t think it would do much good considering the hills. With that, I said, ”Great! I’m now back in business.” ”To do this, I’m going to have to cut away the cabling. You okay with that,” The mechanic replied. I said, ”Well when the ship is sinking there’s no need for an anchor. Cut it off.” We selected a gear that was in the middle. It took about 5 minutes for him to wire it up and I was then on my way.
It didn’t take long before I figured out my “fix” was imperfect. I could make it up most of the hills but it required every ounce of energy I had. The really steep stuff still required me to walk the bike up the hill. At about mile 45 I did the math on my pace. Like all rides of this type, the course officials set deadlines or cut-offs for making it to different points on the course. There was a 1 o’clock deadline for mile 65. It was clear I would not make it. To make matters worse, the cleats on my bike shoes were mangled from walking the bike up hills. They wouldn’t clip in so I lost the ability to pull the crank. Ugh! This sucked. The disappointment began to set in. I’ve never not finished a bike race. It was 100% clear that this would be my first.
For the next couple of miles, I was in a bit of a funk, “If only this damn bike would have not broke!” I have a speaker on my bike and usually listen to music when I ride. I’d not used the speaker all day because I needed to concentrate on the course. With the bike in disrepair and the deadline missed, I said to myself, “Well, you might as well enjoy the ride.” I was only at about mile 55 and I still had more than 20 miles to get back to the starting line. I turned on some Texas country music and settled in. I still had a long way to go on my lame horse of a bike.
The purpose of this ride is to raise money for Alzheimer’s research. This is the second year of this event and I’m good friends with the organizer. This year, the ride had almost 500 riders and raised over $500,000. That’s spectacular for an event two years into its existence. 100% of the money raised goes to research to fight this awful disease. As some know, my sister Lisa died of Early Alzheimer’s in 2019. She was only 60. My family is very close. Her death left a hole that will never be filled. I miss my sister every day. This awful disease took her way too soon. I don’t know if there is a good way to die, but Alzheimer’s is horrible. I say this because of the dreadful impact it has on the person with the disease, and also because of how it impacts everyone around that person as they begin to watch their loved one slip away. As I rode along trying to make it to the finish line, I thought about my sister and her fight. It gave me the strength I needed to make it back to the finish. When I finally crossed the finish line, both the odometer on my bike and the Garmin mile counter on my watch agreed. I had ridden 76.6 miles today. It wasn’t the 102 miles I had intended to ride, but I was still proud that I didn’t quit. I made the best of a bad situation. This is a common theme in my life and probably in yours too.
I’ve got a few words I use to guide my life. They are Discipline, Courage, Confidence, Grit, and Curiosity. Grit was what it took today. Hanging in there despite the setbacks. Being resolute to not quit and finish in the best way possible. On Saturday, I had this odd feeling that this ride would not go as planned. A feeling that something would happen and it would beg me to ask myself the question, is it time to stop with all of these crazy challenges? I guess that’s why I made the decision on Saturday morning to sign up for the Houston Marathon in January. The last marathon I ran was in Greece in 2019. It was “The Marathon” from Marathon to Athens. A lot has happened since then. The Houston Marathon will take place on January 15th. This gives me 10 weeks to train. I’ve not done any real running in months. Heck, I didn’t do any training for this bike ride. A marathon is different, though. You have to train if you want to finish. Right now I’m sore as hell from this weekend, but training will begin tonight. Time is short. As David Goggins would say, ”It’s time to hard!.” Or in my case, it’s time to get not so squishy and a bit more firm. Like a softboiled egg.