An Honest Ride

Honest rides are those epic rides where you over-reach, conjure fortitude you didn't know you had, and make it back home to tell the story... They're so hard or long that you can't hide any shortcomings in your fitness.

These rides ingrain themselves into your memory. They become the high water mark that you compare all other rides to. You call upon them when you're having an off day or feel like you've bitten off more than you chew. You say to yourself, "I survived that day, so this should be a piece of cake."

Usually, when I find myself in the midst of an honest ride I regress into a 6 year-old child in a 19 year-old's body. I become pissed off at everything in the world. I start cussing a lot, and damn every little hill in the distance. In rare instances I even feel like crying. It's not Belgian of me, I know, but I blame it on the endorphins... it just hurts so good, you know?

Today was one of those honest days. I left the dorm at 8am and didn't get back until 2pm. I don't know how I made it back. I was dehydrated, my legs were on fire, and I couldn't even talk. The churning of my legs was not a conscious movement. My body had gone into survival mode and I had only one goal: getting back home and getting off the bike.

I don't even know what else to say. I'm sorry if this post appears disjointed or lacks coherence... I'm still in a haze.

One thing I do want to mention is that I was on a road so steep that I was doing wheelies in my 39-23 trying to pedal up it. I was afraid to stop because, if I did, I would have tumbled backward down a sheer 24% grade. It was epic.

Oh yeah, this ride gave me a racked up a whopping nine hours and thirty minutes in a 50 hour time period. Intense.