Month: January 2016

Winter 2015/2016 in Northwest Indiana was off to a great start.  The weather had been mild throughout the months of November and December, with temperatures hovering mostly in the 30 to 40 degree range. There had only been one small snowfall, and only a handful of days with temperatures in the 20’s. I had ridden 9,733 miles since January, and I was looking forward to another 10,000 mile year. It seemed that this would be an easy feat, with the weather’s cooperation.

Winter riding is so much different than summer riding. The winter layers, boots, winter helmet, ski goggles, and thick gloves mean I have to transition to the fat bike or MTB, even when there is no snow. It is difficult to maneuver the gears on a road bike with winter gloves on, and I need to be in a more upright position to see out of the goggles and winter helmet. Also, the roads can be covered in frost, which can be precarious on a road bike. And finally, most riding is in the dark because of the short days.

In some ways, winter riding is like being transported back in time to being 10 years old. There’s no road bike pressure to maintain a high average speed, and no pressure to nab a Queen of the Mountain. It’s an adventure that reminds me of childhood days when I played outside with my friends until my feet were frozen, and I was sad to hear my mom calling me to come home for supper. Back then, my playground was the park down the street. Now, my winter playground is Lake Michigan. In the winter, the sand at the National Lakeshore becomes hard packed and frozen, and there are few tourists on the beach. Dodging the waves along the shore is amazing fun, but moving the fat tires through the sand is also an incredible workout.

Our local riding group, which calls itself “Rollaphati”, spent several weekends on the beach in the month of December.

December 6th was our friend Eric’s 57th birthday. Eric wanted to ride 57 miles to celebrate one mile for every year he has been on the earth. We rode from Kemil Beach to the pavilion at the state park along the lakeshore, but it was slow going. It was unseasonably warm, and there were dozens of tourists along the beach. The sand wasn’t frozen, and it was kicked up from all the foot traffic. Eric popped wheelies as we made our way to the pavilion, where we met the rest of the group who had taken a detour through the woods. After we made it to the pavilion, we headed north to hook back up with the Calumet Trail.

At one point we found ourselves at a dead end on a road that had been closed and barricaded by a tall barbed wire fence. In true male fashion, all the guys insisted that we haul our bikes over the fence and climb it, rather than turn around and find a different route. Climbing the fence was a bit dramatic when I got stuck and had to get a ride on James’ back to get over the fence. Eric ended up ripping his new winter tights.

Because winter had been so mild and there had been no snow, I had been alternating rides between the fat bike and the MTB. On December 19th, Jeff, James, Marc and I met up to ride at Imagination Glen, a local park with 10 miles of MTB trails. It was beautiful and sunny, but temperatures had dropped to the 20’s. I had never been to the Glen before, and I found a series of dirt ramps that reminded me of the ramp I used to jump at the bottom of Linden Hill on my banana seat bike when I was a kid . Linden Street was around the corner from my childhood home. This was a dead end street that descended into an open field where the neighborhood kids built a dirt bike ramp that was crazy fun. I still like to tell the story of how when I was 10 I thought flying over the ramp with no hands was a good idea!

December 20th was about 20 degrees warmer than the previous day, and Marc and I headed north to meet up with Jeff, Greg, Shari, Eric, and Mike to take a ride along the bike trail that runs from Chesterton to Munster. It was sunny outside and the entire group was in a very good mood. We were riding at a nice social pace, about 16 mph, as we headed onto the trail. This bike trail has fences at each road crossing, and there is a lot of starting and stopping. As the trail crossed Samuelson Road in Portage, there was the usual fence that we had to slow down and go around. We went around the fence, checked for traffic, then went straight ahead to get back to the trail. On the other side of the street there wasn’t the usual fence blocking the trail, but rather three concrete, short poles. I saw the yellow pole on the right where there was a walker on the trail, and I saw the pole to the left. However, I didn’t see the yellow pole in the center until it was too late because its view was blocked by the riders in front of me. I hit the pole at a very slow pace, maybe 5 mph, and it was a fall that I thought I would just get up from and brush myself off. As I went down I remember thinking “Well that was stupid of me”. What should have been a minor fall, however, turned out to have major consequences. Before I landed I saw my right arm snap about 5 inches from my shoulder. As it snapped, it hung loosely like a fake arm, then bent backwards behind my back. For a split second, I thought my arm had been severed. Jeff said he saw my arm get wedged between the pole and the handlebars, and it stayed behind as my body flipped forward.

My immediate reaction was to grab my arm and pull it in front of me as I yelled that someone should call 911. I heard Greg say “Call 911?” because he hadn’t seen what had happened and he thought it was a minor spill. A passerby stopped and gave me a blanket as I sat on the concrete for what seemed like hours until the ambulance came. The EMTs in the ambulance were two very young men and they seemed scared to handle me. One of them kept apologizing for having to cut off my shirt, and they both seemed extremely nervous about hurting me when they tried to immobilize my arm with a blow up splint. While they continued to apologize for hurting me, I told them I was sorry for crying.

Xrays taken at the hospital showed that my right humerus had a spiral fracture and had been shattered into what looked like three pieces. Surgery, however, was not to be scheduled until Wednesday! I spent the next three days in terrible pain. I threw up until midnight the first night home, and I could hear my bones grating against each other every time I moved.

To my surprise, I was not the least bit nervous about surgery.  By the time 6 AM December 23rd came, I was more than ready to have my arm fixed.  We were the first to arrive at the surgery center, and I waited only about 5 minutes before they took me back to get me prepped for surgery.  I changed into a gown, got hooked up to an IV, and then the anesthesiologist came into to talk to me and give me a block which would completely numb my arm.  A few minutes later, the surgeon came in to ask me how I was doing.  Then, what seemed like seconds later, the surgeon told me I had done well and was done.  Because of the nerve block I would have no pain for the next 6-12 hours.  I remember thinking, “Well that was easy!”  I had originally thought I would need 3 or 4 screws to bolt my arm back together, however it ended up taking 14 screws and a titanium plate.

After surgery, Marc took me to the pharmacy to get a stronger pain medication than was given to me at ER so I would have it when the nerve block wore off. The pharmacy wouldn’t fill the prescription because of narcotics laws, because I had already gotten a narcotic a few days earlier.  Marc said they would fill it Monday.  I wasn’t in terrible pain and I still had the ER prescription, so I wasn’t worried.  By 10:00 PM the nerve block had worn off.  I took a pill from the ER and nothing happened.  Then I took some Ibuprofen because I was afraid to take another pain pill.  By 12:00 I was hysterical.  I was pacing the floor and crying, and cursing the drug addicts for causing the stiff narcotics laws that were preventing me from getting pain medication! It was a rough night.  The next week was a complete blur of almost constant sleeping interspersed with pain.

Now, at day 11 since surgery, I feel almost back to normal.  When my staples come out, hopefully this week, the doctor has given me the OK to sweat and do the bike trainer.  I hadn’t intended to do a blog entry about my accident, but the forced down time has given me a lot of time to think about and process what happened.  Initially, I was so worried about the consequences of such a minor fall that I wondered if I should stop riding.  Then I realized if I stopped riding I would stop living.  After all, getting in my car and driving to work each day is a huge risk, as is walking to the mailbox on an icy day.  Every day that I get to ride is a blessing, and I hope I have many more riding days.

The Iceman Cometh Challenge is a point to point MTB race held traditionally each year on the first Saturday of November. The race starts in downtown Kalkaska, Michigan and finishes thirty miles later on the eastern edge of Traverse City. The course consists primarily of dirt roads, two track jeep roads, abandoned railroad beds, logging roads, and the world famous Vasa Nordic ski trail. It crosses only one paved road (Williamsburg Road at mile 17) as it winds through the Pere Marquette State Forest in Northern Lower Michigan. This is a huge race, with approximately 4,000-5,000 riders of all skill levels racing each year, as well as pro riders.  Snow during the race is common, and temperatures are typically in the 30’s.

Iceman 2014 was my first MTB race.  At the time I was a diehard experienced roadie with no interest in mountain biking, and I also had no clue what I was in for.  I had only recently started riding a fat bike the previous winter, and I didn’t own a MTB at the time.  However, we had a group of friends who convinced me that my endurance and fitness level would make this race a piece of cake in the fat bike class.

Several weeks prior to the race, five of us went to Kalkaska to do a pre-ride of the course because I had insisted that I needed to know what I was in for.  Northern Michigan has much harsher weather than Indiana, and it was already in the 40’s in mid-October. It drizzled rain all morning as we headed north to do a pre-ride on October 18th.

We parked in the parking lot in downtown Kalkaska, which was yards from where the start of the race would be. As we unloaded the bikes, the steady drizzle had stopped, and it had settled into a cold and gloomy day. Kalkaska is a not a big city, and I wondered what it would be like on race day with over 5,000 riders and their families crammed into this small town.

We started riding on pavement and proceeded several blocks to an open field, where we soon found ourselves on a grassy doubletrack that ran along a fence line. The start seemed precarious to me, as I couldn’t imagine a wave of 100+ riders vying for position on this narrow course, that soon turned into a dirt track that ran into the woods. Since there are thousands of riders, there are usually about 50 waves of 100 riders or so leaving the starting line every 3 minutes. That first year I had been assigned to a relatively early wave, number 14, because I had logged the most training miles in the month of October for women in the Ice Society. The Ice Society is found on the Iceman webpage and connects to your Strava account and gives you points for distance ridden and elevation. I was thankful for that, as I was hoping I would be riding with more skilled riders. Wave assignments are usually given based on your last year’s performance. For those who have never raced before, like me, I had earned a higher wave assignment based on my training the month before the race. (I also won a Galaxy 500 Note Tablet!)

As we rode through the forest with a very heavy leaf cover, I knew almost immediately that riding a 33 pound fat bike for 30 miles through this terrain was not going to be easy. It took a great deal of effort pushing the big tires through the mud, leaves, and sand. Plus, this race included over 2,000 feet of climbing.

The ride was beautiful as we rode through the forest, but it turned sketchy at about mile 10 when the sandy hills began.  I crashed as I tried to descend one of these hills.  Thankfully I wasn’t hurt because it was like landing on a sandy beach. This hill quickly turned onto a logging road with foot deep, muddy ruts that had been left by the logging trucks. The mud was so thick that this road was completely unrideable in sections. We paused to take pictures on the logs in a clearing while James assured me that the course would be completely cleared and fixed by the week of the race.

The pre-ride was fun and the scenery was beautiful, however, I was completely exhausted. Still, I was happy that I had ridden it because I now knew what to expect on race day.  Or so I thought…

The day of the race, November 8, 2014, arrived quickly. The week prior to the race it had rained almost every day. Race day was no different. It was just above freezing with a constant drizzle as we pulled into the school parking lot in Kalkaska to unload our bikes. The small town was jam packed with cars, spectators, and racers as we rode to the starting line. Marc was in an earlier wave, and I was left to huddle under a tent with dozens of other riders while waiting for my wave to start. I was shaking in the cold and I just wanted to move. My wave started 15 minutes after Marc, and soon I was off. I was surrounded by MTBs that quickly passed me as we headed into the forest. I noticed immediately that this was nothing like the pre-ride. Mud was 6 inches deep in spots and my chain quickly became so coated with mud that shifting was difficult. My hands were freezing because I had made the mistake of wearing my waterproof scuba gloves. They were waterproof, but they weren’t very insulated.

Soon we came across the logging roads. There were ruts in the center of the road that were now several feet deep. Literally hundreds of riders were walking their bikes either through the center of the ruts or along the road edges. This was much worse than the pre-ride.  My feet sank ankle deep in mud as I tried to drag my 33 pound bike through the mud and then up a hill. This was exhausting.  Marc had called me on my phone while I was stopped earlier and had said his chain was broken and the repair he attempted didn’t hold, so he was finished. He would end up waiting hours for a rescue in the cold rain. When he was picked up he was not allowed to sit in the rescuer’s truck because he was muddy, so he shivered in the truck bed while they drove to the race finish.

After we passed the logging roads, my gears had become so caked with mud that I could no longer shift. All along the course I saw riders down with flat tires, broken chains, and other technical problems. One rider was awaiting a medical rescue with some friends as it looked like he might have a broken leg.

The singletrack through the forest was a nightmare.  There was a traffic jam of riders, and each time I would hit a muddy rut and get knocked off the bike I’d have to stand and wait for a break in traffic to get back on the track. Getting enough traction in the mud to get moving again was difficult, and it was also hard dodging riders in front of me who would wipe out in the mud.  Throughout the race I ate ShotBlok energy chews that were in a bag on my handlebars.  There was no way to eat these without also eating gritty sand and mud.  Every part of me and the bike was coated.  I had long ditched my glasses because I couldn’t see, and mud was getting spattered in my eyes.

At about 5K before the finish line (there are red markers on trees throughout the course) my chain kinked and I could no longer pedal. A man at the top of the hill told me the chain was probably destroyed.  His chain was broken, but he said he had come too far to quit and he intended to finish by coasting the downhills and walking the rest. I managed to get the kink out and get back on the bike, when I realized I had run out of water. By this time I had been on the course over 4 hours, which is not something I had intended. I was cold and exhausted, and now I was thirsty too. Shortly thereafter, I noticed that the rain had turned into snow flurries.

After what seemed like an eternity in the forest,  I heard cheers and saw an orange plastic snow fence lining what I believed to be the final sprint.  Relief swept over me as I thought I must be yards away from the finish line. I was wrong! The track turned away from the crowd and back into the woods.  I thought this false finish was unnecessarily cruel. As we came back out of the woods along the orange fence lined with a cheering crowd ringing cow bells, the track headed downhill through a tunnel. At this point I had no idea where the finish line was, until I came up through the tunnel and saw the banner. The race photographer snapped a very unflattering picture of me as I approached the finish line that I both love and hate. I hate it because it is not a pretty picture, but I love it because the picture says it all. I was covered from head to toe in mud, and I even had mud in my lips and teeth. The race was agony but I had made it. I finished at a slow 4:21:53,  but I somehow managed to finish 7th in the women’s fat bike class.  Overall, because of the terrible race conditions, only 4,013 riders finished out of the approximately 5,400 that were registered. When we met up briefly with our friends Kelly and Jeff after the race, I told them my race time and Kelly gave me a surprised look and said “You finished?!”  I still tease him about his apparent lack of faith in me!

Registration for Iceman usually opens in March and historically sells out within days. Registration opened in March for Iceman 2015 and Marc was adamant that we were not going to do this race again. Marc wasn’t happy with the way his rescue was handled, and he wasn’t pleased that registration had gone up to $100, yet race sponsors offer nothing in return. Most races have fees under $50, and they offer a free t-shirt of the event, a meal, or a memento such as a race water bottle. Despite the high entry fee, Iceman offers none of these things. Bags given on race day contain advertisement pamphlets and a small donation from a sponsor, such as a bite sized energy bar. I agreed that we shouldn’t do it again because of the high entry fee, and because of the terrible course conditions. I knew the race sponsors had no control over the weather, however, I felt the course should have been re-routed around the impassable logging roads. Apparently many people agreed, because by October, Iceman had still not sold out.

About a month before the race, our friend Jeff said he had rented a condo in Traverse city that he wanted us to share with his brother Greg and wife Amber, and he repeatedly asked us to give Iceman another try. So I agreed and entered in the MTB class in my age group. I had gotten a Trek Top Fuel MTB that spring, and I was curious as to how I would do on a different bike. Marc said he would tag along and be a photographer and shuttle us to our car, but he wouldn’t race. I began to look forward to the race, because I was curious how I could perform in better racing conditions on a bike weighing 14 pounds less.

The week before the race was dry in Kalkaska, and I was told that a dry course would make for a very fast race. I decided that finishing the race in under 3 hours was a lofty goal for me, and that is what I was going to try to do.

The day of the race, November 7, 2015, came quickly. It was just above 30 degrees on race day, but it was dry, and the sun had made an appearance. I was to be in wave 25 of 49 waves based on last year’s performance. I decided to set myself at the front of the wave and stay with the lead group for as long as I could to avoid having to dodge riders. I am front and center in this photo, tag number 2935.

The race announcer began counting down, and soon we were off. Within seconds I knew this race was going to be much different than last year. I had no trouble staying with the lead group as we rode through town on pavement to get to the grassy field that would lead us to the woods. When we hit the dirt, I could see that the course was hard packed dirt and sand, and it was very fast! I kept looking at my Garmin and marveled that I was going 18 mph through the woods. It was this way for miles, and I remember thinking that I may possibly finish the race in 2 1/2 hours. Soon after I had this thought I looked up and saw a sign that said “sand” that was warning riders of a deep sand pit ahead. There were riders in front of me and I couldn’t see a way around it. so I jumped off the bike with the other riders, ran through the sand, then got back on my bike.

Soon we approached a very small sandy hill that I should have been able to easily spin up, however, there were so many riders ahead of me that I couldn’t go fast enough to get the necessary traction. I had to walk up this hill because of it, and I wasn’t happy because this wasn’t a hill that anyone should have walked. We had caught up with slower riders in the wave ahead of us, and there started to be a lot of traffic on the course. As we hit another two track road, I took the opportunity to pass as many riders as I could.

Marc had signed up for text alerts so he would know where I was on the course. There were electronic timing devices at various road crossings that would send a signal to his phone to let him know when I had passed the crossing. Marc waited at the Williamsburg intersection at mile 17, the one paved road that the trail crossed, to get a picture as I passed. This was a long climb with dozens of spectators cheering at the top of the hill. I saw riders in front of me walking their bikes, which I couldn’t imagine doing with such a cheering squad. The pictures Marc took show a rider behind me walking, while I look like I’m concentrating heavily on working my way up the hill.

After the Williamsburg crossing, it seemed as if I was flying. The course had been re-routed around the logging roads, and the ground was hard packed and dry. I was riding so fast that I was not prepared for an extremely rough descent over hard packed dirt holes, and it looked like other riders weren’t either, as there were dozens of water bottles littering the ground that had fallen out of bottle cages. This was scary, dodging holes and bottles, while listening to other riders shouting out as they did the same.

As the course wound through doubletrack and back into the woods, I was really happy about my performance on the singletrack. I stayed with a line of riders and never got knocked off track, nor did anyone pass me. Maneuvering a carbon MTB through the woods was completely different than handling the fat bike. Because I had raced last year, I knew that the false finish was coming soon, and sure enough, the course ran alongside an orange snow fence before veering back into the woods. As I rode along the fence, I got a cramp in my left calf which I found annoying because I wanted to sprint across the finish line. The cramp soon went away, and I saw the finish banner in the distance. There was a dirt ramp yards before the finish line and I rode as fast as I could over the ramp as the rider to the left of me crashed. I heard Jeff yell “Go Lou!” after I came over the ramp and across the finish line. I had finished at 2:52:53, almost 1 1/2 hours faster than last year! I ended up finishing 20th in my age group.

After finishing the race I retrieved my backpack that had been loaded onto a truck at the starting line and had been driven to the finish line. I had packed a change of clothes so I could shower in one of the mobile shower trucks. The lines for the men’s showers were extremely long, but there was no waiting for the women’s showers. Trying to get undressed in the tiny stall with a flimsy curtain was a challenge. After I got undressed I was not happy to hear that there were men in the women’s showers who had apparently not wanted to wait in line.

After showering and changing, I went outside to find Marc. It was extremely cold, and we looked around to find our friends. The atmosphere was extremely chaotic, to put it mildly. More than 5,000 people were crammed into a small campground, and there was no sense of organization at all. Long lines wrapped around the small number of food trucks, and we noticed that some of the trucks were running out of food. We ended up standing in line in the cold for over half an hour to get something to eat. After we got something to eat, we stayed to watch the pros come across the finish line.  Shortly before the pros came in, an elderly women came limping across the finish with her bike.  She had been on the course for over 5 hours, but she had finished! Medics came to walk alongside her as the crowd cheered.