Hilly Billy Roubaix 2013

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“And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions”  (Christopher McCandless)

For the past few years, the back roads and jeep trails around my house have hosted a peculiar kind of bike race.  Officially it’s classified as an “ultracross” race, meaning that you are supposed to ride a cyclocross bike and that you are supposed to ride it all day long.

I barely took notice the first year of its existence.  The second year, some of my riding buddies participated and told horror stories afterwards. 

 “Hardest race ever.” 

“I thought I would die.” 

“It crushes the soul.” 

By Year Three it had my attention.  I made some signs for the course and hung out with my biking friends before and after the race.  Again, they told terrible stories.  Endless climbing.  Kids with shotguns.   Heat.  Pain.

 

The promoter liked my signs and offered a free registration if I wanted to try it out in 2013.

 

“Thanks, I just may take you up on that.”

I filled out my race schedule for 2013 while sitting on my couch one night over Christmas break.  Coopers Duathlon, Lodi, Arrowhead, Cranky Monkey, Big Bear 2x12, Henry Clay 30K, Rocky Gap XTERRA. 

I was free June 22nd.  In the blank square I wrote “Hilly Billy Roubaix < 6 hours”.  I was going to do it, and I was going to do it in less than 6 hours.

I don’t have a cyclocross bike.  I have been riding seriously for about 5 years and in that time I have only ever ridden a mountain bike.  I’m getting better, but I still struggle with tight turns and technical terrain.  I go fastest and enjoy myself the most on stuff that’s a little more wide open and not full of rock-gardens.  

I had read that the winner from the previous year had ridden a hardtail mountain bike setup with ‘cross tires.  I could make that happen.  I also read the course description.  No rock gardens.  No uphill single-track switchbacks.  Gravel road climbs.  Pavement straightaways. 

  

Bring it.

Race day morning.  Frowning roadies from all over the nation.  Elite level cyclocross riders.  Mountain bike legends like Garth Prosser, Gerry Pflug, Gunnar Shogren.  Scrubs like me.  All rubbing shoulders in the mid-morning heat. 

 

A neutral roll out, down a paved hill, then into the maelstrom.  As soon as we hit the first climb, tires start popping.  The roadies can’t handle the gravel.  Walkers everywhere.   Up, up, up, up, and then down a loose gravel road.  I slalom in and out between the cross bikes.  The cross bikes can’t handle the descent.   

Out a short stretch of pavement, then into the crater-pocked mud alley of Little Indian Creek.  I take a straight line through the deepest of the holes, throwing rooster-tails of brown water high into the air.  I soak riders with white shoes and shaved legs. 

 

Welcome to West Virginia. 

 

Hardest race ever?  I don’t think so.  I’m having the time of my life.  I even latch onto a paceline just like danged ol’ Greg Lemond.  “It never gets easier, you just go faster.”  Damn straight. 

 

I roll through the first aid station without stopping.  I bomb all the hills and spin my mountain bike gears up the climbs.  I pull into aid station two, only to see two of the fastest guys I know still there.

 

This is going better than I dared imagine.   I down half a banana, half a peanut butter sandwich, fill my bottles and my camelback and start the climb out of the aid station. 

 

I climb alone for what seems like miles on the naked, shimmering pavement.  The heat, which had only been a suggestion earlier in the day, became a statement.  My camelback clutched my neck like a fat, sleepy toddler.  I forced myself to drink the warm water, if only to reduce its weight. 

Climb, descend, climb, descend.  I get into another paceline on the next pavement stretch.  Roadies with white shoes and shaved legs ride away from me.  Cross bikes leave me behind like a cheap, unwanted carnival prize. 

I flounder alone as coal trucks thunder by.  The race went from fun to not fun to survival in a few short moments. 

I soft pedal, walk, and coast into the final aid station.  Riders are lying everywhere, curling into every patch of available shade.  No one smiles, no one talks.  We are the unloved, the wretched.  A group of riders sit alone to one side.  They have given up and will wait for help.  I eat two peanuts and one M&M.  Then I get back on my bike.

 

Six and a half hours in.  Fifteen miles to go.  The heat is dirty and viscous, like used motor oil.  I limp across route 7 and enter familiar territory.  I have ridden these roads before, but never in this condition.   Up the horrible mountain, down the horrible mountain, out the horrible flats.  Dogs bark, sensing my weakness.  Their chains hold them back. 

    

I somehow manage to pedal up the last hill.  I collapse into the pavilion.  It is over.  I am broken.  I did not quit.