Encouragement

Last Saturday on San Juan I finished the ride with an overall sense of discouragement. The ride had been pretty sloppy. I missed a lot of technical obstacles, fell all over the trail and didn't really feel like I had conquered anything. I may have made one or two switchbacks that I had never climbed before - but the general feeling was that I had regressed a bit in regards to ability.

Fast forward to this past Saturday. My geared bike was a mess and the scheduled ride was up Blackstar, over to Eagle, down Eagle, up Skyline and then back down Blackstar. 30 something miles and roughly 6,000 feet of climbing. Something I would be happy to tackle on the geared bike. But since it was in ruins, I had to use the singlespeed. I had very serious doubts about my ability to do that long of a ride on the SS.

Waking up at 6AM I was conflicted. I didn't think I could ride for the majority of the planned route and figured I'd have to do a lot of walking. I didn't want to hold people back so I considered going back to bed and then riding later by myself. I was planning on maybe doing Blackstar-Skyline as a compromise.

I eventually got up out of bed and decided to show up with the SS and see what would happen. Maybe I'd go down Skyline while everyone else went to Eagle or maybe I'd go to Sierra. I had major doubts about making it back up Skyline after going to Eagle so I figured I'd ride with the group for a while and then take an alternate route.

To wrap it up, I ended up doing the entire ride on the SS and I was very encouraged by the ride as a whole. It was one of those rides where I felt like I bit off more than I could chew, but I seemed to be up for it.

I made all the climbs except for the three B's between Beek's and Eagle. I walked up all three because I didn't want to waste energy trying to clear them. I'm sure that if I was doing a shorter ride that I could make at least two of them, but I had made up my mind that it wasn't worth the energy to try and ride them. Better to walk and save the energy for later.

I was very happy to clear:

- The climb after Beek's to the "ball"
- The climb after the ball that is steep and fairly long (before the first B)
- The climb after the second B (kind of long - we took a break at the top of this climb)
- All of Skyline (no stopping)

Usually when I ride the SS I have these dramatic moments on the ride where I push super hard and get sick and dizzy. Not on this ride. I tried to pace myself and it paid off. I've become pretty good at knowing when a bonk is coming and I managed to stay strong all day by eating a lot and by eating at the right time. I had started to feel dizzy and weak after walking the first B, but took a break to eat and I'm pretty sure that saved me.

So the trend of feeling unprepared for Vision Quest has been reversed. I now feel confident and happy with my general progress.

Definitely a good ride.

(P.S. The start of this ride was freezing. 39 degrees at the start. I could not feel my hands for the first 20 minutes. It was painfully cold.)