Coffee and Lies # 131 Shake it up

The green flag has dropped on Summer Vacation. Several of my orange-clad brethren are out of town gathering experiences that will be fodder for post ride coffee lies in the coming weeks. Often in the middle of summer our weekly rides have more than a dozen members. Only four of us rolled from the hill this past Sunday. Missing from our group were the riders who typically ensure the rest of us hurt on our "Social" team rides. McWoodie and Einmotron don’t suffer slow riders but they weren’t riding this day and Big John would be joining late. Moonlight is off in Europe so there was a chance for a sane ride.

The road to recovery from the Ellensburg Fondo turned out to be very curvy. While I felt invincible Sunday, Monday and Tuesday after the ride, my bike commute on Wednesday had been a slugfest and when I bumped my quad Saturday it was remarkably tender. As we rolled along Lake Washington my legs let me know they didn’t feel like playing today. Why didn’t I listen?

We picked up The Wizard of Coz and we were now five strong. The morning was hot and despite the early hour my jersey was already wet from sweat. These are great days when the pile of laundry from a ride could fit in your helmet. I recommend you don’t actually put it in your helmet as that already has its own smell issues.

Off the back already I let the gap grow on the bridge to Mercer Island. On the short climb onto Mercer I unzipped my jersey a few inches as the distance to my compatriots expanded even more.

There is a spot where we traditionally stop to shed layers and regroup before initiating the throw down. With the temps already in the high seventies there were no layers to shed. Tradition dictated a stop anyway. There they stood waiting for me. Without a word I rode past the group and launched on the downhill.

I was flying !!

I figured that since my legs already hurt I might as well have them hurt a lot and didn’t expect my bluff to last long. If I went out on a solo breakaway then when they passed me I could drift back having earned some imaginary and ultimately worthless points for my foolish effort.

Doing the unexpected often results in a slow reaction as was the case here. I still had a good gap when I started the first climb. The orange train caught me near the top and I was able to latch on taking advantage of the lesser grade.

Coz took a long pull and Aaron was his usual strong self. El Chefe took a full turn at the front as did Guy. At one point we slowed and I attacked again just to mess things up. I was expecting a protest but the group responded by letting their legs do all the talking. We reformed and I rotated back. It was a dirty trick but I felt little remorse.

I feel just turribull......Ha !
It was the perfect day to have a mellow ride and I would have been the first to sign up for that yet here I was dishing out some pain. Why I was so inclined to poke the bear I have no idea. I was dreading an afternoon of bathroom demolition and this may have been an opportunity to exercise some demons.

As we hit the hill I attacked seeking KOM points. As my cadence slowed my quads screamed yet I embraced the hurt. I tried to make them hurt more. At the top I collected max points and was predictably blown. One by one the orange men passed me. I imagined them silently cursing. Soon it was just El Chefe’ and I trading pulls with the other riders fading from view up ahead.

 

On the return trip I thought we would be able to "keep it real." Then we spotted Big John who had come to join us. Under the leadership of Coz we formed a double paceline and rotated through once executing near perfect military precision. On the second rotation my ADD nature kicked in and I asked El Chefe if he thought Big John would jump on my wheel if I attacked. He didn’t need words as his expression seemed to say, "Does the Pope shit in the woods?" Big John had raced a crit the day before and if ever there was a day he should let me go this was it. Did I think logic would prevail?

Not a chance.

If it makes you feel better to call it, "drafting" go right ahead.......

I attacked from the back so I had some good speed as I passed my teammates. In a nanosecond I could feel the orange helmet of Big John on my wheel. My breakaway caught, I soft pedaled to slow back to the previous pace but Big John kept the heat on and I found myself struggling to hold on. "Hey guys, I was just kidding," I pled from the back of the now-rollicking paceline.

There was no slowing and Big John had possession of the sharp end and seemed to have no intention of letting up.

Hang on......If you can !!!
On the penultimate short stinger before the final downhill and final uphill I jumped again and Coz was quickly on my wheel. I still don’t know what motivated me to keep stirring the pot this day. On the climb I caught and passed the bunch only to blow up again as Aaron powered past me followed by Big John.

My legs had felt dead when I started this ride and now they felt "even more deader" on the way back to Fuel for coffee. On the climb up Madrona my lowest gear didn’t seem low enough but I was able to make it without audible profanity.

Perhaps my logic had been that if my legs hurt I wanted everyone else’s legs to hurt as well. Maybe I had forgotten how slow I was and needed to push it so I could be dropped and find out. I typically don’t raise the ante in a game I expect to lose and my ability to bluff is limited.

As we neared Fuel I took an early turn and managed to get to Fuel first. I figured the least I could do after instigating repeated unnecessary suffering upon some of my best friends was to take care of the bill for the coffee.

 

Ellensburg Fondo Report The fifth book of the four book trilogy

When I finish the video, the link will be HERE !

Three weeks was not enough time for the scars left by the Leavenworth Fondo to heal. The Post Traumatic Stress was significant. Perhaps that is why there were half as many souls willing to partake in the “bonus” Fondo known as Ellensburg.  In conversation with the other entrants/idiots there were many who related having complex internal dialogues that preceded participation in this event.  Some of us learn from our mistakes; some of us do not.  

This was the inaugural Ellensburg Fondo and with predicable patheticness the usual suspects assembled out of fear of missing out on the suffering each considered their foreordained destiny.  This had been a series of four of fondos and “New for 2015” was this addition pain festival that brought the total to five. Having five fondos ruins all of the “grand slam” references but it is what it is.

Incorporating the lessons learned on previous fondos I think I finally have the routine dialed in.  The curveball this time was that the event took place on a Saturday instead of Sunday. After work on Friday I went home, cooked some pasta, ate, loaded the war wagon and headed out so I might spend one more night in a hotel with a view of the interstate.

The hotel was just fine and the only issue I had on Friday was a recurring twinge in my right calf hinting that it wanted to cramp.  I hadn’t run for a few days so my tight calf was a complete mystery.  It was just enough to keep me wondering if it would attack on one of the climbs. We all need some fearful thought that can dance across our minds as we drift off to sleep don’t we?

The refreshing change compared to Ephrata and Goldendale was that when I looked out of my hotel room window in the morning there was no rain falling.  There would be a headwind going out, but that paled in comparison to the suffering that had been served cold and wet in March and April.  I was glad to stay in a hotel to avoid an alarm going off at three in the morning like I had the morning of the Leavenworth Fondo. 

The morning followed the usual pattern.  Coffee, breakfast, dress, drive to the start, sign in, load up and wait to line up.  

Then it went sideways.

My Garmin mysteriously shut down and when I turned it on again the battery was dead.  I am pretty geeky about keeping it charged so I can only conclude it got bumped and turned on subsequently draining the battery during the previous day or two.   As we all know there really isn’t any reason to ride if you can’t record it on a Garmin so I prepared to pack up and go home.  Realizing I had already applied Buttonhole I figured there was no turning back now.

Following an unusual moment of wisdom and good fortune I borrowed a power stick from El Chefe and connected it into the Garmin to charge it and stuck the whole wired contraption in my jersey pocket.  

I was curious to see if Jake’s pre-ride instructions would be as stern as they had been at Leavenworth.   His pre-ride words before that ride felt like he was trying to persuade us to skip the event and go home.  This time the information disseminated did not feel like it was intended to strike fear but to inform.    When we finally took off I didn’t feel like had a reasonable expectation that I would survive the day.

There were about a hundred intervention candidates who departed Ellensburg and headed for the hills. The neutral start lasted longer than usual and I tried to soak it in. When the lead car honked and the pace picked up our little band of orange clad riders had no plans to go hard but we did want to hold a reasonable tempo.

On a short climb one of our clan dropped back as a result of some medical issues. A gap formed and the leaders slowly pulled away. I hated to see them go. Actually I hated to see their draft go. We had a headwind and needed all the help we could get.  We settled in and our group picked up friends who were saving their powder for the climb that we all knew was looming thirty miles up the road.  I dubbed this behavior the “Leavenworth Hangover.” 

In the true spirit of sarcasm a coworker had presented me with the ribbon shown below and I spent much of the first hour of the ride fielding questions from other riders about the ribbon flapping around behind my saddle.  

There were many who coveted the maroon ribbon.   Lou Zers.

We traded pulls and tried to keep our anxious legs in check.  Everyone was drinking and eating as if drinking now could somehow retroactively reduce the suffering of Leavenworth twenty days prior.  Once bitten, twice shy as they say. 

We kept looking ahead and to the left where we would soon be climbing. The hills presented a stern front with no obvious gaps.  We spotted a road cut high on the mountain and joked that is where we would be riding. Little did we know that steep line was exactly where we were headed.  By now the morning chill was gone and the sun felt good on my black shorts. I welcomed this rare and fragile time when the temperature was perfect.  I expected I would be baking soon.

When we arrived in Cle Elum I pulled out the Garmin and the charging had worked and the Garmin appeared ready to play.  I switched it on and El Chefe told me we had had thirty eight kilometers in the books already.  I would be doing the math the rest of the day.

We arrived at the first water stop and refilled our bottles.  We knew the flogging would commence shortly. I could sense the uneasiness in the air. It was not unlike the waiting room of an outpatient surgery center.  With bottles full we took a collective deep breath and clipped in.

Leaving the water stop the grade kicked up right away.  A few minutes later the slope eased up and we were back to taking turns pulling. We collected stragglers and all too soon came the sharp left turn that indicated the wait was over. Many in the group faltered and it was just the boys in orange at the front. 
 
At the end of a Cul-de-sac the gravel started and the grade went from eight percent to fifteen and it was loose and sandy.  Looking ahead I could see riders getting off and walking after only ten feet of gravel.  That just is not the kind of omen you want right away.

I was with the Silver Bullet and we rode past the walking riders and kept going. The grade didn’t let up but the surface did improve just a hundred meters in.  The road ducked in and out of shade and the temperatures were warm but far from oppressive. 

Every rider was in their lowest gear.  There wouldn’t be a lot of shifting on this climb. There would, however, be cursing, sweating and wishing for bigger rear cogs.  The Silver Bullet wished for my 32. I wished for el Chefe’s 36. El Chefe’ wished for McWoodie’s legs.  McWoodie wished the climb was longer.

The climb was steeper than the final climb of Leavenworth but it did come earlier in the day. Despite having a cheat sheet with the elevation of the big climbs taped to my top tube I was afraid to look at the altimeter on my Garmin for fear it would scare me.

One could oversimplify the ride by saying you ride thirty miles of road to get to the gravel then climb thirty plus miles of gravel roads tallying 8,500’ of climbing then you ride thirty miles back to town.  Metaphorically the ride is a sandwich and this was the first bite of meat.  It was a big bite and I was trying not to choke.

I experienced a moment of panic when the road kicked up a bit more and I realized I was already in my lowest gear and the climb would only get steeper.  I was passing riders who had gone out hard and were now paying the price.  I offered encouraging words using precious breath.  Soon I would have none of either to spare.




                                      The views opened up as we climbed

Gravel climbs are harder than road climbs in every way. Gravel roads tend to be steeper than paved roads. The loose surface means you can’t just stand when you want because you may lose traction and spin your rear wheel. The surface also causes you to lose energy rolling over small rocks and a portion of the effort you put into your pedals is lost kicking up rocks and just displacing the surface.  Many of us drop our heads and concentrate on long climbs but you have to watch the constantly changing surface so you can avoid the bigger rocks and loose dirt.  You also find yourself dodging rocks and potholes which strains secondary muscles that have already reluctantly been pressed into service by the difficulty of the climb.

The upside of most gravel climbs is the beauty of the scene and the constant scanning of the road takes your mind off the profanity coming from your legs.

The climb was, as expected, relentless. This was what I had come for. The climb I had seen on paper was now under my wheels.  So far; so good. The dry road climbed up the mountain in a series of unforgiving switchbacks.  You could see the end of each switchback and for reasons I still can’t understand you worked toward it like a goal and were glad to reach it.  Your only reward upon reaching the switchback was the road turned, continuing on just as steep as before.   The corners were usually looser than the rest of the road and you had to almost attack the corner to keep from losing traction and spinning out. In hindsight it was like looking forward to a root canal.

I was now deep in my own personal pain cave and the door was locked. My jersey was unzipped and I was sucking down gel and drinking my preferred potion to fuel my legs. I no longer said anything as I passed riders. I wasn’t trying to be anti-social, this is simply how it works.  We all find our rhythm and this was mine.  My HR was 172 but I felt really, really good.  I didn’t feel like I was redlined and decided to keep going and ride by feel.  My calf twinged now and then but my adductors were fine and I was climbing well.

I stopped at a vista and took some photos.  It took me several tries to get going again on the loose steep slope.  The lesson here was that if you stopped you might not be able to start again. This climb was not for the faint of heart.  

                                       This is what 15% looks like
I recalled that I had felt good on the first two climbs at Leavenworth and feared a reprise here. There was a water stop just short of the top of the first of three progressively higher summits.  The break felt good.  I waited for one of our riders who was having a rough day.   I recalled what a good descender he was and decided to roll on and let him catch me on the downhill. 

                                        Water Stop near the top......
I knew the second climb was short so I allowed myself to push it a bit.   We were dipping in and out of forest and the scenery was impressive. I kept looking for the third summit which was also the Cima Coppi of the event.  I rounded a corner and the road pointed down and with no fanfare I had just passed the high point of the ride. 

The Silver Bullet punctured and he proclaimed his faith in Tubeless was now gone forever.   With a tube in his tubeless tire (irony noted?) and El Chefe again in the fold we followed the road downhill toward the food stop at 57 miles. 

                                         Yeah, I'm heading for those roads..
El Chefe descends fast.  I figure that if his wonderful wife loves him she’ll help him get a disc brake equipped Boone 9 and thus he will be safe on these sketchy descents. As it is, he risked life and limb flying down the gravel washboard. All the while he was hoping his life insurance is enough to get his daughters through college.  Such are the thoughts of this noble man.

The Silver Bullet and I waited at the food stop and when El Chefe’ failed to appear I began formulating how I would tell the widow Chefe’ the bad news.  To calm my nerves I ate a handful of tortilla chips and the salt and tiny bit of sugar-absorbing fiber hit my stomach perfectly.  “Remember this,” I thought to myself.

                                                           FOOD !!
Finally a rider came in and reported El Chefe’ had a flat and needed a tube.  We grabbed an extra tube (worth more than gold on these rides) and headed back up the steep road we had just come down.   

                                               Ready to get back to work !!
We received puzzled looks and told the riders coming down that we just needed a few hundred extra meters of climbing.  Going backward to help a teammate is noble. Going backward and uphill earns an honor rewarded by getting to wear the orange of 20/20 Fuel.

                             There were about THIS many flats at the food stop....
Chris of Cucina Fresca came down and told us he had given El Chefe’ a tube and a couple minutes later the man himself came bombing down.  The three of us coasted down to the food stop.  We repaid the tube debt and El Chefe picked up his drop bag and filled his bottles and we were onto the final climb.
The steady four to six percent grade felt easy after the thousand meters of double digit steepness we had behind us. I found a rhythm and felt super strong.  Three to five percent is my specialty. At the top we fist bumped then flew down.  Within a mile of the pavement that would carry us back to Ellensburg the Silver Bullet collected anther flat.  The gash in his sidewall had exposed the tube.  We needed a boot to hold the tire inside the tube.  The ribbon was up to the task.  Sacrifices had to be made.

                                                 The ribbon to the rescue
Just after getting on the pavement we rolled into the final water stop. We loaded our bottles and pointed our wheels toward Ellensburg.  Two hundred yards from the water stop we hit a climb the Silver Bullet described as “Spicy.”  A sixteen percent grade sixty miles in was plenty spicy.  Soon enough we topped out.  The wind that had been in our faces in the morning was at our backs and we welcomed the tailwind as we flew down the road.

We could look up the road and see riders who had passed us while changing flats or that had been at the water stop when we pulled in.  My legs felt frisky and I convinced El Chefe and the Silver Bullet that we could chase them down as a final hurrah.  


There were a few stinger climbs sprinkled in to disrupt our rhythm.  As soon as we reached the top of each little climb we would regroup and charge on.    Soon the valley opened up and there would be no more climbs.  We caught the riders and invited them to join our train.  They were either spent or offended by our bad breath and did not latch on.

 We came around a corner and the little red arrows that had guided us all day now pointed us onto loose gravel.  We were on the Iron Horse Trail now and the gravel was like an ocean of marbles.  We kept our front wheels aimed straight and our rear wheels swam back and forth like a hook and ladder as we pedaled.  I felt like I was riding a salmon.  El Chefe and I had contemplated a long ride on the Iron Horse Trail.  Those thoughts died an instant death at this point.  For the riders who were baked this power sucking section may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

A few miles further on I spied the finish tent ahead and took my hand off my bars to fish my race number out of my pocket. The gravel pulled my front wheel and I swerved and grabbed my bar to avoid going down.  I tried again with similar results. I stopped and put a foot down and retrieved my number which I flashed for the folks recording finishers. 

I collected my finishers patch and fist bumped my mates. We still had a few miles to ride to get back to the parking lot.  My legs felt really strong and the last bit passed quickly.  Before long we were in clean clothes and eating post race burritos. I should clarify that statement. We were in clothes that were clean before we put them on and we were inhaling burritos.

With the power of cilantro-infused beef flowing through our veins we departed the parking lot and began our assimilation back into the world of the living. 

This fondo did not leave us staggering but we were tired. The ride clearly exceeded my expectations.  The roads to and from Cle Elum turned out to be better than expected and the scenery in the middle had been impressive.  Even though we had a short stretch of the course right next to I-90 the course still felt remote which is consistent in this Fondo series.

I am glad we have more than three weeks before we resume our Fondo Odyssey in Winthrop. I will clean the bike....

Go back Jack; do it again. Wheels turning round and round

They say that short memories are a good thing for quarterbacks and pitchers.  The ability to forget about the interception and throw boldly is a valued asset.  I have always eschewed looking backward as my ability to alter the past has proven to be very limited.  While I do think we should learn from the past; excessive time spent revisiting past decisions is wasted energy.  

Just as I find myself finally able to stand erect after the sweet torture that was the Leavenworth Fondo I am looking forward to the next round.  I have graphed the elevation profile and swapped cassettes in anticipation of yet another superlative-laden adventure. 

This one should be hotter and steeper. 

What could go wrong ?

I plan to gather with a close-knit group of fellow slow learners and assail the Cascade Range from the eastern side on the eve of the summer solstice.  What I find morbidly amusing is the drop off in participation following a particularly challenging event.  After the washing machine ride that was the Ephrata Fondo, the number of riders at Goldendale was down significantly.  If a particular Cyclocross race is a sloppy mudfest the week following will have far fewer riders.  I expect a number of battle-weary Leavenworth riders will skip the next event at Ellensburg.  Your loss....

It takes a special mindset to find these type of events enjoyable. Psych wards are probably full of folks with this “special” mindset.  For those of us lucky enough to be high functioning and still have an outlook on life that allows us to find joy amid this suffering; we know who we are.   Making eye contact with our fellow crazies yields a unique connection.

Our selective memories don’t remember the numb hands or frozen feet.  We are more familiar than we should be with the fine line between extreme discomfort and danger on the hypothermia scale.  We can wipe the drop of vomit from our sleeve or wash the salt from our helmet straps and erase the memory forever.  If someone reminds us we typically resond with, “Oh yeah, I forgot….”  We take a perverse pleasure, somewhere between analytical and masochistic, in reaching our limits.

I heard that one definition of tact was telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the journey.  Those of us who pin a number on for these events know exactly what we are getting into and yet not only do we do it again, we look forward to it! 

Why must you humiliate me for your perverse entertainment ?

At this stage of my life the prizes and accolades for riding a bike faster than some other idiot are meaningless. It is egotistical (or maybe Zen-like?) to say that as far as racing goes the only opinion that matters to me is my own. It thrills me to ride to the top of a mountain and take in the view.  I take pleasure in finishing a ride exhausted, having tickled my physical or technical limits. I find these Fondos complex problem-solving challenges that require the right combination of fitness, equipment selection, nutrition, riding finesse and luck. When I get it right I feel omnipotent. Riding with Hottie or with my friends is far more satisfying that standing on a podium.

I don’t think I am lowering the bar by preferring the journey over the results. I prefer to think I have found a better bar.

Headlamps to Sunglasses

The days are reaching the apex of their freakish summer extremes.   I just put my headlight away and this week I left the house at 5:30 for my bike commute into the office and I had sunglasses on my nose.

This is the time of year that makes up for those dark, wet, cold winter days.  I am glad I did those long rides with El Chefe back in January and February.  The numb feet and frozen hands are pretty much forgotten.  Now my arms and knee are getting darker and my smile is wide.

I ran stairs on Monday this week and instead of needing a headlamp and rain jacket like I did in the pre-dawn blackness of March I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt under blue skies. There were five others enjoying the early morning sunshine in contrast to the solitary experience of my winter workouts.

I absolutely understand there is no prize or glory that comes with being marginally faster.  It is unquestionably more enjoyable to be faster and I am enthralled by the challenge of the complex puzzle that is middle aged fitness. Figuring out the plan is significantly harder than executing the plan.

I am still trying to master the hard/easy mix that is optimal for the athlete with grandchildren.  When I get it right I can turn on the power as if I have a switch. This is a function of the smart rest I am finally beginning to understand and paying my dues during those chilly months that chase many cyclists indoors.  Being able to power up a climb or accelerate on the flats feels wonderful. 

My recovery takes longer and I have reluctantly accepted that. Instead of a one to one ratio of hard to easy days it may be a hard day followed by two or even three easy days. Those easy days typically include at least one day of total rest.  I also try to make the hard day really hard.  Instead of an easy week every four or five weeks I do an easy week at least once every three weeks.

I think this is working.  I blew up in Leavenworth and was still pleased with my time. On a recent team ride I put my head down and pulled away from a couple guys who typically drop me on that same climb.  I felt like superman at Ephrata and Goldendale.  It feels weird to rest more to go faster but it seems to be paying off.  If only donuts helped you climb.

Extreme Fondo Hangover: Why do we hurt so very, very much?

If you know where this is, you've been around....

In the days following the Leavenworth Fondo I communicated with my brethren via text and email. We all were feeling sore on the Monday following the Sunday event.  No surprise there. What was unexpected was that we were ALL still very sore the next day as well. It seemed the Fondo took a significant toll on all of us.  This was a pretty deep hurt and among my peers it was universal.   Even later in the week one of our band of merry men described feeling, “empty.” Two of us found that to be the perfect illustration of a feeling that had lingered too long.

By coincidence I had been in a conversation preceding the Fondo about competing as an “older” athlete.  Someone proposed the idea that older athletes might do better because their pain tolerance was greater than when they were younger.  My theory is different. I think that as we get older we have the ability to ask and get more from our bodies than we did when younger.   

My belief is that for a given level of fitness I can get more out of that level of fitness than I could when I was younger.  I’m saying that as we get older we can squeeze more juice out of the lemon. Trying to explain why that is just leads to speculation.  Let the speculation begin!

One tangent of the theory is that by default in our training we find ourselves going harder some days and easier on other days. We simply don’t have the time or motivation to go hard every day.  Thus when the going gets really hard, your body knows you won’t be doing this same hard thing tomorrow and that there will be some recovery.  Our bodies therefore are more willing to dig a bit deeper knowing that tomorrow will be better.

A competing tangent theory is self mastery. This is me telling my poor body to shut up and do something it does not want to do yet for some reason it now obeys my every command.  As we get older (or more experienced) perhaps we just get better at ignoring the smaller aches and pains or have an improved ability to focus when needed.   We can call this one experience.

Another competing sub theory is the fight or flight theory.  Perhaps your mind has wrapped so much around this event that you have a constant drip feed of adrenaline and your body is doing the equivalent of a race car running on nitrous.  Perhaps your body has no idea what is going through your mind and it figures that if you are going this hard then maybe sharks are chasing you and your body figures this is life and death and exerts itself accordingly.  This serves you well until you finish at which time all bills come due and the pain that has been postponed comes crashing down on you.

A final tangent theory is the Whisky Tango Foxtrot theory. This is the idea that you are doing something so hard and for so long that your mind and body just can’t believe you are doing something so extreme and does not know how to react.  You go at a high level of effort because you have trained your body to do so and pretty much every other time you go this hard you stop after forty or fifty minutes.  Then when you are pegged at that level of effort for four plus hours you body is just dumbfounded and assumes you are moments away from stopping.

It was clear to me during and after the Fondo that if you want to do events that go hard for five to eight or even ten hours with any frequency you had better be a young, exceptionally fit specimen.  It was also clear that if you are an old grizzled biker who is willing to pay a higher price before, during and after such masochistic events then those young bucks had better be looking over their shoulders.   

I can still do what those young bucks do, it just takes me longer to do it and the recovery is way longer.

What did come to light following our internal and external discussions was that the ride was our first hot weather ride of 2015.  It was the first hot weather ride for nearly everyone who did it.  That would explain the widespread cramping and general ass kicking that we all experienced.

The body does take time to adjust to riding in the heat and it doesn’t come in a can and all the electrolytes in the world can’t train your body to adjust to heat; they can only help.