colorado – Bikes Kill Cancer

Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about about my struggles with learning and trying to meditate. I use the metaphor of trying to remain calm while moving in high speed traffic. Well, yesterday I put my metaphor to the test and meditated while in traffic.

“Amazing!”, you are thinking that in a month’s time I can find the calm and patience to meditate while driving in my truck as it moves through traffic and not crash the truck. Even more impressive, I did all of this in the east bound lane of I-70.

The truth is the truck nor any of the hundreds of vehicles in front of or behind us were moving. My, wife, two of my cousins and I were stuck in an all too typical standstill due to a wreck ahead of us. This was no fender bender that could be cleared in a few minutes. An eighteen-wheeler had left the road and crashed upside down on the lanes below a mere quarter of a mile in front of us.

This particular section of I-70 runs through Glenwood Canyon on the Western Slope and is a marvel of engineering. The west bound lands sit forty to fifty feet above the east bound lands, which traverse along the Colorado River. The truck driver while navigation a turn had lost control of his vehicle and sent the truck through the guard rail where it had flipped and landed upside down on the east bound lands. Amazingly, no one included the driver were killed.

I didn’t take me long after moving to Colorado to learn that if you spend anytime driving in the mountains you make sure to carry supplies to get you through these type of lengthy sits in traffic. Whether it’s snow, rock slides, forest fires or careless drivers, at some point you will find yourself camped on the side of the road. This means an emergency kit is always carried in your vehicle. Blankets for cold weather, extra water, food and charging cables for phones are all a must. On our way to do a hike we were well stocked to wait this one out.

As cars squeezed to the side to allow emergency vehicles through, it was obvious that we were in for a long wait. Already word had trickled down the line that there was an eighteen-wheeler overturned and it was going to be at least four hours before we were moving.

The wife and cousins entertained themselves with a round of selfies and silly videos before they decided to follow the stream of drivers and passengers walking down the highway to check out the carnage up ahead.

I chose to stay with truck. I was frustrated and disappointed that we would not make it to our destination just down the road to do the hike to Hanging Lake. The phrase, “close but no cigar” applies here.

Playing games on my phone and scroll through my list of books in iBooks was doing little to relieve my frustration. My thumb paused above a book, Meditation for Fidgety People, that I had recently downloaded. The book is about the author Dan Harris’s journey of discovering the power of meditation. A few pages in I realized that instead of reading about someone else meditating maybe I should give it a try in a real world moment. Being frustrated with something out of my control was the perfect optortunity to practice the practice.

Pushing my seat back I folded my long legs underneath me and got situated for a go at something until this point I had only tried in the quiet privacy of my home. I opted to leave my sunglasses and hat on as I was self conscious of the other motorist walking back and forth.

Eyes closed. Deep breathes. Focusing on the breath. Were people staring at me as they walked by? A quick one eyed peak revealed that no one was. A bit more relaxed. Mind wandering. Bring it back. Stop judging yourself. Focus on the breath

I’m pretty sure my fear of people staring at me while I meditated was overblown. Everyone was focused on walking down I-70 to gawk at the wreck.

Sounds. The Colorado River gurgles by a hundred feet from the highway. The rumble of idling diesel engines. Bits and pieces of conversations float by. Attention to the breath. In. Out. A dog barks. Back to the breath. In. Out.

Ten minutes or has it been twenty?

Eyes open. Nothing has changed except my attitude. The traffic is still unmoved. The sun is warm and shinning on my face. One last deep breath.

This is equanimity.

It’s starting to click.

Meditation can help relieve that anxiety, but so can making the best of the situation and just having fun with it.

Warning: As the title suggests, this post is about farting. If you don’t find farting funny then you probably won’t enjoy this post.

“Proper preparation prevents poor performance.”

James Baker

“The race is won by the rider who can suffer the most.”

Eddy Merckx

“Proper preparation can be offset by a bad case of GI tract bloat. A bad case of bloating can be cured by a good bout of farts.”

Jay Middleton

If we started with Eddy Merckx’s quote you would probably be led to believe that this post is about how I suffered on the bike to take an amazing victory at the Pony Xpress 165 in Trinidad, CO. Sadly, this is not the case. This is a post about a digestive tract gone haywire and how it feels to pedal a bike for sixty plus miles with what feels like an entire Thanksgiving dinner resting in your gut.

The Pony Xpress 165 (that’s kilometers, not miles) is a gravel road bike race that takes place in the shadows of the Spanish Peaks in southern Colorado. For the most part the gravel is smooth and fast. it’s hilly but not overly steep, and the scenery is typical: drop dead gorgeous Colorado with its blue skies, sweeping vistas and big mountains.

Here’s a brief overview for those readers who aren’t familiar with gravel riding or racing: If you can imagine a road bike that, upon initial inspection, looks like the ones seen at a bike race like the Tour de France. If you look closer, though, you’ll notice that the bike has wider tires with small knobs, much like what you would see on a mountain bike, but smaller. There are other more nuanced differences with the bikes, as well. They include gear ratios and frame geometry. This isn’t some geeky bike blog so we aren’t going to go down that rabbit hole. I guess the easiest way to explain gravel bikes is that they look kind of like road bikes but they are made for riding on… well, gravel and dirt.

When did the bloat start? Was it the Jersey Mike’s veggie sub on the way to Trinidad? The chocolate chip cookies Gary and I devoured after the sub stop? Was it my 2nd COVID shot I’d gotten just four days before?

Actually, I think it was the incredible ravioli I’d had for dinner that night. Generally, good pasta (I mean, one hundred years of family tradition passed down from generation to generation kind of good!) is no problem for my digestive track. That pasta and its sauce (especially the sauce) were so delicious that I sat on the curb and gorged myself. I must have made quite the spectacle, as families stopped to gawk and take videos of my voracious feeding.

And then, just as I finished the last of it, I regretted everything I’d just done. A sudden burp erupted from my mouth. It was quickly followed by a rush of acid reflux up the back of my throat. Time had brought about changes in my body that I was not at all used to. I used to think puberty was the last stop on the Big Body Morph. Nope. Aging, it turns out, is puberty in reverse.

I was full and uncomfortable as hell. I remained that way for hours.

As the night sky wrapped the state park in a cool Colorado evening, I thought about farting. I wanted to fart so, so bad but I couldn’t do it! My stomach was tight and swollen. My only relief was the occasional pasta sauce-flavored burp.

Had I not been so bloated I could have thoroughly enjoyed this sunset.

In the morning I had some coffee. It was effective in that it got my “stomach gurgles” rumbling but, in the end, it failed to deliver. I felt dejected and hopeless as each trip I took to the pit toilet proved fruitless.

My normal pre-race meal of cold-soaked oatmeal may as well have been a bowl of wet heavy cement. Each bite dropped into my gut with an audible plop, where it would surely sit for the remainder of the day.

I packed some toilet paper and wet wipes into the bag on my bike. I guess I was hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

As I reached the second check stop, I debated whether or not to continue. There were 45 miles left. To drop out would mean that I’d have to wait forever at the aid station for someone (and there really wasn’t anyone available anyway) to come get me OR I could reverse my course and head back to the start. Forty-five miles back or fifty-five miles forward. Might as well go for the finish, I figured.

Despite my swollen belly I had a strong start. My energy waned quickly, though. I knew that it was because all that food and hydration were just sitting there in my gut, heavy and unmoving. My gut was backed up like a line of Porta-Potties at a barbecue festival.

I pedaled away from the aid station, feeling like I’d just finished my third helping of Thanksgiving dinner. Only there was no easy chair to sit back into while I loosened my belt. My only salvation would be a series of good, hardy farts.

The secret to farting on the bikes is not to push too hard. Should anyone force the issue, perching low on a narrow saddle and bumping along a dirt road in tight cycling shorts is a disaster just waiting to happen. The last thing I wanted to do was stand on the side of the road, deep in the woods and wash my shorts out in a mountain stream.

From miles forty-five to sixty, I divided my energy between pushing down on the pedals and praying for relief. Absolutely nothing budged, though. I continued to sip on water and consume energy gels. Thinking that once the dam did finally break my body would quickly make good use of the energy sitting in the reserviour of my stomach.

Had there been a bloat-curing Saint to pray to, I would have immediately stopped and gone inside to light a candle.

As I stood on the pedals and continued to climb, I felt the flutter of sweet relief. Suddenly, there was a long and puttering escape of wind from my backside. I made a couple more hard pedal stokes and, then, to my elation, there was another sweet breeze that erupted from my rear. I stopped, dismounted and took in the view.

Had I been cured? Could I race the last 40 miles back to the finish? There was no way.

I pointed the bike downhill to start descending. The fast bumpy ride down the hill jostled loose more bottom biscuits and so I let the bike and my bottom rip down the hill. My bike and body were like a fine-tuned wind instrument.

There was still a short but painful climb left before me. My belly may have been a little lighter, but I was still residing in the hurt locker. I struggled onward, using standing efforts to free more of the barking spiders out from within the murky bowels of my body.

I felt a certain amount of airiness come over me. My legs felt fresher and my bib shorts weren’t nearly as restrictive as before. Most importantly, I was having fun again.

By the third aid station, I realized I’d become a celebrity of sorts with the middles schoolers who were volunteering. A chorus of “Hey, it’s Unicorn Guy!” greeted me. They were referring to the crocheted unicorn that I’d zip tied to my handlebar and my matching unicorn Bikes Kill Cancer jersey and stickers that I had passed out at prior rest stops.

I’m sort of a big deal with my pet unicorn.

My spirits were buoyed by the enthusiastic greetings and the ice cold water they’d supplied for us. With newly found enthusiasm, I prepared to tap out the last 23 miles to the finish.

I was just shy of cresting the final climb when I was caught by the last remaining pro rider. The pro field started 90 minutes after us average slobs. My disregard for things like braking allowed me to catch her on the downhill.

Without any words spoken, we adjusted our pace and began a hard but steady rotation. Hitting the pavement that made up the five mile run in to the finish we grunted a few words at each other and took turns dropping the hammer at the front.

I was excited to feel so good but also bummed that it had taken so late in the race to feel that way. I pushed the pace on each slight rise in the road. I’d adjusted my goals a long time ago, somewhere back around Mile 52, and finishing in under eight hours was going to feel like a win.

I still felt a bit gassy. I made sure not to let loose any more of my flavorful vapors until I’d had my turn at the front, though. I’d been born and raised in the south. I was taught that a true gentleman never passes gas in front of a lady, much less right in her face when she’s inches from my back wheel.

7 hour 45 minutes all things considered, I could live with that.

Each tough ride brings some realizations. Reflecting back on the ride the next morning after a healthy poop, I realized…

Nothing lasts forever, not even stomach bloat.
Farting is not overrated.
Your worst day in the saddle will still have moments of fun and joy.
You’re never as young as you used to be. At some point, your body is going to remind you of that in a very big way.