A story of an epic ride and epic failure, for a great cause.
What follows is a tale told from truth. It is the adventure that occurred at the first annual ALS MN Bike Trek in 2010 by a group of riders from what today is the Chilkoot Cycling Club. This story is why you should join us and enjoy the roads of northern Washington County for this great event every year! Think of it - you too may be the next Chilkoot Cycling Club Hero!
I hope you enjoy and sign yourself up to either ride or support one of us who will be there chasing glory and helping others!
The month of May. A time when the weather begins to warm, or is at least supposed to warm. The Giro kicks off the first of the major tours of the cycling season. Tulips are at the height of their bloom. Sleet pelts riders as they complete 70 miles of "Hell of the North", otherwise known as the ALS MN Bike Trek. May. A month we celebrate mothers and all they've done to us!
And the "sprinters" begin to get serious about their craft.
The legs, they are a fresh!
Alas, with all the good, all the promise of the early season, and the Sprint Championship already won* there are those whose mental game is still not adequately prepared for the pressures we sprinters feel ride after ride. Rookie mistakes are made and some have their skills questioned, over and over, and over.
We have pain. And suffering. And they repeat.
(For a change, it's not me.)
Before we begin this sad tale of one of our own’s terrible tragedy, take a minute or two and check out these stories:
Note the celebrant... and then read the caption
Ouch.
And another... note the celebrant.
That hurts.
Do I have a point? Yes. But you're going to have to hear the full story to understand the point****.
Saturday May 7, 2010. 8 faces gather at the Bikery, then a cafe across the street from Chilkoot Cafe. Your heroes (some more heroic than others) for the day:
Ted 'The Prof' H.
Mike 'The bike does my talking' L.
Shawn "Not Sean and Yes! I'm from WI, u got a problem with that?" C.
John "J. Sully" Sutcliffe (me)
Brian formally "Chocolate Thunder" H. (Yes, the VP.)
Randy "Red Sea" M. (Yes, the president, and always wiser than the rest of us.)
Tim "I dropped you and I dropped you and I..." T.(Moots Man)
Paul "I have permission to be gone till noon" B.
We ride to lovely Withro Minnesota, then the start and end point of the ALS MN Bike Trek. But! At Withro we are joined by a guy name Greg "Bam!" M. (whom you all know, or if you don’t, you should, he’s not half as angry as he looks, usually) and another guy named Guy who is a friend of Bike Trek MN Founder Justin Rumley. Or WAS a friend of Justin's until he drove up from Iowa for this ride and spent the day on the bike with the Magic 8 + Greg who joined us in Withro.
Before leaving Withro (the ballroom, not the town) we ran into another 'guy' but this 'guy' was on a Motorcycle - his name was Tim, Tim 'Ducati' P.. It was a nice motorcycle - it was red - like an Argon Gallium (not the Pro, which is white.) Tim Ducati looked cold. We saw him later. He was cold. Not Iron Crotch*** cold, but still quite cold. Tim has a good story about people colder than him who had flat tires. You should ask him about it. It was his good turn for the day.
Off we go. North up County Road 57 past Withro Elementary School. And what should appear but the first Stop Ahead sign of the day. A fearsome Stop Ahead to begin our day, perched right at the top of a monster climb of 20, maybe 25 feet!
And only 2 were brave enough to go one on one for this sprint. The Prof and Sully. With Sully on the inside and The Prof on the outside. Hammer down, uphill, gear shift. Onto the hill. Heart rate building. And...
The first sprint to Sully! Yep. Sully. Stunned silence.
Big early win. Could this set the tone for the day? The Prof does soon mention something about "tired legs". Sully thinks “Yeah, tired legs. That was just a good 'ole fashioned whoopin!” The group continues - they all revel in what the Argon has achieved. Even Sully can win a sprint with a nice bike! The Prof though, you can see the burn in his eyes. The others - perhaps they're pretending to enjoy the results.
We then catch Mike L. and Moots Man who were slightly up the road from us (we'll ignore that they may have passed the Stop Ahead before the group as that would take away from the building drama, some might say "foreshadowing" of what's to come)
The group continues turning north onto Manning.
We approach the first ALS Bike Trek rest stop. We stop, not at the rest stop but at the entrance to the rest stop. Unable to make any sort of a decision on stopping to rest or to continue and not rest. We discuss if we should go in, or should continue. This goes on longer than it would have taken to go in and get another scone.
Mr. "Home by Noon" FINALLY makes the call: “Let's go on! But I reserve the right to complain later about not stopping!” We all agree. This man is a genius.
Continue we do. (You feel the tension building don't you?)
We head north on Manning past Highway 97 up to 228th Street. We take 228th to the east, the route taking us around the south end of Bone Lake. A great road and the scene of what is to become the day’s major drama (there's always drama on our rides, much to the chagrin of guys named Guy who are very quiet except to say they're just gonna try and "hang on" and crushing you like a bug on the car windshield and they're also friends of the event organizer and got stuck riding with THIS GROUP who have a few people who talk a lot, illustrated by this story.)
Back to the story: The group is heading east. Beautiful new blacktop. Smooth as a babies butt. 10 riders rolling along. Eyes peeled for that next Stop Ahead.
We had just been riding a very nice double pace line coming up Manning. It was a thing of beauty. Lee would've been so proud. And then we made that fateful right hand turn onto 228th. Brian calls for the pace line to come back together. But this is NICE blacktop. The wind is now on our backs. We're happy. The sun has just come out. It's warming up (as long as you don't stop). Life is good! And we ignore ole Brian and his pleas for "togetherness".
And what should appear in the distance but a Stop Ahead. Sprint two! Wind 'em up and here they go!
Brian on the outside - Greg on the inside. Brian goes. Greg jumps. Everyone else yawns with excitement. No Argon? Why bother? But Greg is closing. Closing like, like, like adjectives can not explain. Suffice it to say the gap is closing FAST!
They're at the line. WOW!
Greg almost goes down. his bike jerks to the right almost taking out Brian. Brian somehow hangs on for the win.
The field all take a drink from their water bottle, yawn, and continue on.
Unlike Sully whose ego needs very little stroking, just a happy go lucky kind of guy who hates the spotlight, you can see Brian’s head begin to swell under the bike helmet he calls home for his hair.
The swelling head is pushing Brian off the front a bit. For him an exciting moment, if not rare. Not something that happens often to guy who at that time was still on aluminum and not on a brand new really fast Argon 18 Gallium (not the Pro).
Following in the wake of the swollen head is Greg. Licking his wounds a bit. But the better man for the effort he'd just put forth. Brian is 25 meters in front of Greg and to the inside of the road, near the center line. With Greg in the middle, perhaps slightly to the right of the mid-line of the lane. And our hero Sully a few meters behind Greg and further to the right.
And there it looms, another Stop Ahead. Sprint 3? Maybe. Maybe not. Brian looks back over his left shoulder.
He covers a few more meters.
And again he looks.
That stop ahead is about 100 meters away. And the distance coming down.
Brian thinks (this is author speculation regarding what ran through that swollen head may actually indicate there was very little thinking involved by the man on the front with the HUGE advantage.) “I've got this one. The feared Argon is behind Greg, and I've just broken Greg’s spirits not to mention he's 25, maybe 30 meters behind me. This is mine! I'll be up by 2 sprints to 1 to the ever feared J. Sully!”
And his celebration beings igniting the fireworks behind him. (Poor, poor Brian.)
The line up - Brian** , 100 meters from the Stop Ahead, his position near where a center line would be if there were a center line on this REALLY QUITE blacktop.
Gregory "Bam!" in 2nd position. 25 meters off Brian's back wheel. Near the middle of our lane.
And in 3rd, our hero, J. "Sully", sitting carefully to the right of Greg. As hidden as a bald 6'4" man on a 61cm frame can be when he's behind a not quite 5'4" man who's on a close to 54cm frame.
Brian looks over his left shoulder.
Sully, starts licking his chops, lips clearly chapped on this chilly day.
Brian takes another look.
Sully begins the acceleration. Carefully. Trying to stay camouflaged by Gregory.
Brian, another look, and celebration 1 begins. The might fist pump!
Sully moves hard. Right leg, left leg, up a gear, RPMs increasing like a bullet coming out of gun! BOOM! Sully moves around the left of Greg. The gap that had been 25 is now 24, and 23... and falling rapidly as Sully's explosiveness pays the dividends his well trained quads were designed for... And oh the Argon... Have I mentioned the Argon?
22 meters...
19 meters...
Brian moving on to celebration number 2: sitting up and using the ever popular “rock the baby”!
17 meters...
15 meters... The gap is closing... Brian, nearly as close to winning another sprint as he will ever be.
10 meters... Sully finds another gear as Brian moves into celebration number 3: a “no hands double arm wavement thingy”.
7 meters... this is serious - Brian is now into all out celebration number 4, something that is beyond the words this author can come up with to describe.
And the gap is...
2 meters...
Brian looks over his shoulder one last time. It's obviously an effort not designed to spot oncoming riders but to take in the look of the riders who had been far, far behind our fading champion. He spots Sully. Agast, the man formerly known as Thunder moves to his left in an effort to push our hero (Sully) into the ditch followed by a feeble try at "acceleration".
But Brian understands he is not a young man like our hero.
Their wheels are now even. But it's over. It's been over even before the premature celebrations kicked off 60.5 meters ago.
Sully is now up by a wheel length And now 2 wheels. Brian has tears beginning to flow in his eyes. A yowl from his inner soul emerges that sounds like a squirrel hit by 35mm tire on a cross-bike.
(It hurts me just retelling this. But retold it must be.)
Brian knows in his heart of hearts it's over. He's become Erik Zabel. He is the cocky cyclist. And not only has he lost yet another sprint, but he's lost this one with an Exclamation point! A dagger between the shoulder blades. A stiletto placed into the ribs. The shot heard round the world.
One for the ages that our hero, J. Sully will likely retell every chance he has.
The oncoming peloton nearly crashes as they laugh with such excitement they nearly fall from their perch on their bicycle. A rider lightly wets their bibs!
Sully uses the single, distinguished, subtle but point making fist pump. No rock the baby. No double hands in air with a twist. Just a simple placement of the victory knife right where it belongs.
Let's be honest. That's gotta hurt. Your hero, J. Sully, winner of the first 2 most major sprints of this young cycling season thinks in his head: "Boy, that's hurting you much more than it's hurting me."
And we'd only gone 25 or 30 miles! There is more. The sneak attack on the way into Scandia. The rest stop at the State Park. The team letting Moots Man think he'd ridden away from us again.
The parting of the sleet by Mr. “Red Sea” as we finish the Hell of the North. There may even have been 1 or 2 more sprints? Who can remember.
Mr. Home By Noon never did use his reserved right to complain about not stopping at that rest stop.
Mike, the man who speaks through his bike did what he always does and put the hurt to us.
Mr. C. - the blue Cannondale - rode off into the sunset back to WI from wince he came. Sorry for the fact he'd "ridden over".
It was a grand day! We shall return next year. I'm sure the rematch will be just as fun!
* The first annual Calvin Jones Bikery Field Sprint on the First Saturday of May.
** The new nickname for the former 'Chocolate Thunder'.
*** Iron Crotch - An early season ride in Western Wisconsin that is designed to test your crotch’s fortitude early in the cycling season. Often wet and cold and cold and wet.
**** Rereading this 3 years later, I think I may have never gotten to the point. Or maybe I did. Ride, enjoy, and do it with people you enjoy!
Originally appeared Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 9:57pm, shortly after this tragedy.
PS - sometime I should tell the story of the clown who sprints early and often on rides and then suffers home into the wind over those last final
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