The Three Mountain Metric Century
Michael Berry
Harry Wilson, one of the organizers of the Three Mountain Metric Century (3MM), had invited me to come and do his ride for a number of years. Each year, I had a great excuse. Our national professional meeting always follows Memorial Day weekend. Harry’s ride was always held on the Saturday following the Memorial Day weekend. Given our meeting did not end until Saturday, coupled with the fact that the most airlines required a Saturday night stay over to get the cheap flights meant that I would never have the good fortune of suffering through Harry’s iniquitous creation.
You see the 3MM is a 67 mile exercise in agony that climbs more than 8,600 feet. This corresponds to 128 feet of elevation gain per mile. Unfortunately, the majority of the climbing is done in less than 15 miles. For comparison, the Assault on Mount Mitchell gains just over 11,000 feet in 102 miles or 108 feet of elevation gain every mile.
Last year, as I sat comfortably on a westbound flight to San Francisco enjoying two of my favorite diuretics, coffee and a Bloody Mary, I began to question my sanity. I was flying to San Francisco for a professional meeting, which meant that all of my expenses were paid. My wife, Lynn, and I were headed out five days early so that we could spend time biking in the Napa and Sonoma valleys enjoying my third favorite diuretic – red wine. Last year I had a presentation on Thursday afternoon, and since we had stayed over the requisite Saturday night for the cheap flight, we could head back anytime after I presented. For some strange and unknown reason, we decided to head back on Friday so that we could do the 3MM. We gave up two more evenings in a five star hotel, elegant dining and fine diuretics just for the opportunity to suffer while climbing Sauratown Mountain, Hanging Rock and Pilot Mountain. I was promised, however, that there would be some type of fluid replacement beverage and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches waiting at the finish; that is if I finished. Saturday morning of the ride it was pouring down rain. I decided that I since I had made the effort to get back and do the ride a little rain was not going to stop me. I loaded the bike into the car and headed to the start of the ride. About half way there, all hell broke lose from the sky. While I did not relish the thought of riding in the rain soaking wet, the thought of drying out instantly at 30,000 degrees Kelvin via a lightning strike did somewhat dampen my enthusiasm. Every cyclist knows that the attraction between spandex and electricity is second only to the attraction between spandex and rednecks in pickup trucks. I turned around and headed home. I thought at least I could tell Harry I had made the effort, even if it was a chicken-hearted effort. Hopefully, the invitations from Harry to the Stygian Shore would end.
Unfortunately, they did not. This year, Harry again invited me to participate in his little suffer fest. And once again, I had a lapse of sanity. My presentation at this year’s meeting was on Thursday, and, much to my chagrins, many airlines had finally realized the asininity of a Saturday night stay over. And they wonder why they need federal bailouts! Anyway, I booked my flight so I could return on Friday and attempt the 3MM on Saturday. In talking with a former graduate student at the meeting, he asked if this was a race or a charity event. While the 3MM is designed as a charity ride, most of us that do these types of events know there is a fine line between altruism and competition, and that line is usually the finish line.
This year’s ride was going to be a little different than what I had planned on doing last year. This year I was planning to attempt the 3MM on a tandem with my altruism/racing partner Beverly. We had done several mountain century rides last year, only to consistently finish second or third among the tandems. We had grown tired of being altruistic and decided it was time to be competitive. This year, we completed the Foothill’s Classic and The Assault on Mount Mitchell, both mountainous centuries, and had been the first tandem to finish in both. Could we do the same in the 3MM? Of course we could! While that may sound somewhat presumptuous, we were confident of another first place finish. The main reason being we were the only ones stupid enough to show up on a tandem; confident – yes, smart - NO. All we had to do was finish it – easier written than done.
Lynn and I arrived around 7:00 to register and get ready for the ride which was to start at 8:00. By 7:40, I was starting to panic. Where was Beverly? There was no way I could talk Lynn into doing the ride on the tandem. She had only planned to do one of the climbs and was not about to try all three on a tandem; confident – no, smart – yes. Riding a tandem for 67 miles with only one person on it could prove to be a bit problematic, in addition to looking moronic. I finally spotted Beverly. She was parked in a far parking lot. She was going to register, and I would meet her at her car. Once we were on the bike and ready to go, we headed to the start line. Unfortunately, we were pretty far back from the starting riders. It was beginning to look more like a charity event at this point.
As we rolled out at the start, 300 or so of the 375 riders doing the ride were in front of us. Since the first 13 or 14 miles is rolling hills, this was our opportunity to get in with the lead pack of riders. If you have never ridden a tandem, let me tell you that on the flats and the downhills you can move along at a pretty quick pace. In fact most single bikes will be fighting for a spot right on your wheel. Once the long uphills appear, most single bikes will drop you faster than the Beef Industry would drop Jeffrey Dahmer as their spokesman. Needless to say, we needed to pass several hundred riders to get to a position with the lead pack. While still obeying all North Carolina traffic laws, regulations and ordinances, we would pass large groups of riders until we finally made it to the front of the lead pack. At this point a single paceline formed behind us as we headed towards the first major climb – Sauratown Mountain. Occasionally a single bike would pull, but eventually we would end up back in the lead. After 6 to 7 miles, we dropped the lead group and were out front by ourselves. Both Beverly and I knew this would last about as long Janet Jackson would last as the spokeswoman for Citizen for Responsible Broadcasting. Unfortunately, we would not be able to blame the loss of our lead on a wardrobe malfunction. However, similar to Jeffrey, maybe we could blame it on our diet.
Once we made the turn onto Rock House Road, we were able to put a little more distance on the lead pack as there was a fairly long downhill. At the bottom of the hill we were cruising along at 45 miles per hour – again well within the limits of the state of North Carolina statutes, regulations and laws. As we started up the hill, we passed a group of cyclist that had left a few minutes before the official start time, which is certainly permissible if you are an altruistic rider. We were able to carry our speed a good ways up the hill. Unfortunately, there was still a fair amount of climbing before we crested the hill. I dropped down into a lower gear and we started grinding our way up the hill. As I looked back, I could see the lead pack rapidly gaining on us. At about this time, Beverly remarked that she really wasn’t feeling well. Now… when you are on a tandem, one thing you don’t want to hear from your partner is that s/he is not feeling well. That is second only to “I think I’m going to puke”. When one person is not feeling well, it inevitably means that the other will soon not be feeling well. If you are both feeling bad, it is going to be a really long day. In order for a tandem team to do well in a ride like the 3MM, both riders need to be feeling really good. Such are the vicissitudes of riding a tandem. About 40 riders passed us before we made the final turn to start the climb up Sauratown Mountain. The climb gains over 1100 feet in elevation in a little more than 2.5 miles. As we started the climb, an additional 20 or so riders passed us – even some of the altruistic early birds rode past. We circled the top and immediately began our descent. Due to the steepness and sharp turns on the descent, we really did not make up any time on the riders that had passed us. A big concern on a tandem during long steep descents is the potential for blow outs. Because more force is needed to slow the mass of a tandem, more pressure must be applied by the brakes to the rims. This in turn results in heating of the rims. And, as I am sure everyone remembers from physics class, the law of perfect gases states that as temperature increases so to does pressure. Unfortunately too high a pressure will result in a blowout. And a blowout on a tandem at 40 miles per hour is pretty darn scary. Once we reached the bottom, we rode past the first well stocked and supported rest stop and headed for the climb up Hanging Rock. At this point Beverly remarked that she was feeling a lot better. Yea, I know what you are thinking “how the hell does someone feel better after climbing Sauratown?” I was wondering the same thing.
Hanging Rock was to be the easiest of the climbs. It was about a 5 mile ride to the start of the climb, and we were able to catch a number of riders who jumped on our wheel, thus allowing us the pleasure of pulling them to the start of the climb. Once we started up, they pretty much left us to suffer in our own private tandem misery. Surprisingly, however, we were able to catch and pass a few riders on this climb. We circled the top, skipped the second well stocked rest stop and began our descent. As we started down, I kept feathering the brakes in order to avoid gaining too much speed. Forty-five was fast enough for me. Along with Beverly’s miraculous healing on the climb up Sauratown, came a belief that we could fly downhill. She kept telling me to just let it roll. I looked at my poultry monitor and realized I had reached my chicken heart max. I wasn’t willing to just let it roll until we made it through the final set of curves. From Hanging Rock the ride heads towards Danbury with more rolling hills. Along the way, we picked up a number of riders, and a few even offered to pull. From Danbury we then headed to the third, final and most difficult climb - Pilot Mountain. The ride from Danbury to Pilot was about 15 miles and consisted of lightly traveled, well paved roads that rolled along – perfect riding conditions for a tandem. Several of the riders we picked up in Danbury were still with us and we continued to pick up additional riders along the way. Some offered to pull; most just hung on for the ride.
Once we started to approach Pilot Mountain, I suggested to the 15 to 20 riders we had been pulling, that it would only be fair for them to now take turns pushing us up to the top of Pilot. Much to the surprise of me and Beverly, every darn one of them refused our offer. Again we were left on our own to climb the 1150 feet to the top in less than 2.5 miles. Surprisingly, we were able to keep a large number of the riders in our group in view and even passed a few of them. As we headed up, I tried to count the number of riders coming down to get a sense of where we were place wise. In my hypoxic state, coupled with poor counting skills, I figured we were among the top 35 riders. Once we reached the top, we made the requisite circle around the parking lot and started our descent. Some portions of road to the top of Pilot are extremely steep and the road is very winding. Given we had seen a cyclist on the side of the road who had played chicken with a car and lost, my poultry monitor was again maxed. As we exited the park, we passed a group of several cyclists and began our final 7 mile push to the finish. We were once again on tandem friendly roads. We picked up one lone cyclist early on. With only a few miles left we spied a group 5 – 10 cyclist. On one of the rolling hills we were able to roll past this group. Unfortunately, they were able to jump on our wheel as we made our way to the finish. In the last mile there was a steep downhill followed by a steep uphill and then a ½ mile flat section to the finish. While I knew none of the cyclist we were pulling would attempt to come around us on the downhill section, I was worried we would not have enough momentum to carry us to the top of the final hill. Beverly and I stood up on the final part of the climb and were able to maintain our lead. However, once we hit the last ½ mile flat section, one rider did come around. We immediately jumped on his wheel and in the final ¼ mile were able to sprint past him. As we rolled into the parking lot, we were greeted by my wife and Matt Canter who had finished ahead of us. Both were wondering why we were breathing so hard and ready to puke. We told them “shallow altruistic victories are not so easily attained.”