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A week ago today, some of us went on a ride to bid Jim Cummings a farewell. A great career opportunity has come up for him. He is a packaging engineer and I will be thinking of him next time I eat one of my very favorite candies. It had been a while since I had ridden with the racers and I was looking forward to a great ride. Let’s just say, I started out strong and feeling good until they started.
Leg Cramps.
Yeah, they suck so bad, they get their own paragraph. I just don’t want to be near them so I’ll leave them hanging up there by themselves and let spellcheck tell me it may be an incomplete sentence. I hate you leg cramps.
It could have been the lack of sleep, the afternoon cup of coffee or just being so hurried when I got home because my carpooler was late getting out of work, resulting in me being rushed and running around the house getting ready to ride that I forgot to eat a banana, pack any food or drink any electrolyte drink before I left, not to mention forgetting to bring my headlight. I was worried about missing out on the ride as I rushed out the door and rode over to the house of Tim Mohn.
To make a long story short, I was keeping up fine until my leg started screaming at me. The group waited for me at a couple of places and when I got there I got the shameful question:
“You feeling OK?”
I felt miserable, and the question of shame makes it even worse. It’s much better to be on the other end of that. Feeling sorry for their slow, short friend I was given Accel gels, a Cliff bar and finally some Cliff Shot Blocks. Coming back towards town and after the shot blocks, I felt great. When the ride was over, I felt like I was ready to ride. I definitely need to get the whole electrolyte thing figured out for sure. Leg cramps suck.
I kept up just fine in the beginning and took a few pictures before the pain set in. Pretty sure I’d be a decent cyclist if I could get the cramps to disappear. Of course, I’d also be an excellent basketball player if I wasn’t five foot six.
Then we had another predicament. Jim, one of the founders of the DK 200 and gravel rider extraordinaire, had a flat. No, make that four or five flats, I lost track. He was riding his shiny new red Salsa Cross bike but didn’t have the tire situation set up yet. The Flint Hills gravel ate those tires up. That slowed the ride down quite a bit. I felt fine in the end and the breaks probably helped. Everyone made fun of the skinny tired cross bike. Just so you know, I haven’t had any flats yet on my cross bike set up with a Bontrager XR1 on the front and a Kenda Kwest on the rear with somewhere around 1000+ miles of Flint Hills gravel under them. (The Kenda Kommados look interesting too)
This calf was checking us out as we waited for the rest of the guys to show up. I had ridden the hills back towards Emporia at a fairly good pace. This stretch of gravel was very rough with lots of loose rock and big downhills. I was having a good time going fast and thought I was really fast since no one was behind me, but they were changing flats.
Hey look, lucky #7. The Browns and I waited for the group. Matt decided to go find them and went back. I was more concerned about keeping the leg cramps away and thought the break may do me some good. This is when Stephanie let me have half a pack of shot blocks and I had no more cramps after this short rest. And here she is, the better looking half of the Brown Duo.
Well, the rest was longer as another flat happened as the sun was going down. Jim didn’t seem too cheerful when I jokingly asked him if this was his first time in the Flint Hills.
The last flat that occurred was on nice downhill coming out of the Flint Hills. I should say it’s a fast downhill and it’s a good thing Jim controlled his bike and didn’t wreck. I gave him my last tube and we were off. All I had was my helmet light with low batteries. I turned it on and then the racers turned on their lights. They were super bright and made me and my little Coleman light feel a little inferior. I may have rode a little faster at the end of the DK 200 if I could have seen on those dark, low maintenance roads, Ah who am I kidding?
We hit pavement on the way home and lined up and pedaled hard. Our paceline would have rivaled any at the Tour de France, I’m almost sure of it. That was fun, as my cramps were gone and I owe everyone for helping me out.
We finished the night off with some food and beer and wished Jim good luck and farewell. He promised to see us all in June of 2011 for the next Dirty Kanza 200.
Good Luck Jim. Tear it up in Pennsylvania.
Feed Your Monkey!
Eric
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