The day started frantically. I didn’t set my alarm clock properly and slept in an hour later than I’d planned. The start line opened at 5:00am and it was already 4:30am. Luckily I had my bike and the rest of my gear staged downstairs. I threw on my bike clothes, chugged a cup of reheated coffee and made a bowl of oatmeal for the road. Fortunately I live only 20 minutes from Enumclaw (that’s a sentence you don’t hear often). I was able to roll out of the starting line at 5:26am.
I’d been hydrating and carb loading for a few days leading up to this, and decided I could wait for a food stop 33 miles in at Eatonville. I felt ok through this leg, but didn’t have the energy I was hoping for. I drank of bottle of electrolytes, ate some muffins and fruit and got rolling. I was feeling better by the time we got to Ashford at mile 55. It was getting much warmer at this point, and I started killing a 24oz bottle of fluid each hour or so. This rest stop had wonderful fresh fruit. I’d never had such good cantelope. I think it was at Ashford that I ran into Tim. Our wives used to work together, and we keep up on facebook etc. Thoughout the day I’d run into Tim a few times.
Shortly after that, we entered the Mt. Rainier National Forest. Due to some road construction/repair work, we had to divert our route into Packwood via Skate Creek Road and missed out on the climb to Paradise. Skate creek road was very scenic without any vehicle traffic that I can recall. As nice as that was, the road had some treacherous obstacles. Every few miles there were large sections of road that were cut out and fill with loose gravel. Most of these were only a few feet wide. Holding a steady trajectory allowed me to almost float over the shorter ones. There was one gravel section that must have been 30 feet where I started to fish tail and worried I’d lose control.
At the end of the road hazard drama, I arrived at Packwood. I refilled my water and took a break inside an air conditioned mini-mart were I ate a small bag of spicy potato chips and half a dozen fig newtons.
It was getting hot now. I had brought several bandanas with me. I tied one around my neck and saturated it with ice water. That really helped things.
For the next 10 miles or so I hit long straight gradual rolling hills. I could smell a nearby forest fire burning and watched Chinook helicopters carrying those giant water baskets to dump on the fire. Eventually we wandered back into the National Park via HWY 123. My GPS unit wasn’t tracking properly, so my odometer was way off – at least 15 miles I estimated, so I really didn’t know how far I had to go. What I did know was Packwood was mile 78, and the water stop before peak of Cayuse was 101 miles.
It’s hard to recall exactly when the “climb” began. I suppose it was when I passed the turn off to Paradise, where the course traditionally would follow. It was approximately at that point where a 3 hour climb began. I ride hills a lot. Most people who ride bikes around Puget Sound do. Even my daily commute has 700 ft of climbing, and I could routinely do weekend rides with 300ft or more at a time.
There is nothing to compare to a mountain pass climb. It’s not about how steep the grade is – it’s the distance and the fact that over that distance there’s never a neutral grade. In rolling foothills, you’ve always got a “top” of the climb you’re doing. And for every up there’s a down. My body is very used to exerting up even a nasty hill knowing it can have a short break just a few minutes away. This scenario was impossible on this climb.
I had to stop every couple miles to cool down and compose myself. My gearing was not ideal. If I pedaled at too slow of cadence, my legs would stiffen, but the quicker rotation sucked too much energy. I got into this situation where every hour I’d be only 3 miles further because of this scramble and rest pattern I fell into. What was curious was I actually stopped for different reasons each time. First time I felt nauseous, then my legs hurt, then I was just too hot. It’s very difficult to explain how frustrating it is to know you’re “only” 3 miles from the peak, but that’s 45 minutes away.
When I finally reached the summit of Cayuse Pass, the sun felt as hot as it had all day. Some guy had a temperature watch which read 108F. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t even 100F and his reading was off because it was resting on the metal bumper of a support truck. In any case, it was ridiculously warm and so I dumped a quart of ice water down my back before heading down hill.
Tim and I hit the descent together. It took only 15 minutes to undo what took 3 hours to climb. We happily rolled into the “Deli Stop” at the base of Crystal Mountain about 3pm. The food was perfect, and I ate a lot of it. There I met the rest of Tim’s crew – a couple guys he works with and a couple of true to life “Iron Men”. One Iron Man had done multiple full Iron Man triathalons in the past year. These guys were as conditioned as any professional athlete. I’m a strong bike rider, but I still have some soft areas and eat normal food. Another guy from the group was going to run a 5K this weekend – for runners that’s not a big deal, but walking your dog the day after the RAMROD seemed daunting.
I was both in awe and intimidated, but this group arranged for a pace line back into Enumclaw. We had discussed and debated climbing up Crystal Mountain. I was healthy, had moderate energy at this point, but my knees weren’t perfect and was having a little trouble staying hydrated – even though I’d been killing a quart of water a 2 electrolyte tablets each hour. Tim had a recent knee injury from playing baseball. We also knew descending down off crystal was treacherous as that road is open year round for the ski resort. As a result it’s littered with pot holes and other dangers. Between all these excuses and the heat near 100F, we elected to head straight back to Enumclaw on HWY 410.
On paper Crystal Mtn. Rd. to Enumclaw looks easy, as it’s literally all downhill from there. However there was a sizable head wind. To give you an idea, while the wind wasn’t enough to stop me from rolling, it held me to 10mph on a 3% grade. I’m a big dude and gravity would usually allow me to get to 20mph without wind.
We took turns pulling and we managed 20-24mph until we hit Green Water. Recall that I didn’t have a working odometer, so I was exactly sure how far out I was, but I figured I was an hour away or so. I broke off our line, and called Lisa so she and the kids could meet me at the finish.
About 10 miles down the road I came up to Tim who got dropped off the line. He’d hung with me during the climb up Cuyase, so the least I could do was pull him into town. We met up with the rest of his crew at the Mud Mtn Rd. turn. From there we had only 8 miles to go – all of which was either down hill or flat. My feet were burning hot like I’d been doing jumping jacks bare foot on hot pavement for hours. I decided not to care and kept moving to the finish.
Just at 6:00pm I crossed the finish line at Enumclaw High School. People were saying how hot it was, but I didn’t noticed because I’d stopped pedaling. I got my customary free ice cream treats and handed them to my kids.
Having never done this before, I can’t say how much of a factor the heat was. Asking RAMROD veterans, I got varied answers – so it’s impossible to conclude if this would’ve been a lot easier in different weather. In hindsight a couple more teeth on the rear cassette (12-27) would’ve been nice, and I should’ve trained on one of these mountain passes. I climbed up to Sunrise earlier this year, but I rode it fresh without 100 miles before hand. I’m not going to think about next year – I’m going to start enjoying my summer instead of worrying about the next big ride.
