While I haven't ridden so far today, yesterday's ride was quite notable for me: I rode with a retired pro cyclist! His name is Chris Wiegand and he now works for a group called Adaptive Adventures. He lives in CO, but we both ended up in AZ at the same time and were able to link up for an MTB ride in Estrella Mountain Park in the Phoenix area.
What a ride, but oh, so humbling! The trail was a moderate blue with lots of loose rock and steep grades. Standard desert MTB work, in other words. I thought the altitude change from Denver to Phoenix would help me. Ditto my fat bike's huge, forgiving tires and wondrous climbing gears. Those things all proved true, but it's also true that I'm just coming off Covid and have had a bad winter season in mileage terms. Despite the paltry 8mi, it was a hard effort for me. My HR averaged 163bpm over the course of the ride. Once, I hit 185. I hiked a couple of hills toward the end which I knew I could otherwise climb, I was just out of gas.
I even remembered by inhaler going into the ride, still ended up puffing like a locomotive throughout.
It was amazing to get to ride in the desert again. I love CO, but I grew up in the desert and it's got a hold over me. It's been way too long since I played on this kind of singletrack, but I can still hum the tune. If more slowly than I'd like. I probably wouldn't have gone at all had I realized how poor my fitness level was relative to trail difficulty, but I'm glad I did and Chris was really nice about the fact that he could easily have doubled his speed or more had he but chosen to listen to my protests and leave me behind
. I knew the way back to the trail head and it's not that I couldn't ride (most) of the terrain, I just couldn't do it with anything like the effortless speed and ease of which he remains clearly capable.
He spat a line back at me that I've used myself in other contexts: "if we head out to ride together, we finish the ride together." Fair enough, and he and I knew going in that my relative fitness level was nothing like his, lol. I didn't understand quite how nothing like his it was, but there you have it. Watching him handle his bike was incredible. No real shock, but
[email protected]! Poetry in motion. I only thought I was comfortable in my saddle. Wow.
After a wonderful ride, I followed Chris by invitation to a Paralympics qualifying event where he was supporting a group of adaptive cyclists, mostly on hand trikes. I see hand cyclists out of the trail with some frequency and have deep respect, but this was flat amazing: 30+ men and women on every kind of hand and adaptive cycle imaginable. It was worth being there just to look at all the different ways a set of cranks can be attached to 2 or 3 wheels to allow someone who can't spin cranks in the usual way to still enjoy riding under their own power. Several of the CF trikes were just flat gorgeous, and I'm usually not a Carbon guy at all. That many of the participants were disabled veterans - a group for whom I hold very high regard indeed - just made it more special for me to get to be there.
The event was a TT, and I was impressed with the speed that many of the hand cyclists could manage. Wow! Today is the main race, and I'm sick that I have to miss it, but that's how the cookie crumbled this time. I'm ostensibly here for my father in law's 75th birthday, and it's important to me to honor that event, too.
In the past, I have tended to play my cards pretty close to my chest when it comes to talking about the fact that I am a disabled cyclist myself. I'm sure some of you figured it out from pics I've posted, but I've never explicitly said anything about it: my right hand and arm are partially paralyzed as the result of complications arising from a birth injury. The same one that also landed me with PTSD.
As an adult, I have managed the injury largely by figuring out ways around my limitations and then ignoring the fact of the limitations. That sounds stupid and contradictory, and it is: PTSD had a great deal to do with the evolution of that less than stellar strategy. No more. Among many other things, Chris is now an adaptive bike fitter. He wanted to see me ride in order to start figuring which components might help me to achieve a proper fit on my bike, something I've never been able to manage due to the fact that my riding position is automatically compromised by the fact that I can't push down against the handlebar on the right side. Indeed, my right arm is a bit shorter than the left, to boot.
Chris suggested several component possibilities, some of which I've considered myself. The difference is, his organization already has all the hardware and is willing loan it out to see what works the best for me. Much easier to plunk down good $$ on better gear that I know will work as intended. I am really grateful for the opportunity to work with him and the larger organization, Adaptive Adventures.
As for the ride, my Garmin said I need to recover for 48hrs afterward. I maxed the aerobic and anaerobic values in a classic overextension. I don't care. It was amazing to get to ride the desert properly again. I need to polish my skills and get back out here to log some more miles. Since I lived here back when we rode dinosaurs to work, they've built tons of bike paths and seemingly even more singletrack. Better, the Ice Cream Truck's huge tires mean I float easily over the sandy spots, even in washes. That was something that always annoyed me when I ran MTB tire widths. No more!
