Labour Pains, Part Two w/special guest Clinton Charlton

Three Hours My Foot: My Adventure with Chuck and Chris
- by Clinton Charlton (with additional commentary by Chuck Teed)

Labour Day was a fitting metaphor for my inaugural long distance ride with my buddy Chuck Teed. Inspired by my good friend Chris Fudge, I recently purchased myself a decent bike to tackle some trails and get back into shape... somewhat (anything but a pear would be an imrpovement at this point). I was pretty excited at the idea of doing my first 30k and I spent the night before imagining what my new bike, a KHS Alite 1000, would look like covered in mud. I had visions of drinking Gatorade while summer sweat rolled down my rippling bicep (hey it's my vision alright!). The morning of, however, my excitement turned to nerves as I wondered if I would even be able to stay on my bike long enough to see the completion of the ride, let alone keep up with my friends. I have done a few rides as of late without too much effort, but certainly nothing more than 15k at the most. Oh well, no turning back now. When Chuck arrived at my house at 10am, my nerves gave way to excitement again, and I could not wait to meet up with Chris and start this journey. This was until Chuck piped up and said "I'm a little nervous about today".

PARDON ME!?!

At this point, I pounded Chuck with what was surely an unreasonable barrage of questions about what I could expect from today's trails. Chuck assured me it would be fine and that we were trekking through a series of roads and trails through the woods that would amount to about 34k altogether. Three hours from now my nerves would be replaced with that glowing sense of accomplishment and perhaps even a plate of guilt free french fries (more on that later). Alright, we're at Chuck's mom's house eating granola bars and waiting for Chris to arrive. What was I even nervous about? Chris arrives and we tune up the bikes while Chuck putters about his mom's garage. Some small talk and a few questions later, we're on the road.

"This ain't so bad" I thought. We hit a few hills right away but I knew to expect that. The weather was perfect and after the initial grunt and heavy breath, I started to catch my stride. Chris and I made small talk while Chuck ran off ahead. I knew we'd catch him on the downhills anyway, so I was not concerned. When we finally made the crest of the final hill, Chris and I stopped for a sip of Powerade while I checked out my bicep (sigh...not a single ripple). We made our way downhill to Chuck and then turned onto a dirt path that led us into the woods. The trail was great and had just enough tree trunks and small rocks to make it feel like my new bike was worth every penny. Soon the trail turned uphill and was riddled with loose rocks that resembled those you might find on a river bed. It made for a difficult climb but nonetheless, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. Again, Chuck took off ahead, with Chris and I confident we would catch him on the downhill.

Then it began...

Moments later Chuck came stammering down the trail in our direction murmuring something about a school bus and the words "wrong way". Chris and I gave a chuckle (PUN!) and turned around to follow Chuck. We proceeded down a trail that most bikers would only dream of. It was the perfect combination of trunks, stones and brush and it was mostly downhill. We made it about fifteen minutes down this trail when Chuck came back in our direction yet again. Ugh!

"Sorry boys" Chuck said "the first trail was the right way". Chris confirmed this with the GPS on his new state of the art cell phone. (Where was that state of the art contraption when I made the mistake in the first place?)

Chuck ran off ahead while Chris and I made our way back up the hill and back onto the first trail. Now confident that we were on the right track, Chris and I climbed up a series of loose rocks that seem to increase in size with each mile of what seemed like an endless hill. Positive that Chuck was quite far ahead, Chris and I assured each other that we would catch him on the downhill. Our concern was that Chris was carrying a backpack that had all of the day's supply of food and water. "Oh well, we'll catch him" we thought. The hill continued for what seemed like forever and each time we'd make a crest, it only led to another section of more incline. The rocks were quite difficult to navigate and to top it off, our feet were soaked from the multiple bogs and puddles that riddled the flat areas (which were few and far between). Finally we crested the final incline. Before Chris and I began the descent, we inspected my caliper and tried to isolate a noise that my bike had been making (turns out it was just caked on mud). At this pont I started to feel tired and I powered up with some water and the joy of knowing that the downhill would be a blast.

Wrong!

The downhill was way worse than the climb (sorry about that). The rocks got bigger and it was impossible to navigate our way through it with any speed. It dawned at me at this point that Chuck would be much faster on foot and I worried that he may need water soon. Chris and I trekked on through the rocks and finally made our way to flat land. Chris and I decided to pick up as much speed as we could in an effort to find our friend and get him some water. This was until we got to a fork in the trail. It was a total crap shoot at this point as to which way Chuck could have gone but Chris and I made a decision to take the trail that veered to the right after we conferred again with his GPS. Apprently this was not the way Chuck went, but how were we to know?

Chris and I made our way to First Lake and ended up travelling along the beach until we came to an inlet where some fishermen were waiting to see how we would pass. The fishermen rolled up their pant legs and waded through and Chris and I followed suit. At this point it should be noted that Chris and I were geeking out and feeling pretty cool about having just portaged our bikes across water in the woods (yet still not a ripple in the bicep). We dried ourselves out and got back to it, finding a road only moments later that led us around First Lake. At this point, we knew where we were and Chris and I figured we'd have about an hour left of biking. We made our way around First Lake and onto the main road. We put our bikes into our highest gear and started to push ourselves to see if we could find Chuck. Then Chris' cell phone rang.

No Way! It's Chuck! Knowing that our friend was safe, Chris and I decided to hurry back to the cars and then grab Chris's truck to go get Chuck. We pushed our legs as hard as we could and made our way back to Chuck's mom's house. We found Chuck, weathered but still in one piece, and made our way home.

Oh and before we went home, we got a plate of guilt free french fries and had ourselves a good laugh.

I can't wait to go out with my friends again! (keep working on the bicep, my friend!)