What? Are you stupid!

By

Mark Patten

Yes, I would have to say that I am a little bit on the stupid side. As an ultra cyclist I hear this all the time when I tell people what I do for fun. This Labor Day weekend was no different, instead of going to the beach or a BBQ; I went to Missouri for a 573-mile bike race. They call it BAM, Bicycle Across Missouri / Midwest RAAM Qualifier, what a better place to spend the Labor Day holiday. 573 miles of nothing but rolling hills, a little humidity, and my partner. That's right, I did it on a tandem. I met my partner, Aaron Rumple from St. Louis, on RAAM. We were both crewmembers for Seana Hogan. Aaron, suffering from 3 or 4 days without sleep, was "stupid" enough to ask me if I wanted to ride his tandem on BAM. How else would you explain an Ivy League grad asking me to go 573 miles on a tandem, that we had not ridden together, ever, 3 weeks after RAAM! People who have ridden for years together haven't been able to finish this race on a tandem, what made us think we could. Personally, I think Aaron didn't think I would take him up on his offer: " If you come out, I'll take care of the rest." I did, I got into St. Louis on Thursday, and we had dinner with one of the crewmembers, Aki Inoue. It was all coming together; the other two crewmembers would be "Mom and Dad" Rumple.

We had Friday to learn how to ride together, plenty of time for two people to learn each other's style of riding?! Well, the training ride got cut short by a flat tire (we made it two miles), not having a pump on the bike didn't help. One more try then Aaron had to go teach a class, five miles this time before we had another flat. There you have it, approximately seven miles of training before our 573-mile race. Over to the check-in at the Double Tree at 6:30 PM, and the pre-race meeting and bike inspection. (If you know Aaron ask him how you can use a MG light bulb for a back-up) Things just weren't looking good for us, but neither one of us said anything. Aaron went to work on the lighting system while I went to bed to get some sleep. We got to the start at 5:30 AM, ready to go. Aaron gave Mom, Dad and Aki instructions on running the crew stuff. I was just trying to wake-up; I'm not an AM person. I couldn't help but notice that many of the riders came by and asked the question, "U-2 are riding the tandem? ". Now don't get me wrong, but their tone was never a positive one. Which brings me back to the word, "Stupid". Did these people know something that we didn't?

The start...we're off..."Not so fast", said the tandem to the riders. The rear derailer cable decided that it didn't want to work. Quick fix; we are moving again. Now we catch the lead riders just before the climbs begin. Just to let you know, the climbs start about eight miles into the race and don't really stop until about eight miles from the end. Missouri could be considered the longest roller-coaster ride in the USA. The tandem climbed pretty good, Aaron and I were very happy coming into the first couple of time stations. Leaving the second time station we broke a spoke on the rear wheel. Maybe the tandem didn't feel as good about the climbing as we did. Change the wheel and we are moving again. Things went well until the famous railroad crossing. Aaron, who must have taken Seana Hoagn's railroad crossing 101 class, made a little driving error. Now to be fair to Aaron this was the only mistake he made the whole race. He did find the magic hole in the tracks and down we went. A passing car was nice enough to go ahead and send our crew back to us. As we fixed the bike some halfway guy passed us (they offer a 287-mile option) I was not going to let someone beat us to the halfway point because we crashed. I asked Aaron if he could walk, he said yes, "Then let's get going". I figured that the wounds could be cleaned-up at the halfway point. We passed the rider before the next time station to keep our clean sweep of coming in first at each time station. The halfway point was clean-up time. I put on a new skinsuit, washed the wounds, etc. All that was left now was to ride back to St. Louis.

The trip home didn't have the flare of getting to this point. Going back the same way, you get to see the other riders going by, this was the only time we knew how close the others were to us. Leaving the Kansas City area we had about a two-hour lead over the next place rider. We didn't take any chances on the railroad crossing this time, being dark and all, we walked across. Our pace was good to the 388-mile time station; the race director was even a little worried that we would get to the next time station before his help was there. They had a shower here at the station, so both Aaron and I took one. The shower felt pretty good, I was getting the chills and needed to get some new clothed on. After a fifteen-minute sleep break we headed down the road. Aaron told me that this would be a hard stretch of riding, he was right. Our speed got down to about 10 MPH and I needed to get a little more sleep. We stopped and took another twenty-minute sleep break. I didn't want to stop, but there is something in the body that says it needs sleep when it sees the sun come up.

The homestretch, about eighty miles to go, no problem I can do eighty miles. The day before one of the volunteers said that they would see us in about two days. I remember thinking he was crazy, no way it was going to take us forty-eight hours to get back to here and it didn't. So, when he said that it would take us about eight hours to finish I had the same thoughts going through my head. No way it was going to take us eight hours to do eighty miles, didn't this guy know what we had done to this point? Aaron was quick to remind me that this was going to be hard. Aaron and the other guy knew something that I didn't know, not being from Missouri and all. The hills grow over-night in Missouri, and they start measuring the miles as the crow flies. Somehow the hills that we had hammered the day before were now major climbs. It felt like they were not counting any of the miles of the up and down, but from top to top of each climb. My knees were letting me know that they had done their share of the work the day before, now it was time for some other body part to do some of the work. On a couple of the hills I got off the bike and let Aaron ride it to the top. My knees were hurting and we were going so slowly that I thought this would be faster for me to walk up them. I would like to thank the race director for putting a 14% grade climb at the 500-mile mark. I was hoping to finish under 36 ½ hours, we came close 36:36 was our time. First place overall, not bad for a first tandem ride together!

I would like to thank Mom, Dad Rumple and Aki Inoue for being the support crew. Sometimes being "Stupid" can be fun and rewarding. Thanks Aaron for being "Stupid" with me.

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Read stories I have written about my races:

• 2001 24-Hour World Championship Story
• Do's and Don'ts of Ultra Team Racing - Team 508 '99
• Have Legs Will Travel - UMCA 24-hr. Championships '97 & '99