Sergeant Red Beard

Trust me I know what you’re thinking. “Why does this self-involved idiot think anyone cares to read about his failure at being a mediocre mountain bike racer?” I thought the same thing about myself when the idea of starting a blog came to me in the middle of the 6 plus hour drive back from Carmel, IN. You see my truck’s radio is broke and I’ve been too cheap to replace it. So when I drive long distances there’s little to distract me from the monotony of the freeway, so my mind tends to wander to that place where pipe dreams live and bad ideas are formed. Normally the idea would’ve tossed into the pile of ideas I never follow through on, but then I thought about the 30 Days of Biking and 40 at 40 challenges I did earlier this year. However before I explain all that lets go back to why I stopped riding in the first place.

June of 2015 I did a race in Damascus, VA called the Iron Mountain 100k. It was a positively brutal race of about 60 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing on mostly backwoods trail and fire roads. Because I’m glutton for punishment I did it on the singlespeed bike I had at the time, a Niner Air 9 Carbon. Given the circumstances I probably shouldn’t have done the race that day. I woke up the Friday before the race barely able to move because my middle back started spasming. My chiropractor put a bunch of kinesio tape on my back, slapped me on the ass and sent me on my merry way. Saturday’s drive to the venue went fine, but sleeping at the chosen B&B was restless to say the least. The race went about as well as could be expected until the final descent. At that point I could barely hold the bike in a straight line because every bump aggravated my back and I was cranky from not getting enough sleep the night before. Stopping part way down the descent to rest my back caused me to have a bit of a meltdown. It cannot be confirmed nor denied that the bike may have been thrown into the woods or that I cussed up a storm to no one in particular. God bless the girl at the finish line because it turned out I was less then a quarter mile from the finish. Her eyes were as big as silver dollars because it was obvious that she’d heard my unhinged tirade.

I swore off mountain biking for a while after that. Assuming that my back just needed some rest, I started riding on the road almost exclusively. My mountain bike was all but ignored until September when Black Bear Rampage rolled around. That race went better, but then I started feeling soreness in my lower back as well as my upper back. On top of that I really wasn’t enjoying myself even when my back didn’t hurt. Mountain biking had suddenly become a chore. Between training for races, sitting on the SORBA Chattanooga board, working on trails, and putting on 5 mountain bike races that year; I just needed a break from it all. The pure joy of throwing my leg over the bike and being happy to just ride somewhere had long since been lost. Cycling had become a long lost love that I no longer cared to pursue.

So when when race director duties for 5-Points 50 were finished I washed my hands of it all. My then girlfriend kept me on the bike for a few months after that, but the desire to ride left with the warm weather. Over the next 3 plus years new bike purchases, urging from those around me, and the occasional ride did little to reinvigorate my interest. Eventually the fitness I lost and weight I’d gained started preventing me from even contemplating the uphill battle of getting back on the bike. The few rides I did try my hand at left me discouraged at how far I’d fallen and how hard I’d have to work to climb my way back. Contentment was found in drinking beer, watching TV, and playing video games.

What’s wrong with your ankle slacker?!?!?!

Enter 2019. Fresh off yet another failed relationship, being heavier then I’d ever been, and staring down the barrel of 40 years old; I knew a change was needed. I’d managed to drop about 10 pounds since the fall and was keen on getting back down to a comfortable weight, but had little interest in getting back on the bicycle. A trip to Fleet Feet Chattanooga yielded a new pair of running shoes and some very impressive insoles to protect my Army damaged knees. It was time to give running another try. I started off slow…really slow. After severely spraining my ankle while hiking with Cal in March and aggravating it several times over the next two weeks things started looking bleak. Scrolling through Facebook during the last week of March I saw that 30 Days of Biking was coming up and I decided that if I couldn’t run then maybe I could ride my bike. While I was at it, why not give the challenge a try as well. Biking everyday in April would be difficult enough for someone who rides regularly, let alone someone who’d ridden all of two times in 2018. Come April 1st I was back on the bike, but how long would it last?