We met in the parking lot of the Safeway in Westside Olympia well before sunrise or even first light of the dawn. A group of sixtyish riders assembled in a 35F rain for this event, a gathering of those with the desire and means to spend a December Saturday using their bodies to travel through various dozens of miles of the Capitol State Forest and were undeterred by a weather report that was more than a bit daunting but well within the expressed realm of atmospheric possibilities. The mood was slightly nervous but clearly positive; after all, this was just a bunch of adults out to ride their bikes.
After sign-in, a chairperson of the Squaxin Island Tribe spoke to the group, focusing our attention on both the history of the land on which we would ride and inviting us into the tradition of connecting to the earth with the appreciation of our breath, consciously taking in the air given to us by the trees and great sky and being thankful for what it allows us to do. This was greatly paraphrased on my part, but it was the thing I kept in mind on every climb that I would face in the day to come.
The ride was everything I had hoped it would be, physically taxing to be sure, but much more mentally challenging. It started raining around 5:30am, and the forecast of rain all day was accurate. I rode from 6am to 6pm, bookending the ride in dark hours, but making the most of what daylight did come through the ever-present cover of rainclouds. I knew I wasn’t the only one facing this stuff, and was happy to share the difficulties with these other riders, in from across Washington and Oregon to ride there on that day.
The path was a beautifully designed route on gravel forest roads with names like D-4000 and C-3000A, as well as broad trails called things like A-Line, right down to tricky singletrack with more personal but somehow less noteworthy names like McKinney and Greenline Climbing. Misty clouds hung in the trees, majestic in the distant views, wet when up close. Extra wet, I suppose I should say. Despite careful layering efforts, my toes went numb within the first hour or so, to remain such until after the day’s end. Fortunately, the gravel surfaces that made up most of the day’s riding were damp enough to be predictably packed and grippy, with relatively few muddy parts or truly unavoidable puddles.
My goal was simple: treat the ride as a brevet, aiming first to finish (not so much to finish first), and second to push myself to finish with a time I’d be proud of later. My strategies were also simple: bring plenty of food, water, and warm layers and don’t wait too long to adjust to maintain comfort. Another strategy emerged on the trail, once the climatic truth of the day presented itself: pedal hard or get cold.
And so it would be, with me aiming to push my pace whenever I could, though so much of the course’s actual direction seemed to be either up or down more so than sideways. This made finding company much easier on extended climbs than on the would-be flats, which I wasn’t so much using for recovery. Not that my overall pace was all that blistering. I ended up with approximately 90 min of stopped time across the 12 hours, which I can attribute to wringing out wet gloves and changing layers and eventually spending a prolonged period tightening my v-brake cables to adjust for the amount of the brake pads that had been removed by prolonged downhills and the grit plaguing us all, disc and rim brake users alike. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been trying to do this trailside mechanical work in gloves and/or rain mitts. Somehow it seemed reasonable at the time.
The mix of ups and downs and riding surfaces was indeed an indicator of the ride’s mental character, pushing your body temperature up with ascending’s effort until surely, surely you had to be done with that climb, then a bit further, then no kidding just a little bit further then wow wow wow what a fun descending line this is great jeez it keeps going, okay dang this rules but I am getting CHILLY gosh am I going to have to stop and layer up?? it is pretty cold and certainly wet and surely this is how people lose extremities or at least catch a nasty cold… And the short cameos of pavement that linked up the gravel routes seemed so expertly choreographed to give some reprieve when an extended singletrack climb was getting to be perhaps a bit too technical to keep at for another 1100' or maybe the rooty switchbacky descent was super fun, but you wouldn’t mind just getting a bit of a smooth section on which to do some mashing and much-needed munching.
This was certainly the most head-game of a ride I’ve done, with the soggy cold and limited daylight allowing my mind to create all sorts of reasons to doubt or excuse me from the challenge I’d set out to meet. I am so very glad I did the ride that I did, and am thankful that I was able to finish it without any serious incident. Riding twelve hours through cold rain might not sound like luxuriating, but I chose to play that ride’s head game, and I left with the prize of so many thanks. When things got challenging, for harsh grade or harsh chill, I was able to return to the chairperson’s advice to focus on breath itself, calming my heart and warming my mind in some gratitude. This route through what we call the Capitol State Forest was something truly magnificent, and we were all fortunate to be there. For me to be able to steal away with a ride to Olympia, a place to crash, a capable bike and warm clothes to ride in, an able body, not to mention the relative freedom from other obligations—well, this brutal bike ride was true luxury to be admired and delighted in. Maybe next year we’ll all add the luxury of fresh brake pads.