So, when a cyclist dies in a car accident in the city, they put out something called a “Ghost Bike”.  This is the first one I’ve ever seen.  It was kind of wierd because, on Connecticut Ave, there are a bazillion bikes chained to anything that looks remotely permanent.  You’re walking down the sidewalk, dodging people who are functionally deaf thanks to their earbuds and those that seem crazy thanks to their bluetooth dongles 

and this completely white bike emerges as the crowd flows around it….and it takes a minute for it to register: this is a Ghost Bike.  Somebody died – right here.  The fact that this soul happened to be on a bike is tangentially important to a cyclist but not as central as it is to humanity at large that a human had their existence terminated right where you are.  Think about that.  It’s kind of surreal.

In the case of the pictured bike, there were lots of little notes tucked into the chain that holds the bike to the pole.  It’s pretty moving.  You almost want to look around to see if there are any signs left of the event or unroll one of the notes but realize, at some level, it would be impolitic to do so but it’s a powerful motivator.  This event, in all of it’s forms and seasons ties all of us together – death is the one event, save birth, that we will all share.

On a lighter note, yes, I do realize that many more people die in car accidents but painting cars white and putting them in the road is just impractical…..and I’m a bicycling nut.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it or not but Bike Virginia was held in the area around Blacksburg.  I had some idea that the area around Blacksburg ain’t exactly flat.  Manassas is, by comparison, flat.

The first day was a mess.  The course closes at 9:00 am and we’re running late.  As anyone who has done any of this stuff knows, the first order of business is to find a bathroom of some sort at the course start.  Doesn’t matter what the fact of the situation is – the attempt must be made and we’ll leave it at that.  I got onto the course right at 9:00 and took off.  I must admit that I really hoped that, despite being in the mountains, I would be able to play to my strengths and turn and burn on a couple of flats where I could work at upwards of 20 mph for a good distance.  This was not to be.  Not even close and it was a huge disappointment.  On a 50 mile course around here I would expect to be on the bike for about 2.5-3 hours.  I was on the bike around 5 hours a day for these courses.

See, I spent four days climbing my brains out.  Dragging my large posterior (and anterior) up hills.  Shallow hills, steep hills, medium hills, ridiculous hills.  Even the easy climbs were hard as they tended to be very long.  I was wasted at the finish each day.  About the only thing I did right during that ride was to take some energy gel with me otherwise I would have bonked and hard.  I’m accomplished enough to be able to ride with a group and maintain the pace but my problem was that I really didn’t know how to climb.  PW parkway, sure.  15% grade?  no.  I was trying to climb like the pros do: pedal fast in a light gear.  I’m too fat to do that so after suffering alot and blowing up a couple of times as my heart rate topped 180 bpm I pedaled slower and muscled it more.  This strategy worked on all of the subsequent climbs, even when the grade topped out at 17%.  That hill was so steep you couldn’t really stop your bike once you were on that part.

At the end of the ride, I was chatting with other cyclists who had a GPS and they almost all indicated that their climbing calculations put our climbs closer to 3,500ft with a single climb topping out at 19% grade.  I don’t know what’s right but I believe the 3,500 number.  We climbed for miles and there was at least one point where I felt the weight shift almost entirely to my bike tire and I was concerned that I would fall off the bike – backwards!  I’m sure it’s de riguer to bitch about the climbing distances but after looking at those GPS uploads, I think they were more right than wrong.

So, at the end, I had ridden 200 miles in 4 days.  I’d estimate we climbed about 12,000′.  I wanted to go farther but my back was really bothering me after the second day so I skipped the century ride and took the day off.  I thought there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to ride but 3 days if I didn’t rest my back.  Climbing and having to generate that much power is tough on the lower back and we just don’t have that kind of terrain up here so I had never experienced that before.  Even Skyline Drive, which is hellish climbing, isn’t as steep as some of the climbs on those back roads we went over.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the quality of the event.  Bike Virginia is a well-executed event and, while I would have preferred something a shade flatter, it was still alot of fun.  The staff and volunteers clearly worked their tails off and it made for an enjoyable event.