2018_08_11 The Ultimate Challenge (Tour of Utah)

Author: Les Becker

I visit Salt Lake City frequently to visit my daughter, son-in-law, and our two grandsons. This beautiful city attracts many high level athletes due to it's nearby world class skiing, mountain biking and other sports including road biking. In August the Tour of Utah, a 1 week professional stage race, takes place in and near SLC. They also sponsor a one day gran fondo called The Ultimate Challenge that exactly follows one of the stages in the pro race. This year it was stage 5, the Queen Stage, and starting at 7:30 which was 4 hours ahead of the pros. Seems like a big head start until considering the stage is 100 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing with the entire event taking place between 5,000 and 10,000 feet. Oh, SLC can be hot in August too.

I arrived in SLC 5 days prior to the event hoping the 4500 ft elevation there would help me to acclimate. The next day, for reconnaissance, I rode Little Cottonwood Canyon to Snowmass, the mountain top finish of the race. This reminded me of the difficulty of riding consistent 10-12% grade and realized my 30 tooth rear cog was clearly not adequate. So I quickly found a shop where they replaced it with a 11-32 casette, a small but significant change. The other big climb in the event was Guardsman Pass topping at nearly 10,000 feet. I had not ridden it from that direction before and with what research I could find, concluded it was not as steep as Little Cottonwood (not true). During the ensuing days, I agitated on how long this ride would take and if I could finish w/out being caught by the pros. If that happened, you would be required to stop and watch from the shoulder until all pros passed and then proceed if there was time or abandon. The many unknown factors made this calculation difficult and certainly gave me reason for worry.

The day came, I got up and drove to Park City in the dark, looking for Canyonlands Resort parking lot. Succeeded, found the packet pick-up, dropped my bag to be transported to the finish line and got on the chair lift with my bike that carried us a short distance to the start. At 60 deg, I dressed light. Since all the "real climbing" was in the final 35 miles, we initially rode 65 miles in beautiful valleys, over rollers and even a 2 mile stretch of gravel. My plan was to be very careful to save energy for the daunting climbs to come, but at one point, where Garmin said level road and I was feeling great, I noticed the small group I was riding with was doing 30mph. Oops.

I left the food stop at the base of guardsman pass alone and when came to a round-about, followed what looked like the logical main uphill spoke. After couple hundred feet another biker (not in the race) said, "Oh, you need to go up that road" pointing to a narrow spoke that was so steep, I could only imagine it was a driveway. Up I went, grinding, pushing the pedals, no relief. Went past condos & chair lifts but no respite in the 10-12% grade and temperature rising. Clearly this was as steep as LC. Soon exhausted, everyone panting, groaning, obviously all in their own deep suffering. No way I could drink while trying to push each peddle stroke, so couple times briefly got off the bike to quickly eat & drink as did many others. Then would walk a few feet, but those riding past me were not going much faster. Many places on the climb had spectators watching and usually cheering and encouraging us. At one point I saw a white Sienna parked at the entrance to a driveway and in my near delirious state, briefly thought I could be my wife coming to cheer me on. In that moment I seriously knew that if it were indeed her, I would not be able to continue but would put my bike in the car and go home. During the preceding week I had prepared myself for the possibility of having to report the pros caught me on Little Cottonwood so I couldn't complete the ride. But how could I tell my riding buddies that I didn't even make it up the first climb?

Eventually I crested a pass, began descending a more welcoming forested slope that I recognized from when I saw this side of Guardsmans last fall. But quickly came to a support tent with a lot of riders getting more water and I thought "what a stupid idea to put a support stop at the beginning of a long descent." At the same time the road bent upwards and soon was not only back to the 12% grade but very course pavement, somewhat broken up, making border between road and shoulder indistiguishable. Drat, that was not the top! Another 1,000 feet of agonizing climbing brought me to the summit and I collapsed into a descending position for the 5,000 ft drop. I took full advantage of the food/water stop at the base of Little Cottonwood, the final 3,000 ft climb to the finish line. Then proceeded up the hill and into the heat to see if my legs had anything left. Many volunteers along the ascent offered water, ice, food. My Garmin showed temp up to 105 deg. "No I don't want a hot dog, but do please poor the ice water over my head and down my jersey." The ice cubes that mercifully caught in my jersey provided some ongoing comfort. Again, could not pedal and drink concurrently on much of this climb, so stopped 3-4 times for brief guzzling from bottles and taking power gels.

One thing I didn't anticipate was the throng of spectators lining the last mile. Of course they were waiting for the pros but were already excited and would jump into the road to shout encouragement and throw mist or water at us. One even gave me a push! I had no inclination of declining that. I knew they were there for the pros, but was fun to pretend they were there for me. About 100 meters from the finish I had a screaming abrupt killer cramp in my right thigh. I thought, great, rode 100 hard miles only to be taken down by a cramp in the last kilometer. But I shook my leg and was able to proceed. Out of the saddle, surprisingly felt better than seated. The gentle slope into the ski resort allowed me to cross the finish line with a little speed. All I can say about placement is that my time up Little Cottonwood was probably #4 in my age bracket, but they did not say out of how many. I suspect many were caught by the pros. I was pleased I had enough physical and mental energy to persist through the miles of unfamiliar terrain, the steep grades, the heat and the elevation.

I was not so much relieved at the finish, but rather dazed and needed to just let go of the intensity. I have never felt this depleted. I called my wife as promised and in a shaky voice told her I was OK then got chips and a coke and watched on an outdoor bigscreen the pro Sepp Kuss charging up the climb in first place, arriving 45 minutes after me. He was looking a lot better than I felt! Now I have an even more profound appreciation of what the pros can do. My right calf became very painful immediately after finishing; not sure why, but did last 2-3 days. Had a little residual pain from my thigh cramp. But mostly, was mentally exhausted. My body and mind both wanted to collapse and I welcomed the coming week off the bike.