Trans Am 2017 Day 5: Lochsa Lodge, ID to Bannack State Park, MT — 200 Miles, +8,580 ft
Nothing gets the blood pumping in the morning like someone shaking the locked door of the bathroom you are squatting in while your alarm echoes around your wooden box enclosure. I figured I had been found out and was prepared to apologize profusely and explain that I just didn’t want to freeze and had no choice but to trespass. But the shaking stopped while I packed, trying to make it look a bit less like a squatters dungeon, and the person went into the bathroom next door.
The taste of the dry ham sandwich I had fallen asleep eating lingered in my mouth like a bad hangover while I got ready. I hustled off the property as the sun came up and felt lucky that I hadn’t gotten in trouble but horrible for squatting in a bathroom on their property instead of camping on the grass like a proper touring cyclist. Lochsa Lodge is a beautiful spot with some really nice people. Amy and I ate a glorious breakfast there last year and I had really wanted to return, just in different circumstances. Sorry guys!
I had enough food and water to roll over the top of the hill and down to Lolo, so I didn’t stop at the top of the pass except to take a quick picture to showcase the blood I’d spewed from multiple bloody noses the previous day. The climb isn’t bad and I was buoyed by the knowledge that I was heading into one of my favorite stretches and riding really strong. I zipped through Lolo Hot Springs, lamenting my not being able to take a soak like I had the previous year, but I got a massive boost when I looked at the tracker as soon as I rolled into service. The riders in Kooskia were just getting moving and the riders, like Bo Dudley, in the group ahead of me were only 20 miles or so ahead. Fuck yeah.
In the last couple miles before town, I was low on food and focus so I called up one of my oldest friends, Matt Stimson, the Athletic Director at my high school. We hadn’t chatted in months, and he laughed at my ridiculousness for doing the ride and told me I sounded awful but was super stoked on how well I was doing. He was getting ready to head to South America to summit some volcanoes, and we had a good time and I laughed, a lot. Talking to an old friend, laughing, and taking my mind off the race for a bit quickly got me through a stretch that could have otherwise been a suffer. I hung up as I pulled into the gas station in Lolo.
The gas station had a treasure trove of great, hot food, and I feasted on donut holes and breakfast burritos for a while. While I no doubt spent too much time there (Anthony Mennona caught up and passed me while I ate), I had put out a big effort the night before and had a super short sleep, so knew that I could benefit from a few moments of chill. I felt stellar while I rode to Hamilton to hit the bike shop for tubes and some air, calling old friends and taking advantage of the long stretches of cell service. Somewhere on this stretch I was stopped by a guy and his son filming racers and asking questions as they went by, and I was excited to run into someone who cared about the race! Link to video below, Roger has a lot of awesome vids of the racers coming through the Bitterroot valley.
I called my high school football coach and one of the assistant coaches from my college team, each conversation bringing laughs and a brief escape that had me in Hamilton in no time. The people in the bike shop in Hamilton were so awesome and recognized me from the last year and were excited that my sister was on her way as well. I signed their wall near a big “Mike Hall” signature and felt pretty cool, then pushed on up the gorgeous valley to Darby.
The Bitterroot valley is one of the stupid beautiful stretches on the Trans Am and is a particularly special stretch after the experience that Amy and I had there the year prior. On our 2016 ride, we rolled into Darby around 7:30 after a long day of climbs and arguments, excited to get to the Bandit Brewery for food and beers, only to find out they didn’t have food. They did have the coolest bartender ever, Greg, and after shooting the shit while we drank our beers, he offered to host us at his house with his wife and dog just out of town. Obviously we said yes.
While we waited for him to close up shop, we went over to the restaurant in town and ate. While we sat, a number of Trans Am riders from that year rolled in. The Italian duo Michela and Stefano sat a table down from us in complete silence, the suffer written all over their bodies. Their limbs were sprawled in all directions and they could hardly keep their heads up to look at their food. Amy and I marveled, then two more Italians along with Andrew Stevens-Cox came in. Those three chatted about how much they were hurting while they ordered three meals a piece. Andrew joked about how he would reward himself at the top of every climb with a shot of honey, while the shortest of the four Italians talked loudly about something. Michela and Stefano never even looked up. Amy and I couldn’t help but be in awe at the absolute misery that had taken over the room. Were these people having any fun?? Would they finish?? We were impressed, but we were also excited. This race seemed so hard and these guys seemed super human. These were very pro looking cyclists, far more than we were, and they were at their absolute limits. We were hooked. This was the second of two interactions that solidified our obsession with the Trans Am
We left the racers at the diner in Darby that night and went back to met Greg, left our bikes at the brewery, and he drove us to his house at the base of the mountains. His wife, Val, and their dog couldn’t have been more welcoming. We drank beers, chatted despite our fierce fatigue, and had a marvelous time. We were so sad to leave the next morning after a massive breakfast of eggs and bacon, but we exchanged numbers with Val and Greg and promised to say hello if any of us were in the others area again.
So, back to the race. I’d been looking forward for months to go through the southern part of the Bitterroot Valley. Darby and that entire region holds this massive significance for me and is associated with so many good memories and big decisions, so I was super energized to go through. I was especially excited that I was a day ahead of when Luke had gone through in 2016, and two days before all the racers we saw in the restaurant. I’d already surprised myself with how quickly I was riding, but this comparison to the riders who I saw as iron humans was extremely encouraging. I texted with Greg and Val (who had a baby!) as I rolled into town, and felt nostalgic and grateful while I passed through. Gorgeous mountains, great place, great memories.
I checked the tracker when I stopped and saw a faded RE in town. I watched Rob across the street when I came out and packed my greasy, hot food up. He came across the street and we chatted for a second. He told me about his knee issues and how hopeful he’d been for the ride ahead. He seemed disappointed but excited at what he’d done up to that point, as he should! He’d smashed his previous biggest mileage days and had took his body and head to their limit. That’s what the race is fucking about! I told him to go hang out at Bandit Brewery and enjoy himself.
I felt a little drowsy as I rolled out of Darby and decided to hop into the river. I’d told myself before the race that I’d take every opportunity to get into a river that I could since it energized and cleaned you, but I hadn’t yet done so. I took my socks off for the first time in the race and waded in. It felt great, I wished I did it more, but I didn’t linger. As soon as I got out I saw a rider approaching behind and I hurried to get rolling again. I was tired of leapfrogging with Anthony and I knew I could put some time into him on the pass. Its so dumb how we focus on these little micro races thousands of miles from the finish, but sometimes it’s what we need to get motivated in the slow moments. I started biking again and immediately started to feel what I thought was a rock under my right foot. I tried to shimmy my foot around to move it but was having no luck. As soon as I felt like Anthony was far enough behind, I pulled over and took my shoe off, cleaning my foot and readjusting the sock. Of course, I hadn’t taken my socks off the entire race and as soon as I did I lodged a rock in there. But, I didn’t find anything and felt the “rock” as soon as I started pedaling again. I would repeat the process about three times in the few miles leading up to the climb, and kicked myself for what seemed to be a huge waste of time. I wouldn’t realize until later that this was only the beginning of a foot numbing process that would continue until the end of my race, and still bugs me as I write this weeks after. A small part of the bottom of my foot had gone numb and felt like a foreign body pressed into my still feeling inner foot, and it would grow to numb the entirety of both my feet.
I gave up on the ‘rock’ and sucked it up, settling into the climb. I remembered descending the pass the prior year and watching five or six racers climbing the pass as we did, each looking absolutely, horribly shattered. Like, fucking shattered. I wondered if I looked like this going up the hill, but I felt good and wasn’t phased by the huge gusts of wind that came down the hill and almost stopped my wheels from turning. I could keep a decent pace into the headwind, but every few minutes a massive gust would come in that almost stopped me in my tracks. Oh well. I was pumped to tackled the climb and it was hard, but rad. I was having fun, and I felt way out in the woods being on that quiet pass.
A storm seemed to be rolling in and it was dark despite it being late afternoon. Only one car came by and I felt wonderfully alone up there as I crested the (first) summit. I watered up at the rest stop at the top and was quickly reminded that, for us, that wasn’t the top. There is another mile of up to get to the top of Chief Joseph pass, where you then head down to Wisdom. I rolled over the top and was reminded that this was one of the lowest moments of my ride the year before. Amy and I had been arguing and she smoked me up the hill while I suffered pretty hard on the way up from Wisdom. These momentary lows only intensified the beauty and kindness that we found in Darby. It’s not much of a climb from Wisdom, just 30 miles of slight up with a 2 or 3 mile kicker at the top, so the descent isn’t much fun. I ended up having to pedal pretty hard all the way into town as the headwind that had dogged me up the climb persisted on the way down. I rolled into Wisdom looking for snacks and a pretty quick turn around, but while I tried to decide where to go in (I only had two options), someone came out of a restaurant and shouted to me, inviting me in.
Inside there was a group of three touring bikers that invited me to sit and offered to buy me anything I was looking for. These guys had such great energy and were having so much fun I had to stop and hang. I ordered up a strawberry rhubarb pie with huckleberry ice cream, which was sublime, and shot the shit with these guys. They were from the east coast and were headed in that direction as well. They’d seen a ton of riders come through Wisdom that evening and were getting a good kick out of how wrecked everyone looked. They told me, just like a number of gas station clerks would as well, that the rider in front of me, Jose Bermudez, looked about ready to crack (they were all very, very wrong) and that I looked at least a little happier than the other racers they’d seen. They watched his tracker as it slowly made its way to Jackson and told me I was sure to catch him that night. If only it would be that easy, Jose! I’d run into Jose at a gas station in Colter Bay, Wyoming a couple days later, but would never quite catch him again after that. Dude is fricking strong.
From beginning to end of my race, I was dead focused on going as fast as I could and I’m proud that I kept that edge the whole way through. I’m sure in some ways my 30 minutes with these guys benefited my race and boosted my spirit, but it was also 30 minutes where I could have been on my bike that I wasn’t. It was 30 minutes of literally enjoying ice cream instead of seeking challenge. I needed a quick sit down recovery for the good of my bike race, but not as long as I took. Was it the right thing to do? Was I wasting time with easy moments or rightfully enjoying some of the best things about the Trans Am Race? If I ever answer that question, I’ll be sure to write a book.
Michael Trimarchi’s post:
They took a pic of me devouring my pie and we shot the shit for a bit longer. Just as I was getting ready to leave, Anthony and Ken rolled into the restaurant and sat down at the bar. Both looked pretty shattered, and Anthony said he was thinking about pulling out of the race due to his multiple broken spokes and general beating he was taking. He seemed really, really down, and I hoped that he would continue on. Ken was also a bit down, and it seemed that both were ready to settle into the night in Wisdom. I had in mind that I wanted to jet over the next two passes to Dillon, since I knew they were more downhill than up, and I had a mental image in my mind of both climbs that I knew wasn’t too bad. I got some snacks and set out, saying bye to my new bros and thanking them for the food.
I rode to Jackson with the sun tucked just behind the mountains for the night. I ripped down the road and soaked in the moment. The Big Hole Valley is one of my favorite stretches along the route, and I was lucky to hit it in a good moment at a beautiful time of night. I was flying high with the miles melting away. Moments like these I am able to avoid looking at mileage markers, but as I got closer and thought I should be getting to Jackson at any pedal stroke, I started to get impatient and my vibes slowed. Its funny, because if Jackson had been 60 miles away, I’d have felt great for 55 and only gotten down when I started looking at a finish line. As it happened, it was 18 miles and I started to get impatient after 15. Such is the way the brain works.
I finally got to Jackson and all I needed was to get some water for the long stretch ahead. I crept into the camping area of the hostel in town and past a couple of touring cyclists tents. I filled up and thought those bikers must think I was crazy coming into town at 10 and continuing on through a 50 mile stretch without services. I felt confident that I’d make it and it was excited that I was continuing to go hard and take chances, even more so than I’d done before. The night before on Lolo had given me confidence that I could push myself to serious discomfort and be able to ride through it. I didn’t feel like I needed to protect against tough times — I could seek them out and be OK regardless of what happened.
A mile out of town, I started to feel a bit of a headwind. No matter, it’s not long before the short climb and this stretch reminded me of running into Luke along this road.
On our way to Wisdom in 2016, Amy and I kept a sharp eye out for cyclists after running into a few near Dillon and chatted with Luke somewhere south of Jackson. We hung out on the side of the road for ten or fifteen minutes and just chatted about his experience doing the race and his riding background. This meeting with Luke undoubtedly shaped our decision to do the Trans Am race. Here was this savage biker, rugged and kicking ass, but not necessarily any crazier than either of us, right? We could do it.
Amy and I thought it was one of the coolest things we’d ever seen. This guy, super eager to talk and so friendly, doing almost double our daily mileage and absolutely peaked mentally and physically. We shot the shit for a few more minutes but Luke had to keep rolling, so we traded numbers and he told us to keep an eye out for the people behind him. I wonder what the past year of our lives would have looked like if we’d flagged another racer down because our conversation with Luke, his character, and the friendship that followed were a huge part of our growing obsession with the ride. We’d follow Luke’s dot closely, texting encouragement often and hearing about the trials of the road, and would use Luke as a resource in the months leading up to the race. We were embarrassingly pretty stoked when our interaction with him made it into Luke’s race report many months later. Luke, the fucking man. When your idols become your rivals.
I continuously thought back to that moment while the wind kept getting worse and worse. A couple miles from that first pass, the wind had grown into a pretty massive cross wind, and I crept along at a brutally slow pace. I still felt good, if a bit annoyed, as I got further. The last mile or two to the top kicks up pretty steep, then takes a right hand turn directly into the wind. At this point the wind had picked up so that I was in a battle. It was fun, I was out riding in the middle of the night, working hard and pushing through wind, but I was no doubt getting a little tired. When the road turned directly into the wind, each pedal stroke became a challenge and I had to fight to keep the bike moving forward. I crept along insanely slow, hoping that the wind would be less severe on the other side of the hill. I wasn’t worried though, and had a good laugh at how tough and ridiculous the moment was, but was probably not focused enough on eating and drinking well. It had taken me at least twice as long to get from Jackson to the pass as it should have, but oh well.
At the top I stopped to throw on some layers and, upon losing that focus that had got me up the hill through the wind, began to notice how tired I was. I remember putting on my puffy and lifting my head to look down the road and blinking a couple times as my eyes took a second to find their focus, as if they were stuck being crossed. I knew it was about to be a long descent.
While the night before on Lolo Pass had tested my limits of tired, I was at least mentally present enough to focus intently on my goal. Now, rolling down the hill, I was quickly descending into drowsiness that I couldn’t muster the focus to beat it. I had no need to pedal and supply power, and therefore it was wayyyy harder to stay awake. I started out OK, just having to battle some gnarly cross eyed vision. I remember passing a cell tower on my left that I recalled from the year before, but this time very clearly seeing two cell towers. Each time I blinked, my eyes would take a second or two to regain their focus. The further down I went, the longer it took until I got to a point where I couldn’t focus my eyes at all. I started dozing off, unable to keep my bike pointed straight and running from side to side on the road.
It was the middle of the night and no cars were anywhere near, but whatever conscious part of my brain was there told me that I desperately needed to stay straight or get off the road. I remember one car coming past me in some direction and this scaring me into enough awareness to hold the white line on the right side of the road. The good thing about nighttime is that you can see cars from a long way away, so I had ample heads up to get my shit together.
Halfway down I knew I couldn’t continue up the next pass. Even on the descent I couldn’t manage to push the pedals and was moving hardly faster than simple gravity would provide for. It was inefficient for me to keep riding in this state, and extremely unsafe. Ken would tell me the next day that he kept seeing tire marks running into the gravel on the side of the road when he descended. I was all over the place and needed to get off the road, but had to be careful. It was getting down into freezing temperatures, and I wanted to find some dwelling to curl up in. I knew my sleep set up (bivvy and liner) should keep me safe in those temperatures, but if I was going to sleep outside I knew there was a risk that I would be too cold to be able to sleep. In that case, I didn’t want to be a couple miles up a hill where getting back on my bike would mean miles of descending while only getting colder. That was the kind of thing that could get you into serious trouble and derail your race. So, I resolved to get myself to the bottom of the hill so that at least, if I had to get on my bike, I would have to put out some watts to warm myself back up. I was too gone to even mutter a “HOLD THE FUCKING WHEEL” and this descent is a lucid, scary memory. A night or two after the race, I had a nightmare about falling asleep while riding and swerving into the lights of an oncoming truck, a lingering effect of the thought that kept running in my mind while I came down the hill. It’s kind of stupid that we push ourselves to that point where you worry about doing something like that, but also pretty empowering to push through it, so I don’t know what to tell you about it.
At the bottom of the valley, I found a remotely flat patch of grass on the side of the road and tucked my sleeping bag liner into my bivvy, glad that I’d opted for the extra warmth of the liner when putting together my packing list. I didn’t have any service and worried what my family might think seeing me stopped in a ditch on the side of the road, but it was better than trying to keep biking and actually running into a ditch. I knew the road to Bannack State Park was at the bottom of this valley, and I’d hoped to at least sleep at an intersection to give some indication that it was intentional but had to stop before I got to it. I resolved to get up quickly and get moving as soon as possible. As long as my dot was moving, my family couldn’t worry for too long. I snacked a bit and passed out.
I look at the replay now and see that Jose slept only two miles up the road at the turn off to Bannack, and I can’t help but wish that I’d known this and known at this point how to combat this kind of drowsiness. Of course, I’d slept 2.5 hours the night before after a long day, really hadn’t had a full 4 hour sleep during the race yet, and desperately did need to sleep. But I like to think — sitting here in the comfort of a couch in the New York City indoors — that if I’d known Jose was there and that if I dropped a 5 hour energy, ate more consistently that night, and blasted music, I would probably be good to get over the next pass and would have gone for it. Even if I’d just gotten myself to an incline where I could just try and wake myself back up. But as I’d learn throughout the race, it doesn’t matter what happens on any given day. If you push super hard one night, you have nothing in the tank the next day. What would it matter if I got to Dillon that night? Nothing at all, except for my ego. What mattered was consistency in sleep and riding strength, which you can’t keep up if you are going into the wee hours of the morning. Pedaling at 60% strength for a couple hours after midnight was far less efficient than sleeping and pedaling at 100% for a few hours before sunrise.
I was in a ditch, and I was utterly, utterly peaked. I had ridden myself to my limit. Night night.
Trans Am Day 1: Astoria, OR to McKenzie Bridge, OR
Trans Am Day 2: McKenzie Bridge, OR to Prairie City, OR
Trans Am Day 3: Prairie City, OR to Council, ID
Trans Am Day 4: Council, ID to Lochsa Lodge, ID
Trans Am Day 5: Lochsa Lodge, ID to Bannack State Park, MT
Trans Am Day 6: Bannack State Park, MT to Cameron, MT
Trans Am Day 7: Cameron, MT to Lander, WY
Trans Am Day 8: Lander, WY to Cowdrey, CO
Trans Am Day 9: Cowdrey, CO to Alma, CO
Trans Am Day 10: Alma, CO to Haswell, CO
Trans Am Day 11: Haswell, CO to Ness City, KS
Trans Am Day 12: Ness City, KS to Rosalia, KS
Trans Am Day 13: Rosalia, KS to Ash Grove, MO
Trans Am Day 14: Ash Grove, MO to Pilot Knob, MO
Trans Am Day 15: Pilot Knob, MO to Elizabethtown, IL
Trans Am Day 16: Elizabethtown, IL to Falls of Rough, KY
Trans Am Day 17: Falls of Rough, KY to Booneville, KY
Trans Am Day 18: Booneville, KY to Meadowview, VA
Trans Am Day 19: Meadowview, VA to Daleville, VA
Trans Am Day 20: Daleville, VA to Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, VA
Trans Am Day 21 FINISH: Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, VA to Yorktown, VA
Ice Cream or Ass Cream: The Trans Am “Epilogue”
Stay tuned for more to come…