It’s been said that a mile of mountain bike is like three miles of road cycling. That always seemed like an abstract formula to me until it was forever branded on my brain one muggy fall day in Costa Rica two years ago. Starting in the morning and continuing long into the afternoon, I mountain-biked 100 miles including 15,000 feet of painful ascent.
As I pedaled, virtually every muscle in my legs exploded with pulls and spasms so random and painful that I felt like a human bobby-trap, my triceps seized up every time I stood to climb. It took every shred of willpower to stay the course, and I found myself drawing inspiration from the end of the first
Terminator movie- you know the part when the cyborg keeps coming after Linda Hamilton even as its body parts are being blown away. When the day finally was over, I couldn’t even walk without whimpering like a wounded dog.
But I was faced with an even worse problem: I still had two more days of riding to go.
I had decided, in my infinite wisdom, to test my mettle in the three-day
La Ruta de Los Conquistadores (Route of the Conquistadores), the toughest, longest mountain-bike race in the world. Named for the Spaniards who traveled roughly this same 300-mile course in the 1540s in search of a new World Shortcut from the pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea,
La Ruta is a race of extremes, alternately drenching you in heatstroke-caliber jungle humidity one day and freezing rain on high-elevation descents the next. The race featuring whopping elevation gains of 10,000 and 15,000 feet per day, Costa Rica, despite its famous beaches, is mostly mountainous, and its road builders don’t seem to have discovered the switchback.
As the 400-year-old writings of
conquistador leader Juan de Caballon attest,
La Ruta, “will break your legs and blur your vision.”
Like most members of the growing international crowd at
La Ruta (200 last year, including 60 Americans), I think of myself as a finisher. I’ve stubbornly plodded through marathons, protracted road-bike rides and even an Eco-Challenge, using an eat-a-lot, drink-a-lot, go-slow formula that never failed. I was naturally attracted to an event like this, where only half of starters finish all three days. An event where, if you finish, you win.
Eco adventure
La Ruta’s rocky Jeep roads (build from a mixture of dirt and gravel) and donkey paths snake through the vast range of topographical and climatic zones that have help to make this small Central American nation one of the world’s top eco-travel destinations. The landscape includes steamy white-sand beaches, sprawling rain forest, dense mountain ranges with 12,000-foot volcanoes, world class white water rivers and even sweltering banana plantations.
The pervasive screeches of macaws an howler monkeys hint at what
National Geography magazine has called “the most biodiverse place on Earth” – an amazing wonderland that packs 5 percent of the planet’s species of birds, plants and animals onto less than 0.01 percent of his land mass, including 1,000 different types of trees, 850 types of birds and more butterflies than in all Africa.
Despite the beauty surrounding me, finishing day 1, a 100-mile up-and-down ride from the Pacific port of Puntarenas through the Central Mountains to the capitol of San José, proved the hardest, longest, steepest, hottest, stickiest, muddiest, mosquitoest ordeal of my cycling career. When I crossed the finish line three minutes before the 5:30 p.m. cutoff, the 94th of 97 finishers (30 drop out), I was congratulated with an old
La Ruta saying by Roman Urbina, the extreme athlete who found the race six years ago: “Quien gana el primer dia gana la carrera.” “whoever finishes the first day finishes the race.”
I didn’t believe him. I was so intimidating by the condition of my body which felt like it had just gone 12 rounds of with Evander Holyfield, that I shuddered at the prospect of day 2: a non-stop 10,000 feet climb up the chilly volcan (Spanish for Volcano) Irazú. I was almost relieved when my quads seized up as I rolled out of bed the next morning, which necessitated my missing day 2. I rode only half of day 3 until my bike flatted four times and broke a chain. My record for
La Ruta 1997: A pitiful one out of three.
I would finish this race, I vowed. It would just take a winter of healing and a summer of training. But I would finish it, not only for myself but to validate Roman Urbina’s confidence in me.
Running hot and cold
After a summer of intense training, I journeyed south with high hopes for
La Ruta ’98. I didn’t bring a bike this time- Roman said he’d lend me one from his touring company, sparing me the airline- baggage fee.
Big mistake. At the 75- mile mark on day 1. While happily riding spasm-free, my rear derailleur fell off. Luckily, an hour hike uphill led to a checkpoint and an abandoned tandem bike, which I commanded and rode to the finish like a passengerless taxicab.
We went humidity and dehydration on day 1 to freezing temperature and hypothermia on day 2, when we tackled the 90-mile climb and descent of the majestic Irazú, Costa Rica’s third highest mountain at 11,600 feet. Having done Irazú by Jeep in 97’, I was nervous about my first consecutive-day ride at
La Ruta. But my long summer training days paid off on the steep mostly paved climb, which showcases a Costa Rica known only by a few tourist who visit the fluorescent-green rainwater, like in Irazu’s cone. Riding mid-pack, I could afford to shot pictures of ox and tractor-driving farmers tending fields of onions, potatoes and other crops that thrive in foggy air and volcanic soil.
As the elevation rose, the temperature plummeted. Along with the chill, fog, drizzle and downpour soon blanketed the volcano; those who forgot their jackets suffered. Some locals I’d met the previous the previous year handed me a steamy booster shot of
chirrite, a sugar-cane alcohol with a touch of strawberry syrup, and I rocketed to the summit warm and happy. The three-hour descent that followed, a hand-numbing, brain- rattling exercise in sheer brake-clenching terror indelibly etched the mountain-biking term “babyhead” (rocks as big as a baby’s head) into my vocabulary. Although I had to stop every half-mile to restore the feeling in my fingers, the plunge was a fair trade for getting most of us our digs in the town of Turrialba early enough for a nice dinner.
Noticed I said “most of us.” Bill Katovsky of Marin County, California, a 41 year-old former triathlete who finished the Hawaii Ironman twice in a past life was AWOL. Desperate to completely one satge of
La Ruta, the second year competitor left for Irazu one hour before the race began, then refused orders to get off the course when it was dark. After crawling downhill for hours and crashing several times on the now invisibles babyheads, he hopped a police motorcycle and rolled at 10 p.m. nearly hypothermic.
Sadly that wasn’t the worst case. John Roden, a 35 year-old New York teacher who was the first American to finish day 1 (behind 19 Costa Ricans) was so ill that he didn’t get out of bed for day 2. That afternoon, a hotel maid found him in a coma. He didn’t come out of it for four days (fortunately he made a good recovery.)
Day 3: It wasn’t pretty
Overconfidence is a dangerous thing for someone out to finish an endurance event. But having gone a strong two-by-two on heavy rental bikes, I’d become a legend of my one mind by day 3, a 95-mile ride north and east up another volcano, Volcan Turrialba, and into the sweltering banana plantations of the Caribbean plain.
After climbing Turrialba I felt so invincible that I decided to show off. Passing through a tiny village of cheering bike fans who sprayed water on the riders, I launch into a towering bunny hop- a useful mountain-biking skill that involves simultaneously lifting both wheels of the ground to clear obstacles. Landed right, it took effortless.
I landed slightly askew, however, slamming chest-first onto the jagged gravel road, blowing a tire bending my front wheel and spewing blood all over the place. I was at the back of the pack by the time a got rolling again.
I got worse. A high speed downhill crash an hour later left me crying and in shock, my left shoulder a useless clump of pain (half separated actually) and my front wheel pretzeled. I lay prone for 30 minutes before being rescued by a truck. Again I would not finish
La Ruta de Los Conquistadores.
Or wouldn’t I? As we drove trough the vast Dole Banana plantations, I saw lots of kids on bikes. True, I couldn’t actually complete
La Ruta. But dammit, after all this, I deserve to finish!
I manage to convince one of the youngsters into loaning me his Sting- ray, and while he rode in the truck, I pedaled the last three jarring miles into the little Caribbean town of Batan. As the last rider in, I was greeted with tumultuous applause and swarm over by a huge crowd of kids at the finish line. When I rose from the ground both water bottles, a mini pump, a multi-tool and three energy bars were gone from my funny pack. No matter it was a small price to pay for a superb adventure and the world’s cooler finisher’s medal.
There’s another saying about this most challenging of races: “Compitiendo contra la tierra.” “You are racing against the country.” Against endless rollercoaster mountains. Against wicked changes in temperature. Freezing rains. Stultifying humidity. But I have corollary to add: “Compitiendo contra usted.” “You are racing against yourself.” Against forgetting to take care of your body. And against hubris.
Once again
La Ruta had beaten me. But I’m learning, and I’ll be back.
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