But with the Univest CycloSportif 100K looming, neither Bates nor I had been able to squeeze in much road time in preparation. We weren’t overly concerned, as we were under the impression that we’d be sailing over the gently undulating Pennsylvania countryside (with a few hills thrown in for good measure)—nothing to worry about. We were confident that our cumulative base miles were more than adequate preparation for just about anything the Keystone State could throw at us. Pride before the fall...
There was a wild card, however: It was even money whether Tropical Storm (soon to be Hurricane) Hanna would pre-empt the event, and emails were flyin’ fast and furious from the harried organizers. They finally opted to go for it, so we hit the road late Friday morning.
Our first stop was to check in to the Tohickon Campground. It was well off the beaten path, just beyond the longest covered bridge in Bucks County. By modern campground standards it was a bit seedy, but certainly adequate to meet our minimal needs. We were assigned a camp right along the bank of a stream. At this time of year, there was no one else around, so we had the entire area to ourselves. Not bad at all.
Having located our digs, we tooled back down the highway to Sellersville to sign in and conduct a recce of the general area. The event had a max registration of 1500, but judging from the lack of bodies we encountered at registration (as in two, besides ourselves) and the folks who crowded into the Hospitality Tent at the end of the ride (perhaps 100), I’d venture a guess that there weren’t more than 200 participants max. There were two routes: 100K and 60K, and we later learned that many of the cyclists who'd signed up for the 100K punted and only completed the 60K. Hindsight is indeed 20/20!
Registration went smoothly: We collected our “swag bag” full of useless stuff and an ankle transponder for recording our official time (which proved to be equally useless). We were given cue sheets, but no maps—don’t ya just hate that? I mean, you can always find your way home with a map, but a cue sheet? Then we picked up our official event T-shirts—which featured a generic Univest Bank logo with the word “Grand Prix” added beneath (as Bates quipped, “Probably leftovers from last year’s company picnic.”). No artwork at all, nothing to give one the impression that this was a bike race. Oh well.
The high school in nearby Souderton was the designated rendezvous point for the ride. We diligently sought out said institution of lower learning to scope out parking, shower facilities, etc. We assumed this was also the starting point for the ride. There was absolutely no evidence that a rather large affair was about to take place here. No tents/awnings, no portajohns, no hucksters, uh, I mean vendors, no bodies milling about. No buzz. NOTHING. Very strange. For some reason, this didn’t set off any alarm bells for us—but more on that later...
Confident that we had it sussed, we headed back to the campground, only to discover that Bucks County had been placed under a flash-flood watch and we had been reassigned a spot on higher ground. As it turned out, this meant slipping in to a vacant space in the “seasonal” section of the campground.
Cruising through this area was a real shocker for me, as I’d never seen such a thing (I don’t get out much). Trailers of every size, shape, description, age and condition were shoehorned in side by side, and it was evident that they were semi-permanent installations. Each had been “improved” in one way or another. Cobbled-together decks abounded, and many of the strange contraptions were profusely decorated with strings of hanging lights and an amazing array of lawn furniture, ornaments and chatchkies. Sewage pipes were in evidence above ground, and the electric wiring was haphazardly strung from tree to tree. “Code? We don’t need no stinking code!” It was a nightmarish corrugated aluminum shantytown—very Third World. The overall effect was quite surreal; sort of Hieronymus Bosch meets Pablo Picasso to create a 21st-century American Gothic. Very scary.
Howdy, neighbor! Our home away from home, right next door to Camp Budweiser (look closely at the lettering on the screened-in porch). Hey, hey— what’d I say? This ain’t no freakin’ KOA!Having chowed down and showered, we headed back to town—Quakertown, to be exact—for a spot of local color. The night was fine (calm before the storm) so we roosted outside a historic tavern to consume some liquid carbs. Later, when we were comfortably ensconced in our Vanagon cocoon, the rain began to fall—from a small front that had no connection to Hurricane Hanna.
The velo-epicure’s approach to camping (and carbo-loading)—gourmet all the way! We are nothing if not civilized…
Born to be wild!Next morning we diddled around girding ourselves for the ride, noting that the gathering stormclouds did not augur well for the task at hand. We managed to arrive on-site at the high school just a few minutes after 8am (when the ride was supposed to kick off), and it looked like a ghost town! There were a handful of cars with bike racks in the parking lot and a couple of cyclists getting ready to roll—but again, no sign of a major event at all: no signage, no official staff, no nuttin’! What to do?
The Dynamic Duo—just before they realized they had no clue where the starting point was...One of the other stragglers said he thought the ride was actually supposed to start somewhere downtown, so off we went in search of the lost CycloSportif. We pedaled hither and yon, casting our Mk I Eyeball down every street and boulevard, but to no avail. After about half an hour of this aimless meandering, we spotted a temporary concrete barricade manned by cops, news media and spectators, and we knew we’d struck paydirt! We never did actually locate the official “starting point,” as we were directed by an official-looking gent to get our arses out on the course post-haste and ride “that way.”
So began our (in)auspicious entry into the Wonderful World of CycloSportif! If nothing else seemed clear, at least the route was well marked—a good thing in Pennsylvania, where the roads snake around the countryside in a haphazard maze. Around mile 12, we began to pick up some precip, heavier than fog, but not quite rain—what the Irish would call “soft rain.” At least it wasn’t “cold rain.”
Not long thereafter we encountered a sign that warned of the beginning of a “KOM” stage for the pro riders soon to follow. These King of the Mountain segments were selected to determine the best climbers of the peloton. This first climb was reminiscent of the hills in our beloved Madison County—a good workout, but not bonk-worthy.
MadCyclists: Committed.We briefly idled our engines at the first “Feed Zone” at mile 20, by which time we were actually getting wet. A bit farther up the road, we found ourselves riding alongside a large lake where an equally large crowd had assembled. And there, amongst the throngs, was a facsimile of the Loch Ness Monster (and a baby Nessie, to boot)! Turned out to be an Irish-Scottish Festival—well, the weather sure reminded me of the Highlands!
Now that’s what I call a loch!As our cyclocomputers ticked off 26 miles, we encountered the second KOM—the “L’Alp de Green Lane” (I swear I’m not making this up!). This one was a Real Wall. We dug in and began to grind it out, but there was nothing for it—that mother just seemed to go straight up (and up, and up!). It made Ruth Road look like a speed bump! We both threw in the towel out about half-way up and grudgingly took Shank’s mare to the crest.
Deer in the headlights… Walking up a twenty-plus degree grade in cleats on wet asphalt with a bicycle in tow in the pouring rain is not my idea of a good time. And there was still one more KOM in the offing.I believe it was somewhere around the half-way point of the ride that we began to realize just how deceiving the terrain really was: It often appeared to be benignly flat, but was in fact often an ever-so-slight uphill grade. We’d ride for miles feeling like our brakes were dragging. This kind of slow, steady grind causes you to work harder than you think you are, and it will really wear you down if you’re not maintaining a pretty respectable cadence (thank goodness for gel shots!). I managed to pull a rectus femoris in my quad, which I attribute to not being habituated to this type of terrain.
So the pastoral Pennsylvania countryside proved to be a series of energy-sapping long pulls punctuated by the occasional quad-burning hill (replete with dangerously speedy descent on wet tarmac). And then there were those lung-busting KOM climbs… Are we having fun yet?
The sky continued to darken, the wind began to howl and the rain just kept pelting down harder and harder. I could no longer see a thing through my fogged-up, rain-spattered dark cycling glasses. Oh sure, let’s do a metric century through a freakin’ hurricane—what were we thinking? Ah well, in for a penny, in for a pound!
We were so far behind our fellow CycloSportif participants at this point that we were essentially riding unsupported—the SAG vehicles were apparently all somewhere up ahead of us; in fact, by the time we’d reached the second—and last—Feed Zone, they’d already packed it in. Not surprisingly, we missed several key turns and had to backtrack to find the route. I, for one, was impressed that we retained the presence of mind to do so.
With about a half-dozen miles to go, we did some rough calculatin’ and figured that the pro peloton was closing on us—fast. In all honesty, we were both suckin’ hind teat by this time, but we dug down deep and kept on truckin’. A passing SUV generously offered us a lift, but we just waved 'em on. Quitting now was simply not an option.
Before long we found ourselves in the ’burbs of Souderton, and the streets were lined with spectators in anticipation of the arrival of the pros. Mistaking us for the lead racers, they cheered like banshees and rang cowbells as we passed. When I muttered something about being embarrassed, Bates retorted emphatically, “NO! Dig it—this is the only time you’ll ever get to feel like a pro racer. Enjoy the ride!” And he was dead right.
We crouched down in the drops and did our best Lance impression as we sailed through the streets toward the finish line with the crowd cheering us on. Amazing! Suddenly, a couple of motorcycle cops zipped up behind us and ordered us off the street, as the breakout riders were only seconds behind! We unclipped and jumped up on the curb just in time to watch the real velo-heroes fly by in a colorful blur!
Breakout!After they passed, the street was again empty so we resumed our ride into cycling history. With eleven riders in the breakout, Bates and I (Team Litespeed) were now technically holding 12th and 13th position respectively, and the peloton was drawing ever nearer. So as we neared the finish line, we gratefully took advantage of a 90-degree turn in the course to slip through a barricade and disappear (“Exit, stage right!”).
We had crashed the Univest Grand Prix!
Peeling off our rain-soaked bibs and jerseys and donning street clothes, we secured our bikes in the Vanagon and headed off to find the Hospitality Tent—which we accomplished just in time to see the tail end of the raffle. We were famished, but the spread that had been laid out for the CycloSportif riders was long gone and we only barely managed to grab the last couple of veggie wraps and some bottled water before the clean-up crew got ’em. Ah well, we might have missed the food and the freebies, but how many CycloSportif participants can claim to have ridden in the Grand Prix?
Rode hard and put up wet… The crowd roared as Team Litespeed staged an amazing upset in the Univest Grand Prix! The unknown upstarts from Madison, Virginia (no sponsor) slipped in just behind the breakout, nailing 12th & 13th place respectively. Hey man, where’d those Old Dudes come from???
