Two riders were approaching, and the wind began to howl

Yeah. So I guess you got a hint as to how my MS 150 went this weekend. But, even with that hint. I'll regale you.

I reached lots of conclusions this weekend. That's probably to be expected. This is my fourth MS 150. I've ridden two with and been support crew for The Wheels of Love for two. And, I've always felt like this weekend is like taking your life into the darkroom. You think you have a good idea of what you have, but until you develop it and print it, you don't know shit.

This weekend has always done that for me. Regardless of my role with the team.

The first year I did it, (purely in support) the ride showed me that people would take care of me if I needed it. That someone always had my back. And that came at a time where I needed to feel covered.

The second year I did it, (purely as a rider) the ride showed me that I could contribute to that team. To that network that had taken care of me the year before.

Last year ... (signed on as a rider, blew my elbow out in a mortal struggle with bursitis, supported the team) ... shit, it taught me humility, I guess? That I had to earn my spot on the team? That wearing a fucking chicken suit - because I blew out my elbow and biffed it on a sponsor - is fucking hot? And that regardless of what got me in the chicken suit, people will forgive me? OK, so last year's lesson is kind of nebulous and ever-evolving.

This year ... clearly, lots going on in the noggin.

So, you ride. You know? I'm sure lots of the 13,000 riders have amazing, altruistic causes to ride for. Hell, I have one. And to be sure, I thought about DJ and his MS a lot of times during my weekend.

But, make no mistake about it. I ride for me. You have to. If you're not getting something out of it, why the hell are you out there doing it? To be sure, you can't do it if it sucks out of you. Something about it has to get your rocks off.

My first day of the MS 150 was really a day of two halves. But first of all, you have to understand something. It was windy. Now, I grew up in West Texas. Where my dad raised cattle. And I spent years helping him. And the wind was blowing every single second. Not every single second I was working cattle. Every single fucking second I lived in West Texas. For 18 years. Constantly. Wind blowing so hard you couldn't swallow. Wind blowing so hard the water in your toilet bowl has waves. I am not making either of those things up. I promise.

So, I know wind.

Saturday, coming out of Houston, the wind was b-l - o -- w --- ing. Constantly around 20 miles an hour. Gusting to 30. Also, it was a special wind. It came just about straight out of the north. Now, if you take a look at the map, you'll notice this puts the wind at anywhere from a straight headwind to about a 2 o'clock wind.

This is problematic for two reasons:

1. It sucks.

2. More than a few years ago, my friend and cycling teammate RR and I engaged in a conversation about wind and cycling. Surely, we both agreed we would rather climb all day than ride in the wind. However, we differed, in that I thought a headwind was the worst wind a rider could face. Randy asserted the worst wind was either out of 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock.

We were both wrong. The worst wind is most definitely out of your 2 o'clock.

You get all the drawbacks from a headwind. And, as there's more surface area on the side of a rider than the front, you get extra drawbacks. You're not only fighting to go forward, you're fighting to stay on the bike. You're not only fighting to go forward and fighting to stay on the bike, you're constantly fighting to go forward and constantly fighting to stay on the bike.

And, as I saw a couple of times, when you ride straight into a wind, you can actually draft within a paceline. You can actually beat the wind by riding on the wheel of the rider in front of you. And, in doing so, you use a ton less effort. Seriously. It makes a world of difference. I was completely wrong about the worst a rider can face. I am secure enough to admit that.

In spite of that. I spent the morning riding with some of the team's big dogs. I not only kept up with them. I was pulling the train at a couple junctures. This would have been unthinkable a couple years ago. And I won't lie. It felt really, really good.

Since my last MS 150 attempt, I've dropped about 30 pounds of fat and replaced it with about 20 pounds of muscle. Though I had ridden far less in preparation, (read: zero.) the fat loss/muscle gain made a lot of my "success" possible. Thank you, Pain Train.

So, after lunch, I had to make a stop to remove my long sleeves. The big dogs, rode on and I found myself on my own against the wind and the pack. The difference was night and day. There was no break from the wind. There was no camaraderie.

So, after hours and hours and miles and miles of fighting that terrible wind (Seriously. Again. From the bottom of my heart. Fuck you, wind. Eat shit and die.), I came to a couple conclusions:

1. As you know, I've been all about the team with this event. And, with good reason. It's hard not to love my team. But, out there by myself. Fighting every mile. Fighting every gust. Fighting every peddle stroke. I realized something. You know what? It's about me. It's up to me. I'm either going to do this. Or I am not going to do this. But not a single, solitary Wheel of Love is going to do this for me. They can't. I can. And I am going to ride every foot of this MS 150. Myself. For me. Bono, you pompous fuck. Sometimes, you can make it on your own. And I'm going to. Because I am a badass.

2. I really should upgrade my components on my bike. The front derailleur sucks. Shifting is terribly unpredictable and it hangs sometimes. And I think something is wrong with the crank. Under torque on a hill, it will slip in the lowest gear up front. Often. Which does a real number on your cadence. And, climbing is when you need a steady cadence the most. But the rear derailleur shifts like butter. But you'd expect that. Smaller gears are easier to shift. So we're starting in the front with these upgrades. Maybe Dura Ace. Maybe SRAM. Maybe Campy.

I swear to you, within a mile of these revelations, something miraculous happened. Doing about 17 ... 18 miles an hour, I shifted my back to a taller gear to maintain my acceleration. Immediately, something was wrong. Something was VERY wrong.

I sheared my rear derailleur hanger. It threw the deraileur into my back wheel, seizing it up IMMEDIATELY. I MASHED both my brake levers. I think I remember screaming "I'm going down!" I'm not sure that is proper cycling etiquette, but it did make everyone scatter. Which was really my point. My first thought was, I have to get both feet out of my clips and I have to do it now. Somehow, I did and pulled off the most amazing Flintstone stop ever. How all this happened without serious incident is really beyond me. I wish there was footage of it.

So, this all happened about two miles past Fayetteville. After standing on the side of the road for 45 minutes because every SAG wagon heading down the course was full, (thanks again, wind for mowing down all those riders.) The guy whose yard I was in asked if he could do anything for me. "I hate to impose, but can you give me a ride back into Fayetteville?"

"Would you like a Corona, too?"

It felt like the setup to one of those farmer's daughter jokes.

So, he takes me the two miles back to the rest stop I had just passed. The repair guy there had no rear derailleur hangers for a Felt. He had no new rear derailleurs. He told me I was done for the day. Bono, it seems, did have a point.

"Can you make it a fixie?"

"Yeah," Arn said. "But only if you're hardcore enough to ride it."

How do you back down from that?

An hour later, I'm back on the road. I make it past the last rest stop of the day. I am 8 miles from glory. I am going to pull this off and it is going to be the greatest story in the history of the Wheels of Love. A turning point in my life to show me that Bono, again, was wrong. Sometimes you can gut it up and make it on your own. Against the wind. Against all the odds. Against all the pain. I am a badass.

Who clearly doesn't know his own strength.

I feel and hear two screws come out of my crankset. Ruh-roh, Shaggy. Five hundred yards later, my sheer, raw, brute force bends my front gear into the frame. Yeah. We're seized up again. Mayday! Mayday! We're going down. Again.

I avoid disaster. Somehow. Again. Five miles from the end of day one. Five miles from eternal cycling badass status.

My bike is cooked. There's no amount of slapdickery that can fix this. At the very least, I'm looking a new front gear and new rear derailleur. I'm thinking it's going to be worse than that. The crankset was slipping before, so it might be a good time to swap it up anyway.

I had a conversation with someone Saturday night who sounded so sad at my day, which was strange to me. I decided that whether or not I actually finished the day, learning what I was supposed to learn was the most important thing. And I did. I learned that I am a badass. Just maybe not all that status is based on my cycling skills. Maybe even in ways I never thought I would actually get acknowledged for being a badass.

I think this reaction came from me generally being too hard on myself when things go wrong. I'm going to work on that. And make sure I learn what I am supposed to learn. I don't have to win every time, but I really should learn from things.

From a materiel sense, for the first time ever, I got out of the MS 150 with everything I stared with. And nothing more.

I declare victory.

Utter and complete victory.