Email this article

Building an Iron Horse Rider

A Newbie Prepares to Ride The Iron Horse Bicycle Classic

By Lisa Meerts-Brandsma

Found in: | Outside | Biking | Road Biking |

Get Ready, Set ... The Iron Horse Bicycle Classic

The Iron Horse Bicycle Classic climbs 5,775 feet, or more than a mile, over a 47-mile course that begins in downtown Durango and ends in Silverton. The top racers usually finish the race in just over two hours while an average cyclist could anticipate the ride taking four hours or more, said Ed Zink, chairman of the organizing committee. The race is unsupported, so riders must carry all necessary clothing and gear. However, there are food and water stops along the way.

Last year, the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic drew 2,300 participants but organizers anticipate 200 more this year. Cyclists come from all 50 states as well as foreign countries. This year marks the 36th anniversary of the ride, which began when Tom Mayer, a cyclist, bet his brother Jim, a railroad brakeman, he could beat the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad to Silverton.

Zink said cyclists can estimate how long the ride will take them if they ride Hesperus Hill in Durango and multiply the time it takes them by four. He urged participants to eat appropriately and drink enough water. On average, a person will need to consume 100 calories every 15 minutes. About 10 to 15 percent of cyclists who enter the Iron Horse do not finish, primarily because they neglected to fuel themselves properly, he said. But a rider need not reach Silverton to find success. If a person sets a goal of riding to Durango Mountain Resort and accomplishes it, she will have been successful.

The Iron Horse Bicycle Classic includes a criterium on Sunday, May 27, in addition to the ride to Silverton on Saturday, May 26. A veloswap will also be held on Sunday. Registration cost is $60 for the road race, $65 for the citizen race and $40 for the criterium. For more information and to register, go online and visit www.ironhorsebicycleclassic.com. — Lisa Meerts-Brandsma

The author has her eye on the prize of riding the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic the entire distance to Silverton in the Citizen Race.

Last spring, a man at least a decade older than me, a foot taller and many pounds heavier rode his bike on the Animas River Trail in Durango, Colo., and called it mountain biking. Not long after, he announced he would ride all 47 miles of the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic to Silverton, Colo.

Interesting, I thought.

Then, several friends and I bet whether and how far he would make it. (He finished, and no one followed up on the bets.)

This spring, I wonder which of my friends have made the same wagers. After I decided in December to ride the Iron Horse, a road race that climbs a total 5,000 feet over two mountain passes before taking a quick descent into Silverton, I meant to keep it secret. My big mouth immediately gave me away. I confided in a close friend the day I paid for the six-month training class, swore her to secrecy and then shared the news with others.

Perhaps I hoped to keep them from betting against me by requiring their silence. Surprisingly, four months later, at least one good friend of mine remained in the dark.

Durango, a once unknown mountain town, has developed from an agricultural to a recreational community. Don't bother looking for the native born - they're rare. Men and women strutting Main Avenue with spurs and cowboy hats could be ranchers - but are more suspect as Texans. Meanwhile, athletes have settled in who love the area for its high ridge lines, raging river and snowy winters. They run out their door, up Animas Mountain and return home before the coffee has finished brewing. Then they head north, ski an avalanche run in the backcountry and drive home to cook an organic meal from scratch, likely with produce purchased that morning from local farms. Don't ask me how they spend their evenings.

My point is that I am not one of them. I did not break the 10-minute barrier while running 1 mile for physical fitness tests in high school. While I played many sports, I never lasted for more than six weeks. I failed to run the Steamworks Half-marathon when my knees ached several weeks into training. My doctor told me to stop playing Ultimate Frisbee after I complained that not only were my knees still hurting but I also tweaked my hamstring.

I spent much of last summer idle, unhappily watching the slight muscles I had developed return to their usual softness. I watched sports from the sidelines and joined my sweaty friends for burgers and beers afterward. Maybe I even enjoyed pointing at my doctor when asked how come I didn't participate, a healthy excuse if I ever heard one.

As the aspen trees yellowed and temperatures cooled, I started to recognize my moodiness as a symptom of being idle. I considered my athletic options and asked a friend if I could borrow her road bike, curious to discover whether it, too, would pain my body. The orthopedist I saw informed me I had reached the ripe age of 24 and should accept discomfort as a consequence of growing older. However, I was not prepared to follow his advice.

The borrowed bike sat in my garage as stationary as me. Then, one Friday in late September, I celebrated a friend's birthday with a large crowd by hitting up most every bar on Main Avenue. At some point, I mentioned the bike and, somehow, I convinced a cyclist friend to ride the valley loop to Baker's Bridge with me. This I regretted the next morning, when he called and said it was time to go - unless we wanted a storm moving in from the north to drench us.

I lagged far behind him as soon as we left Bread, the bakery near my apartment, dehydration weakening my already weak muscles. He kindly stopped at several points and allowed me to catch up. Though my physical suffering prevented me from overexerting myself, I was surprised to find I enjoyed the repetitious motions, the scenery casually passing by and the exercise itself. I saw small hills as momentous efforts but it felt good.

As we rode, the gray clouds filling up the valley sky grew large and dark. They ultimately caught us after Trimble Hot Springs, and my friend sped away once the rain fell like icy bullets. When I tucked my head to shield my face, sweat-sweetened drops streamed over my lips. My feet grew increasingly moist until I felt water squish under the footbed of my shoes with each pedal stroke. At roughly that moment, I accepted the inevitability I would be soaked, which, once established, allowed me to appreciate the storm and the ride more than before. Granted, when thunder cracked close by, I nearly swerved across the road, but the physical effort combined with reaching the miniature goals I set for myself - a tree, that driveway, a barn - felt incredibly rewarding. It was enough to set me to thinking about committing to cycling, enough for me to ask myself whether I wanted to ride the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic.

And who was I kidding? Of course I did. Who doesn't want to be a real, new-breed Durangoan?

The indoor spin Iron Horse Training Class started in December and I did not think I would survive the classes nor did I realize I could sweat so much. Ten minutes into an hour class, the drops of sweat started dripping and I watched them hit the bike frame or the floor, never in the same spot but constantly falling. At roughly the same point, my muscles would burn. I would count the minutes left until we would begin the cool down. When told to add tension to the fly wheel, I added a little bit. Too much too soon and I knew my legs could not keep pedaling.

The first weeks were hard because spin class exhausted me for the entire day. Not only did waking early hurt, my body wanted me to nap by lunch time. I worked sluggishly, certain someone in my office would notice I was too tired to work efficiently. If I had a full work day planned, I used it as an excuse to take class easy and while spinning, I fantasized about bathroom breaks or needing to fill my water bottle. Each Tuesday and Thursday morning, I awoke and reevaluated my commitment in the winter darkness. The $250 I paid to join motivated me to pull on my shorts and brave the bitter temperatures - but sometimes I skipped.

Just over a week before Christmas, my wisdom teeth grew sore. My throbbing teeth awoke me several nights at 3 a.m., and the pulsing kept my eyes peeled wide. I saw the dentist, who promptly told me to have them pulled, and I went under the scalpel five days later. Three days after, I flew to Connecticut for Christmas and miraculously avoided the messy historic snowfall caused at Denver International Airport. I returned at New Year's with a sore throat that developed into the Durango Flu that lingers in town even today. It took a week before I could finish a sentence without hacking, three weeks before I had energy. The final week I forced myself to rejoin spin class.

When Cindy Dahlberg leads the Iron Horse Training Class, she grins gleefully, apparently taking pleasure in watching others suffer. She has a hard but supportive attitude, hassling the participants first and later encouraging them. But it was on a fluke ride in her husband, Scott's, class that something happened to me.

The weeks wore on and by early February I began to crave the endorphins my body released after spin class. If I missed one, I felt irritable, though it often took me more than a day before I identified the cause of my bad mood. Because I continually missed Cindy's 7 a.m. classes, I looked into attending the lunchtime rides. Breaking up my work day with exercise sounded great but I was hesitant to shower midday and return to the office with sopping hair. The first time I tried it, I sat down at my desk afterwards and wanted sleep. So I attended the Tuesday evening ride to see whether that fit my schedule better.

Scott teaches in a more traditionally masculine way than Cindy. I had fun in her class, enjoying her jabs and laughter, whereas he seemed more focused and goal oriented. I cannot say whether he worked us harder or whether I happened to expend more effort, but spinning felt more intense in his class. Moreso than ever, I wanted to quit. It was tiring to glimpse at the clock and see that seconds, not minutes, had passed. I constantly wiped sweat off my face and my legs never stopped burning. There was always something more and it drained me.

The class was supposed to be sprinting when Scott made an off-hand remark he has probably long forgotten. Midway through the effort, at the point where it felt impossible to me that I could finish, he said five simple words, none more than four letters. "You have to want it."

Want it? I didn't want it at all. I wanted the burn to stop and the sweat to dry up. I wanted the clock to pass the hour mark and the moment to come where I could pat myself on the back for a job well done. I wanted good feelings, a strong body, an effortless pedal stroke. I wanted class to be over and I wanted out of that painful moment.

And then I thought about his words, these ideas all crossing my mind within 10 seconds. Could I want to finish the sprint with energy rather than collapse? Could I feel the pain in my muscles and use it to push harder rather than just survive? Could I ignore my complaints?

I willed myself to pedal faster and surprisingly, I did. It seemed the harder I worked, the more reserves that existed. The strength in my body amazed me, not because I was strong, but because there was much more there than I ever expected. I suddenly saw how I lived much of my life holding back, trying to finish activities before I ran out of energy, never trusting that I could achieve my goals and then some.

That one effort would become the foundation for the remainder of spin classes. If you want it, it will happen.

With two months left before the Iron Horse, I have begun to ask everyone I see whether they have ridden it and if they say yes, I ask them for details. Hearing about their experience riding brings out mixed feelings for me. Everyone expresses the same confusing message. Imagine a difficult task, picture it a million times harder, and then you might understand how it feels to climb for as many as five uninterrupted hours. It hurts, but you, definitely you, can do it, they say. And then, after they describe the horrors, everyone finishes the narrative by explaining how euphoric it feels to reach Silverton - and many say they will or already have repeated the adventure.

As I've trained, my fears about riding the Iron Horse have begun to subside. I worry about crashing on the descent and the pavement grinding my legs into raw meat more than endless climbing, but even that seems less frightening than it did in December. Warm weather means indoor riding has turned to outdoor riding and I have many hills to climb before May 26.

But they say anyone, even a 24-year-old journalist who never rode a road bike before, can finish the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic. And I've listened.

After training for six months by riding at least three times each week, Meerts-Brandsma will ride the Citizen Race of the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic on May 26. Pick up the next issue of Inside/Outside Southwest to learn whether she reached Silverton, how long the ride took her, what hurt the most and whether she will try it again next year. Go Lisa!

Lisa Meerts-Brandsma has lived in Durango, Colo., for nearly three years. When not learning new sports, she works as a journalist and also teaches horseback riding.