269.5 pounds of food…

This ride report is a bit different, because the event is a bit different…

It will probably come as no surprise to you that the goal of a ride name the Food Bank Challenge is to collect food to donate to a food bank. In that respect, it is no different than most food drives. It is the particular expression of the word “challenge” that makes it different; rather than challenging everybody to bring in food and donate it, the challenge is to bring food with you and carry it on the ride before you donate it.

When polled, 78% of adult Americans rated this as a “moderately stupid” or “quite stupid” thing to do. I agree with them. That is, in fact, the whole point of the event – to do something that is, when you come down to it, stupid, but in a very special way.

The official challenge rules are as follows:

1. Show up with some food.
2. Carry it with you on your ride. Backpacks, panniers, or fanny packs are all okay. You can duct tape a pound of spaghetti to the top of your thighs if you’d like.
3. Ride a normal ride for the group.
4. Put all the food together so that somebody can take it to a food bank.
5. Go out for burritos.

Strictly speaking, option #4 is not an actual rule, though with our group, it’s pretty close. We have one additional rule that may be invoked at the ride leader’s or group’s discretion:

• If one of your regulars appears to have wimped out (ie “forget” his or her backpack), they get to wear a kid’s backpack (the more obvious the better) with 1 pound of baby cereal in it.

If the amount of food you wish to donate is less than the amount of food you wish to carry, that is okay. Any extra food will gladly be accepted. If you are looking for a guideline, something like 5% of your body weight is a good amount to carry on your first time.  If you want to up the stupid, 15% will accomplish that. Anything above that, and you’re on your own.

Day – 1:

Like any important event, it is critical to consider the food that you will carry. I went to Uwajimaya to buy a 20 pound bag of brown rice (plus some nice Sockeye for dinner; they have the best fish on the eastside), and stopped by Fred Meyer for 5 pounds of pasta. I also picked up an appropriate kid’s backpack and contents for the additional rule. When I got home, I stuffed it in my REI backpack; rice in the big section, spaghetti in the spaghetti side pockets, and the remainder of pocket in the front pocket. It tipped the scales at 29 pounds (I think the rice was heavier than 20 pounds).

If you are going up the stupid, I highly recommend a backpack with a good waist and shoulder straps. I also recommend food that isn’t going to be sticking you in the back when you ride. I did without a waist strap on the inaugural edition of this event, and was crankier than usual for a few days afterward.

The next problem I had was one of route. This was complicated by the weather forecast, which asserted that it would be 92 degrees. That meant I needed a route in the cooler part of our range – to avoid the urban heat island effect – and I also needed a route where we could stop for water along the way. And I wanted it to not be too steep; nothing more than 10% or so. I came up with a route, and went to bed.

Day – 0:

Nicely, the weather has moderated, so I’m not concerned about us dying due to the heat. As the riders start showing up, I notice that there are several different approaches.

Mark and Joe have showed up with panniers full of food. I’m not sure how much Joe has, but Mark has 38 pounds of weight in his.

Joe showed up with a whole bunch of food – 8 bags full, along with a big bag of rice – which he hopes will distract anybody from noticing that he has no backpack. Nobody is fooled. That makes him the obvious candidate to wear the bright pink “Just Do It” backpack with the box of baby cereal in it, which he accepts graciously. In a fortuitous bit of synchronicity, the weight of the cereal and the backpack is precisely 5% of Joe’s weight.

David has brought a medium-sized backpack with him, but has discovered that straps are “too painful” against the screws in his collarbone. Conveniently, he has brought a spare teammate with him to carry the backpack during the ride. Recognizing his brilliance, I immediately claim a debilitating “Halo injury”, but am unable to convince anyone to take my backpack from me.

We head out on East Lake Sammamish. I spend the first 4 miles warming up, wondering who the idiot was who came up with this idea, and loosening my shoulder straps and tightening my waist strap to try to stop my muscles from cramping. After a few miles of this, the weight and my musculature reach a tentative agreement, and we are nearing Thompson Hill road.

Thompson is a pretty common way to head up the plateau, rising 311’ and averaging about 8% in gradient. I like to climb this at around 250 watts; it’s a level that hurts but is sustainable. As we head towards the start of the climb, the CR2032 lithium battery powering my Powertap ekes out its final joule, and my power meter drops off the air. So, instead of taking a sophisticated “power” approach, I gear down, peg my heart rate, and rock it old school – at least, to the extent that anybody climbing with a 30/27 can be said to be “rocking it”. Uncharacteristically, I stay near the front of the group for about half the climb, when the non-encumbered riders and the faster encumbered riders stream by me.

 

 

 

We crest the hill, and regroup at our usual point. The rest of the ride passes pleasantly except for the monkey on my back (a rather large adult male Colobus guereza, if weight is any indication), and the route that I picked turns out to be pretty good.

 

 

 

 

 

The evening is delightful, and after our final descent back to East Lake Sam, we head back to Marymoor at our usual measured pace. Which involves a very-non-cooperative paceline with the faster riders, and various slightly-more-cooperative pacelines behind the first one. I pull those that prefer a more casual approach back to the park, and marvel at how much harder it is to ride up a 2% slope with the extra weight.

We all get together for a picture, and then it’s time for Burritos…