Nutrition and The Mercury Lynx

I received a few private messages inquiring whether there was some deeper meaning to The Magnificent Seven reference in my last post. Folks, I can assure you that Cliffs Notes will never be needed for this blog. I also received a message noting that while Charles Bronson was previously The Magnificent Seven actor I most resembled, I am now becoming more and more like Yul Brynner. I take that as a compliment since Brynner was one of only two of the seven to survive by the end of the movie. Well, I survived this trip and can now write a concluding post.

I started strong on the first four days of the trip, but ran out of gas and was pretty wiped out by the end of each ride. I thought a lot about my cycling nutrition on Thursday night and realized that I had veered from my usual routine and just might have succumbed to too much van snack food temptation during rest stops (yes, admittedly that included marshmalllows, cookies and potato chips). For the last two days, I tried to rely on my go-to nutrition for long rides at home — one bottle of intense electrolytes and another with carbohydrates (I use UCan which contains no sugar). I felt much stronger the last two days, a reminder that “I am what I eat”.

Friday’s 63 mile ride was a loop by Fort Davis on pretty desolate roads. After experiencing the desert of Big Bend and the more lush Chisos Basin ecosystem, the terrain on this ride was more like the Texas Hill Country where we rode a few years ago. Here are a few pictures from our ride:

Art, Mary and Serge in front of me in this paceline (are you impressed that I can take forward pictures while riding in addition to selfies?).

And then came the Observatory, which I correctly remembered from my college astronomy course would be at the top of a mountain:

After a challenging climb, we were all psyched for a 14 mile downhill, with the first three miles being a real screamin’ downhill. Here is Mary coming down that steep portion:

We were incredibly happy with this descent, that is until fellow rider Butch informed us that Saturday’s ride involved cycling up these same 14 miles. We promptly named him “Buzzkill Butch”.

The last day of most trips is often a “stretch out your legs, champagne tour” on a relatively easy course. Not this time with that 14 mile ascent. We started climbing from mile 1, with a gentle ascent increasing in difficulty. And then we hit the last three miles with 10+ degree inclines. I tried to keep Liz in my sight as she has great climbing technique — she pedals at a consistent slow cadence almost like a metronome. My climbing style can best be described as “impatient” — I push too hard because I just want to make it to the top and I then need to slow down when the warning lights start flashing in my head. Thankfully, this was one of those climbs where I made it to the top before I blew myself up. Here are Liz and I reaching the Observatory together:

The remaining 18 miles were (way too many) ups and (way too few) downs on a ridgeline and here are some pictures from the end of our ride:

And here are Kevin and Serge enjoying lunch at the finish:

Although the scenery was consistently spectacular, this was a challenging week of riding for me. After I figured out my nutrition, I tweaked a lower back muscle that I engage while pushing hard on the pedals. That made climbing a bit painful and reminded me of my age. Which brings me back to the beginning of this trip — Mercury.

When Mary and I lived in Brooklyn in our 20s, we wanted to buy a car. One of our hobbies then was to count smashed in car windows during our early morning runs in our then far-from-gentrified and now completely unaffordable Boerum Hill neighborhood. We therefore decided that buying a nice car made no sense; we needed a car that could survive the streets of Brooklyn. We settled on a car that was within our $1,900 budget and met our one non-negotiable requirement of a working motor — a 1981 Mercury Lynx. Sure this car was caked with dirt on the used car lot and had a lot of dings, but no reputable hooligan was going to smash in the window of this car thinking that it had a valuable radio.

We drove from the used car lot to Mary’s parents’ house. Senstiive that our new purchase was bringing down property values by the minute in an upscale New Jersey neighborhood, I decided to give it a wash and polish. But then, washing off the dirt revealed those immortal words that someone had keyed into the hood — “Fuck Jose”. The “Fuck Jose Mobile” as our friends called it fit our needs at that time. Yes, there were some embarrassing moments, like when we drove it to a black tie client event at a country club, not realizing that there would be valet parking (how did my firm make me a partner?). But our dinged up car still got us places, albeit at a relatively show pace (I think Mercury named the car a “Lynx” because a lynx has a top speed of 50 mph, sort of like our car).

I now feel like the Mercury Lynx of cyclists. I’m not as fast as I used to be, I’m a bit dinged up, but I still eventually get there. Our trip had cyclists of all ages and skill levels. There were three really nice couples from North Carolina about our age and dinner conversation included comparing our calcium artery test scores and statin dosages. There were also three e-bikers and an 81 year old who said that he is thinking about switching to an e-bike in the future. The bottom line is that a number of us were more Lynx and less Mercedes, but we were all out there enjoying seeing the world on two wheels at our own paces. I encourage all of you to do so as well.

Five of the Magnificent Six will be taking a cycling trip to Glacier National Park in September. We’ll be missing Liz’s infectious enthusiam; the below picture captures her essence and how the rest of us feel about cycle travel. Send me a message if you would like to join us.