Don't let him fool you, Ted finished strongly for the USCF State Championship bronze medal in the Cat 1-2 field.  Despite his hard racing he always managed a smile and wave for the camera!

Courtesy of West World Images.

Climbing to hell

by Ted Huang

Everest Challenge

I can honestly say that anyone who finished this ride,
"tourist" (as the race flier called that category) or
racer, deserves a medal. I would most definitely call
this experience a true test of will.

Our group consisted the Masters/1-2 riders and several
mutants showed up including Chris (Cyborg) Walker,
Drew Miller(x-pro from Arizone who has won Gila in the
pro-1), and Douglas Donovan (Mercury). I don't
consider myself a pure climber, so my expectations
were to treat this as a training ride.

When it's 72 degrees at 7am, you know you're in for a
long-hot day. The 8-mile neutral roll out began at a
very sedate pace, but as soon as the "race" started,
myself and Dave Bailey (2002 Nor-Cal district road
champ), began riding tempo at the front. Soon, an F2
Consulting rider (Fred Whatley) began riding tempo up
the climb. No problem at this pace, so I put in a
playful attack about 1 mile into the climb. We had
like 14 miles left, but I just wanted to see if anyone
wanted to play. No one took the bait, evidently
knowing something I didn't. We rolled onto Hwy 395
for another mile up a mild gradient before turning
left onto the actual climb itself. Immediately Chris
Walker began driving it at the front. Quickly my h.r.
went up to threshold, and I was wincing from the rush
of lactic acid. He pulled off and then Douglas would
put in a monster pull up the 5-6% gradient. This
surging continued for some time After 2-3 miles of
this, I decided that I didn't want to destroy myself
on the first climb of three, and backed off, along
with everyone else except for Drew, Chris, and
Douglas. Some of the so-cal guys didn't think two of
the three would make it to the end at that pace, but
we simply didn't realize the caliber of those
climbers. At the top, they probably had 2.5min. on
us. The descent was pretty darn quick for a 5-6
percent grade (due to the thin air), and myself and
Randy Rocchi (F2 Consulting) were rocketing down the
descent at 45+mph. We gained some time on the trio
ahead, but the three other riders we had along with us
were not willing to put their heads down in a
concerted chase, so the gap went up to at least 5min.
by the 2nd climb.
This second climb was steeper than the first, but
"only 8 miles." Boy was this tortuous. My legs were
already wrecked from my previous efforts on climb one,
and I wisely chose to stay 5-10 beats below threshold.
Somehow I dragged my sorry ass over the top. Coming
down, I thought, "great, only one last climb of 20
miles to go, no problem." Little did I know how
nightmarish this last climb would turn out to be. It
was mainly on long, open, wide roads, with not a tree
to be seen, in a raging tailwind. By this time, the
temps had reached 100+, probably significantly higher
on the pavement. There's nothing like turning a
corner, and be treated to a 2 mile stretch of road,
straight uphill.
At this time, I was in a group of 4, and we had ceased
to even think about this ride as a race. We just
wanted to finish.   We plodded along for miles, and
passed an aid station, somewhere near what we thought
was the top. "Oh, you have 8miles left to the timed
finish. Good luck!" That simple piece of information
cracked just about everyone in our group. We had been
climbing at a somewhat brisk pace up until that point,
and we all knew there was no way we could sustain that
for another 8 miles. Two guys pulled over to pee, and
myself and Mike Anker rode along slowly, contemplating
our woes and basically feeling sorry for ourselves.
We turned off this wide open road, onto a much
narrower "windy" (with 20 degree turns opposed to dead
straight) road, and Mike said Bon Voyage to me as I
gained a second wind. The last 8 miles actually
weren't that bad until I hit the last km of 15%.
This was completely, and utterly unnecessary, because
I was paper-boying in my 27, trying to make it up the
damn thing. I was cursing Dario for not informing me
of the magnitude of this undertaking and for my sheer
stubbornnesss at not simply turning around at the
beginning of the last climb. I made it to the top,
and rolled straight to a chair, perched in the shade.
The beautiful Alpine lake 100m up the road went
un-noticed as I hungrily munched on tortilla chips,
savoring the salt, like I'd normally do with ice
cream.
So I came up, a whopping 25 min. down on Drew Miller,
and 4th overall, after leaving my companions-best of
the rest. 3rd place had 10 min. on me. I'd estimate
that 10min. of the trio's lead was based on their
lead from the base of the climb, and the rest being
made up on the final 20 mile push. Cruel and unusual
masochistic punishment indeed.

Descending 5,000 ft was fun, but grueling at the same
time. And the temps were rising rapidly as I passed
hundreds of decimated riders, in various states of
dementia, weaving their way up the climb.

Day 2:
"Just when you thought it couldn't be worse..."
Three climbs:
Climb 1- 7-8 miles grade: 6-7%ish
Climb 2- 13-15 miles grade: 5%ish
Climb 3 21 miles grade: 8% avg with 11-12% grades for
last 3 miles
Temp: 104 (hotter than day before)

For some odd reason, I felt compelled to finish up
what I started, also wanting to see if I could at
least beat the third place finisher from the day
before, Douglas. If nothing else, it would give me
something to focus on besides my pain and self
inflicted suffering.

Climb one started at a blistering pace as Fred,
decided to ride at threshold from the gun. My h.r.
was a good 5-10 beats lower than the previous day.
Several surges later, and with Walker at the front,
there were only 7 of us left. Then 6, then 5
including me, and then I decided to back-off, as I
simply couldn't go that hard and be "comfortable." I
watched the top three from yesterday and an
up-and-coming rider, Cameron from KB Home ride off
into the distance. Oddly enough, as the grade
slackened 2/3 of the way near the top, I had a second
wind, and began driving the pace. At the turn-around,
the lead group had about 1:30 on me. I bombed the
descent in an aero tuck, and quickly caught up to
them. As I blew past, a rider coming up decided to
weave into my lane, and I narrowly avoided t-boning
him at 55+mph. I backed off and Walker and Douglas
got a small gap on the three of us (Drew, myself, and
Cameron). As we neared the bottom, I could see that
they were trying to press home their advantage, and
Drew and I began taking pulls. Cameron looked blown,
and sat on. On the flats, before climb2, 1:30
separated us. I couldn't pull as the road tilted
uphill, and Drew rode first Cameron, and then myself
off his wheel. The rest of the climb I rode solo, and
was probably 3-4 min. down at the top. I again went
into the crazy/aero tuck on the way down, and just
managed to catch the trio by the bottom of the climb,
just in time for the culmination of our trip to
Bishop...the 21 mile climb up to the 4,000 yr. old
Bristlecone forest.
Again we had a tailwind, and I stayed with the front
guys for 2 miles before announcing, "I'll be
touristing it now, have fun you guys." Not even a
grunt in response, such was their focus. Soon after,
I saw Douglas crack as well, and he rode about a 1min.
or so in front of me. This first half of the climb
was brutal in that the pitch was 8+% and equivalent to
being in an oven, turned to "broil." I was in my 24
to 27, just grinding up a grade, I could normally ride
in a bigger gear. Meanwhile Walker was grinding away
in his 42/23, having dropped Drew by this point.
...years later, I saw the 10km to go mark, and decided
that I would finish after all.

A 6,500ft climb is
usually enough for a single day's work, but being
climb #3 at the end of two days of hellacious riding
in oven-like conditions, made this beyond epic,
bordering on nightmarish.

But with 5km to go, on a
12% grade, I saw Douglas up ahead. With Chris White
and Jen, encouraging me from their car, I decided that
a 2nd wind was in order, and I began bumping up the
h.r. once more, as I attempted to "spin" my 27 on the
steep gradients. I passed a visibly cracked Douglas
with 3 km left, and proceeded to put 5 min. into him,
as I had a much-too-strong finishing sprint left in
the end, to snag third for the day, and 4th overall.

I honestly can say that that was the most difficult
"test of will" I've done on a bike.