I have never raced, but I have been working to increase my speed. In the past two years, as I started finishing near the front of the brevets, I noticed the fast guys  rode light bikes, carried very little gear, and wore jerseys that promoted events like Furnace Creek 508 and RAO. I was intrigued.

When I looked into these events, I discovered they were part of a niche of competitive road racing called ultra cycling. Like randonneuring, ultra cycling attracts endurance athletes. Unlike brevets, ultras are races. The most common are 12 and 24-hour time trials. A few, like RAO, are 48-hour races of 500 miles or more. The most challenging and well known of them all is Race Across America.

Like the Cascade 1200, RAO is renowned in this part of the world. And just as I had done with the Cascade 1200, I put RAO on my list of cycling goals before I fully understood the extent of the challenge. Once I did, my concerns had little to do with the course. Though difficult, I have ridden much of it with John Kramer. Kramer has mapped a series of permanent routes in Central Oregon, including the Oregon XTR 600K, which I rode with the Oregon Randonneurs in May.

Even so, my decision to enter Race Across Oregon didn’t come easy. My list of reasons not to ride was long and compelling. For a time, I seriously doubted that I would make it to the starting line. But when I look at the race web site and I see my name on the roster of solo racers, it appears as though I intend to be there.

So how did a rando like me make a decision to ride an ultra like this?

“We walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.”
–Henry David Thoreau

It was about six months in advance of my 50^th birthday when I made a list of long distance cycling events I wanted to ride before I die.

Bicycling wasn’t the only area of my life that I was strategizing for. But when you’re riding toward a milestone like a half-century of living, you realize how short life really is, and the importance of experiencing the things that are most important to you while you are still able.

I was surprised by how many events made it to my list. One would have to be wealthy, retired or both to complete them all within a year or two. I am neither, so I decided I would have to prioritize. There are a decade’s worth of killer rides on the list that would keep me riding (and physically fit) until I turned 60.

Many of the important rides are behind me now. I have completed three events over 1000K, and while doing so helped build my confidence as a randonneur, I found I was still unprepared to make the leap to ultra marathon cycling. That was a problem, since many of the goals on my list are “ultras,” beginning with one in my own back yard.

Most long distance cyclists in the Pacific Northwest recognize Race Across Oregon (RAO) as the ultimate endurance cycling challenge, yet few attempt it. Maybe it’s the fact that its 500 mile course traverses some of the most challenging terrain east of the Cascade Range. Or it could be the timing: RAO is run in mid-July when temperatures rise well above 100 degrees. Then again, it could be the stigma of a RAAM-qualifier, where some of the riders in the field are bound to be, well, superhuman.

It was in that context that I began to doubt whether RAO should be on my list. I had a catalog of rational excuses why I could not or should not attempt it. Still, the lure of RAO was as powerful as my fear of it. I wasn’t able take it off my list, but I wasn’t ready to put my money down and register, either. So I picked an alternative goal – the Gold Rush Randonee (GRR) – and I began training seriously in January, not knowing which of the two rides I would ultimately choose, but with growing confidence that mind, body and bike would be ready for either.

When Spring arrived and I still hadn’t made a decision, I began to become concerned. How was I going to resolve this? And how could I be sure that I had made the right decision? GRR is staged once every four years, shouldn’t that be the key determinant?

I knew the answer. I would have to face my fears about RAO. It was the only way to know which of them were real and which were imagined. I would also have to clarify what it was that attracted me to this event and whether the opportunity cost was worth the price. My decision hung in the balance.

In the next few installments, I will share the process that led to my decision to forgo GRR and compete in RAO. I’ll save the details for later, but I can share this with you now. The positive impact of making that decision have accelerated all aspects of my riding, my health and fitness, and my mental outlook. It was a bonus I didn’t expect, though I should have. I wrote a book about the benefits of making these kinds of choices. So why is it a lesson I have to keep on learning?

Guess I’ll just keep the pedals turnin, road riders.

After the fall. My reward for getting back on the bike after a crash in the coastal mountains was this awesome stretch of road, chiseled into the side of Neahkanie Mountain, about 700 feet above the Pacific Ocean.

I was sighting my line down the mountain, running at 20, maybe 22 miles per hour, focused on a curve 200 yards below when I felt the rear wheel slide out from under me.

I knew there was ice on the road, but I couldn’t see it. I could feel it in the way the bike handled on the flats. I got off and ran my hand along the pavement. It was smooth like gymnasium tile. I jammed the back tire down on the chip seal, but it wouldn’t grab. So I started walking, sometimes riding, on the narrow gravel shoulder until the road felt dry again, and then I’d get back on the bike and ride until it began to slip.

There had been far too much of that along this 15-mile stretch of Highway 53, and I was worried. I was riding a 200K permanent route and I had to make it make it up to Cannon Beach before time expired. The freezing fog and the black ice were putting a damper on what should have been an epic, solo ride along the the spectacular Northern Oregon Coast.

The reason I didn’t ride Paris-Brest-Paris? Your’re lookin’ at it. Glacier National Park, Montana. 2007.

When 5,300 randos packed it up and headed to France in 2007 to ride PBP -  the grand dame of all brevets - I pointed my Atlantis north toward White Fish, Montana. In three days time, my wife would meet me there at the finish line of the Portland-to-Glacier 1000K.

I wasn’t settling for for second-best. The Glacier was an epic ride that crossed four western US states and finished in a place that topped my list of places I have to visit before I die. Best of all, I could get there on my bicycle. As far as my American Express Card goes, I could leave home without it.

I didn’t arrive at that decision without some angst. But fortunately, I have a process that helps me work through difficult choices like this one by evaluating my options in the context of my core values.

Earlier this month, my son Evan and I released an eBook called The Ride of Your Life, in which I share that process, so that others can benefit from what I have learned about using core values not just to select the right rides, but to finish them.

The response so far has been great. It took the number one spot on RBR’s Best Sellers Chart after just eight days on the market. Thanks, so much, to everyone who has bought it; we extend our heartfelt thanks and a wish that you will finish the ride of your life in 2009.

On Friday, we will kick-off a “virtual book tour” and I’m hoping you will come out, share your thoughts about long distance cycling, and how your experiences on the bike have shaped the rest of your life.

If you’re wondering what the heck a virtual book tour is, it is when an author visits websites, blogs, forums, and podcasts instead of bookstores, cafés and the media outlets that a real world, brick-and-mortar tour would include. During each stop of the Ride of Your Life eTour, I will field questions from the some of the leading bloggers and podcasters on the net. I hope that you will join us along the way. Most of the bloggers are publishing reviews and collecting questions now for their interviews.

The Virtual Book Tour Schedule

The Ride of Your Life eTour begins this weekend with two podcasts and will continue through February with eight blog interviews. We’re encouraging everyone to follow the eTour from stop to stop, join the conversation, and to learn more about setting and achieving extraordinary goals on the bike.

The eTour stops and dates are as follows:

•January 30 — Quickrelease.tv. A podcast with Carlton Reid.
•February 1 — The Fredcast. A podcast with David Bernstein.
•February 4 — Lon’s PAC Tour Blog. An interview with Lon Haldeman.
•Febuary 6 — UltraRob’s Adventures. An interview with Rob Lucas.
•February 10 — Cycleiscious. An interview with Richard Masoner.
•February 12 — BikingBis. An interview with Gene Bisbee.
•February 17 — The AdventureCORPS Blog. An interview with Chris Kostman.
•February 20 — The Everyday Athlete. An interview with Heidi Swift.
•February 24 — BikePortland.org. An interview with Jonathan Maus.
•February 26 — BikeLoveJones. An interview with Beth Hamon.

Share your story with us and win your own copy!

Audience participants will have an opportunity to win free copies of our eBook by posting questions at participating sites. If the blogger selects them for the interview, you will win a free copy of The Ride of Your Life.

Even cooler, you can win a free copy by sending in a story about a challenging ride you had on the bike. We are looking for stories from our readers all over the world who overcame physical, mental, or equipment challenges and finished a challenging ride.

Click here to download your entry form.

We’re going to publish a compilation of the best stories in an eBook, which will be available free in the Spring of this year from RoadBikeRider. If your story is selected for publication, we’ll send you a free copy of The Ride of Your Life. There’s no cap  - we’ll publish as many epic stories as we can.

Keep the pedals turnin, road riders.

It was almost a year ago, at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Portland, that Richard Sachs debuted the Desmond Horsfield film about his life and his career as a bicycle maker. Imperfection is Perfection tells the story of a man’s passion for the art and craft of frame building, and the unlikely events that led him to choose it as his career.

Richard Sachs is well-known among serious roadies in New England. His is a household name within the cyclocross community. But despite more than 30 years of frame building, and thousands of bicycles on the road that bear his name, Sachs has gone largely unnoticed in the mass market, where riders’ attention has been captured over the years by aluminum, then titanium, then carbon fiber.

Richard Sachs works only in steel. And he doesn’t exhibit at Interbike.

The growing success of NAHBS has gone a long way to challenging contemporary thinking about the utility of steel, and with it, the notoreity of Richard Sachs. Riders on the West Coast are beginning to understand just how talented the man is - and how influential his work has been on frame design all across America.