Servant cyclist. Ultracyclist and 24-hour record holder, Chris Ragsdale, greets Oregon Randonneur Del Scharffenberg at the Naches overnight control. Chris volunteered as Control Captain, organizing everything from shift changes to the bike corral.

When the organizers of the 2008 Cascade 1200 realized they would have to re-route portions of the route to avoid impassable roads along the course, they mapped a 44 mile out-and-back up to Lodgepole Campground on SR 410 to Chinook Pass. 

Unfortunately for the riders, the trip would take them 44 miles up the canyon, 8 miles shy of the pass itself, which lies well above tree line and provides some of the most spectacular views in the southern Cascades. The organizers (jokingly) offered ‘extra credit’ for riders who made the 16-mile round trip, but it was too much for riders to consider, given the 100-plus-degree heat they had endured on Saturday, and would face again on Sunday.

Like the riders, I, too, was on the clock. But mine wouldn’t start until the Naches control opened at 5pm. I had volunteered to work at the first overnight control. But the time before the opening was all mine. So I left Portland, Oregon, at 4am, arriving at Naches at 8:30. By 9:00 I was pedaling up that canyon to Chinook Pass.

No relief in sight. I stopped about 400 feet below the summit to cool my jets in a falls. The snowmelt was so cold I could barely keep my hands in it, yet the temperature was still 100 degrees on the road.

The temperature in Naches had reached 80 degrees by the time I left. When I reached the control at Lodgepole it was 100. Lodgepole was 2000 feet higher than Naches. It should have been 10 degrees cooler, not 20 degrees hotter. Things weren’t any better at Chinook’s 5400-foot summit; the temperature there had cooled to a mild 96 degrees.

I looked across the craggy, snow-capped peaks toward White Pass. I thought about the Cascade 1200 riders, who by now were approaching Packwood and their own long climb in the same, suffocating heat. I wondered how long it would be before Mark and Don’s phones would ring, as riders called in with news they were quitting. Who could blame them?

I pointed my bike down the mountain and began the 52 mile descent to the control. But instead of flying off that pass at 40 miles an hour, my speedometer ranged from 25 to as low as 10mph. There was a hot headwind blowing up the canyon, straight off the desert floor.

It was 3:45 when I rolled in to control, just a bit more than one hour before it was scheduled to open. Four hours to climb 4000 feet, three hours come back down; not the typical pay-back we expect from such a climbing effort. Is this what our riders could expect when they attempted the same ride on Sunday?

When I walked into the control at Naches Middle School, Carol Nussbaum had laid out munchies for the volunteers. She had two lasagne’s in the oven, and she was already working on prepping Monday night’s dinner. Today is her birthday and she chose to share it with her randonneuring family.

By 5pm we were ready for our riders, but of course, none of us knew how soon the first would arrive. Randoneurring isn’t racing. But there’s a distinct honor for the five riders at the front. We knew who was in the lead, but with the heat, we wondered if “the fast guys” would back off their pace. We gathered outside together, waiting.

We’re all ears.  Urs Koenig gives the control workers their first bit of news about conditions on White Pass, and where the pack is on the route. 

Urs Koenig was the first to roll in at 7:35pm. Within another 90 minutes or so, Del Scharffenberg, Ken Bonner, Tom Knoblauch, and Brad Tanner were in – the first five over the line on Day One. It would be a full 10-hours later before Jennifer Chang arrived at the control, the last of the rider to finish, but with a semi-comfortable, four hour cushion to shower and eat and sleep before the control would closed.

But Jennifer didn’t use it. She arrived at 5:30 Sunday morning and by 7:30 she was pedaling away from us, confident, smiling, just plain stoked to be experiencing the ride of her life.

I saw and heard a lot of things between 5pm Saturday and 9am Sunday. Unless you have supported a ride like this yourself, it would be hard to imagine what an privilege it is to be so close to so many as their stories are played out in front of you, and you have the opportunity to help.

But the one story that will always stick out my mind occurred shortly after the first five rolled in. Micah Fritzinger informed us that he intended to eat and then keep on riding. He wouldn’t be the only one who would ride through the control, but even so, you have to respect any rider who add this challenge to what many consider the most difficult brevet in the USA.

The only thing Micah asked was that someone check out his bike. Coming off White Pass, his bars began to slip downward in the stem. He figured it was due to a loose bolt. Not so, said volunteerride mechanic, Eamon Stanley. The stem had sheared in two at the lower fixing bolt. The fact that his handlebars were still in place was nothing short of a miracle. None of us wanted to think what that would have meant for Micah if his bars had come out of the stem as he descended White Pass.

Seattle Randonneur Ralph Nussbaum was in ear-shot and offered the stem from his own bike. Ralph is a volunteer on the ride and wouldn’t need his bike. Even so, it was just the kind of gesture that makes Randonneuring unique among sporting events.

As it turned out, swapping stems wasn’t practical, maybe not even possible. Ralph’s response?

“Take my bike,” he said.

Ralph’s bicycle is a rare Litespeed Palmiero. Not only are Palmieros out of production, only about 300 were made. If something were to happen to the bike, it could not be replaced.

One down, three to go. Ralph and Carol traveled ahead of the ride in their motor home, setting up the overnight controls, and managing the kitchen. We caught them here in a rare moment when they were sitting down, catching a breather, after the last rider left for a second day on the course.

“It’s only a bike,” Ralph said to me later, after Micah was well down the road.

That may be so, but Ralph clearly loves that bike. Yet without hesitating, he offered it to rando he had never met, so he could continue his ride and accomplish his goal.

What would drive him to act so decisively, so unselfishly?

I didn’t ask him, so I can only speculate. But I believe he was just “paying it forward.” An ancien like Ralph Nussbaum has undoubtedly been the recipient of a similar, random act of kindness, which allowed him to accomplish a goal he had on the bike. And like many who volunteer, he was looking for an opportunity to repay the favor.

In doing so, he has challenged me to reflect just how far I might go, faced with a similar situation. Like so many, I volunteered to repay a debt I had that dated back the 2006 edition of the Cascade 1200. Now, it was my turn to help a comrade make it to the next control. Unlike Ralph, however, I drove away from Naches with TRex locked safely in the rack.

I am not saying you have to be willing to give up your bike to be a solid volunteer. But I drove home wondering if I did all that I could do. It didn’t take long to arrive at an answer. Which is why I’ll be back again, not just as a rider, but as volunteer, looking for my chance to pay it forward.

Tags: Cascade 1200, Seattle International Randonneurs, Volunteering

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