Breck Epic Stage 6, Golden Showers on The Gold Dust Loop

This is the last of my Breck Epic Posts. Man, have I enjoyed not staying up writing the past few days, but now I suppose I have to come up with something to fill out the rest of the week. And what is it...Wednesday? Damn.

I thought they weren't going to publish my last post over there on Mountain Bike, but they did. I am almost positive they won't publish this one — it's basically all about peeing in your pants. Who knows, maybe they'll love it and put it in their print magazine. Everybody loves stories about other people peeing in their pants. Not as much as they love stories about other people pooping in their pants, poop beats pee, every time.


My Stinky Left Foot

Those who think the words "epic" and "brutal" are played out or cliched are probably just bitter because they haven't done anything epic or brutal lately. I think they should come out to Colorado to do the Breck Epic, I defy those haters to hike/ride over French gulch or Wheeler Pass and not use the words epic or brutal. I defy them.

Today was the "easy" stage. We rode out of the Ice Rink parking lot that has served as ground zero for the 2010 Breck Epic all week. As we rolled up the road during our not-so-neutral-as-per-usual start, I realized that I should have peed beforehand, but I was feeling good. I wondered if I was going to have an "I am totally going to pee myself" day. The kind of day where I'd be so concerned with losing time that I'd have no qualms about urinating in my bib shorts. There are many behind the scenes occurrences that are not discussed in professional cycling; peeing in your pants is one of them. Ya, during the Tour De France the riders take very civilized "natural breaks," where they pull over on the side of the road to take a leak, but there is nothing civilized about mountain biking. Nobody bats an eye when a rider attacks a competitor during a technical. No press conference apologies are necessary, no anti-I'm-a-big-fat-jerk ads have to be run. That, and we pee our pants. Well, let me speak for myself...I pee my pants. The thing is, when you're wearing lycra it's not so much like you're peeing your pants. The lycra doesn't hold all that much liquid, that's its nature. It's much more like you are peeing your shoe, more on that bit of wonderfulness in a second.

Back in the day when I was a Sport going on Expert racer, I had a discussion with my wicked fast friend Colin. He told me that the difference between a Sport racer and an Expert racer, aside from riding your bike for more than three hours a week and not eating nachos three meals a day (What, you've never had "breakfast nachos?" You haven't lived.) was this: Expert riders are willing to pee their pants to win...or at least place in the top eleven. Not too long after that discussion I was faced with that very situation: pee my pants or lose forty-five seconds to a minute not peeing my pants. It was a, pun unavoidable, watershed moment. At first it was incredible, such a huge relief, "Oh wow, this is great, the best feeling ever!" Having to pee really bad is the definition of negative reinforcement. It's not like peeing feels really good, it's that not-peeing feels so bad. You're just removing the horrible discomfort of not-peeing.

Anyway...

Then the pee began running down my leg, which wasn't so bad either. Then it started to pool...in my left shoe, and the shoe got heavy, "Ugh, this is not so great, this feels quite ooky." The pee-filled shoe feeling is not awesome, but it beats the feeling of a borderline exploding bladder any day. And that is all I'm going to say about pee and shoes for now. Oh wait, one more thing: don't forget to wash your shoe, and for the love of God, don't leave the thing in the car overnight in the middle of summer. Your wife will murder you...and me, for telling you that peeing in your shoes is a very-pro thing to do.

So yes, I peed my pants today and it was amazing. I even got to ride through a couple streams to rinse off some of the result, but then, immediately after letting 'er rip, I flatted. Again. I am a flat-machine. I can flat any tire at any pressure on any terrain. I could flat downhill tires riding over bubble wrap. Anyone need a tire-tester? I'm available. I was standing there on the side of trail wearing my bib-shorts-turned-ineffective-adult diapers feeling kind of like an idiot. If I had only waited a few more minutes I would have been able to pee on the side of trail like a normal person while fixing my fifth Breck Epic flat. That way I could have spent more time drinking beer at the finish line, instead of running off to get out of my stinky-pee pants before I got made fun of for being a chamois-wetter.

One of the rules of The Breck Epic was "Don't be poopy," but there was no rule about "not being pee-pee." That was a joke for all the six-year-olds in the audience, thank you. Thank you very much.

I hope you have found this race report about the final stage of the Breck Epic educational and informative. With any luck, I'll be back next year to ride these sweet trails and pee in my shoe some more. See you then.