You Can Do Anything!

At 6:15PM on February 12, 2011, Kaylee (age 13) and Adelaide (age 12), wearily peddled their bicycles across the finish line at the Spa Resort Casino in Palm Springs.  They had embarked on their journey 11 hours earlier with their fathers Trevor and Sam.  Cheered on by relatives and race organizers, these two girls are believed to be the youngest females to ride the full 100 miles of the Tour de Palm Springs.  And what made their ride even more extraordinary, is that they completed it on other than road bikes; Kaylee on a 40 pound Mountain Bike with 24 inch tires and Adeliae on a 25 pound Cross Trainer.
Their story did not begin in Palm Springs though, it started five months earlier.  In late September, Kaylee, her brother Bryce, and Dad rode their bikes a mere mile from home to Grandma Huyett’s house.  There was a significant hill to climb (Ridge Rd.) and at the top, in tears, Kaylee nearly called it quits!   Reinforced by a speech from Dad, “You can do this…the more you persist at something, they easier it becomes,” she got back on the bike.  Other rides followed, and within a month, Kaylee could click off ten miles with 300 foot risers at a steady pace.   Adelaide was undergoing a similar transformation with her father.

What makes this story even more interesting is that the two girls were training to ride with a Boy Scout Troop.  No, they were not trying to make any sort of gender statement by joining this troop--all the Young Women who were sisters of brothers in the troop, or daughters of leaders, had been invited to join with the Scouts on a Bike ride Across California (BAC).  The ride starts in Yuma AZ and ends in Carlsbad CA; picture a photo of your back tire in the Colorado River joined with a shot of your front tire in the Pacific, and you will catch the vision of this ride!  The BAC is a feat of endurance, and at nearly 250 miles in length over five days, requires many days of preparation.

During these weekend practice rides, which stretched from 30 to 65 miles in length, these two girls and the three other Young Women their age that would usually accompany them (Amanda, Kirstin and Tara) soon developed their own style of riding:  A consistent 11.5 mph pace, the singing of Sponge Bob and other songs (and the writing of quite a few new lyrics to other tunes), and most importantly, the naming of key terrain features, such as steep hills, after characters in the Harry Potter series (about 8 miles west of Agua Calliente on S2 in Anza Borrego is a zigzag rise headed west that looks just like Harry Potter’s lightning bolt scar, and is thus now no longer called Box Canyon, but instead Harry Potter Hill!).  The BAC ride was completed between Christmas and New Years and consisted of 38 riders, mostly youth; with 10 adult riders and a half dozen support vehicles.  One of the supporting team provided a most pleasant experience each day of the ride when we stopped at the mid way point trailer and ate PBJs made by Kaylee’s Grandma Huyett! 

The BAC ride came and went, and these five girls…who all wore a special yellow jersey on the ride…were the only complete group out of the 38 riders, to make it the entire distance without any abandons.  Fast forward five weeks, and now Kaylee and Adelaide were at the start line for the 100 mile Tour de Palm Springs.  They rode with their Dads and crossed the very crowded start lines at 7:15 and 7:45 respectively.  The air was clear, and the breeze minimal for a place that is surrounded by wind-mills, but the cheerful sun rise that greeted us would become the unsuspecting challenge for the day.
An hour into the ride we passed our first PhotoCrazy picture spot, and the accompany photo shows Kaylee and Trevor enjoying the bright morning!  Soon after this Adelaide and Sam caught up to us the for the first time that day and we enjoyed riding together for several minutes. Next came the first Stop And Go (SAG) stop.  This was way too crowded to enjoy but Adelaide and Sam pulled over anyway; we decided to skirt the crowds, and then pull over to enjoy the Power Bars we brought and take a few swigs from our sports bottles.  Before us now was the long downhill called Indian Street.  We enjoyed pace-lining with other riders down this 6 mile descent.  At the bottom we turned left onto Dillon Rd., which would be our companion for about a quarter of the ride, and at this point we joined with the other riders who were following the 55 mile route.

We unwisely skipped the second SAG stop too, thinking we had enough water to make it to the lunch break at mile 51.  Adelaide and Sam caught up with us a second time, and continued on at their faster pace.  Kaylee and I rode the rollers of Dillon with the sun getting higher in the sky.  Though the temperature peaked at 82 degrees, it did not feel that hot due to the “air-conditioning” effect of the wind passing by as we rode.  Soon both of my bottles were empty and Kaylee sucked the last bit of moisture out of her camel back; we were still 10+ miles from the next stop.
To mask her fatigue, Kaylee started playing a game where she would wish for water (and a restroom) to be at the top of each rise we climbed.  I knew our situation was not desperate yet, because we both had to go to the bathroom, which meant we had been drinking enough liquids, but it is amazing how thirsty you feel when there is no water to be had!  At the top of the third rise, we struck pay dirt; a county park with a drinking fountain and facilities.  We filled bottles and ate trail mix and continued on to lunch.
 

At the fourth SAG stop we had peanut butter and cheese sandwiches!  Once again the logistics of the event placed the coveted PBJs that we enjoyed so much on the BAC ride just out of our reach.  We also saw several people loading their bikes onto the van to take them back to the start line…we did not dwell on the option too much.

Back on the road for the last 30 mile stretch, Sam informed me that he and Adeliade needed to pick-up the pace some so they could make it to an after ride event they were hoping to catch.  On a long riser, they slowly put distance between Kaylee and I.  Kaylee did not like this at all, but she was powerless to propel hear heavy bike any faster up that hill.  Having done the century before, I knew that the hill was matched by a similar long descent in a sleepy residential neighborhood, and suggested to Kaylee we might be able to catch them on the down-side.  We turned the corner, saw the Dad and Daughter way in the distance, and the chase was on!

Now this section of the road had a number of four-way stops signs on the downhill, but we did not pay too much attention to those.  We were reeling in our target and enjoying the cool breeze on a great pace!  Then all of the sudden, Sam and Adelaide turned left onto a major intersection and the light turned red for Kaylee and I.  I timed that darn light and it was red for almost three minutes!  I lost hope that we could join with them…Kaylee did not.  “Dad, get on your arrow bars and tow me behind you until we catch them”.  For those of you that know biking, the rider who follows closely behind another rider has less air resistance and can cover the same ground at 40% less energy.  My 13 year old had come up with a plan that just might work.

For the next ten miles I peddled my heart out for my little girl, and she kept right up with me!  We passed several pairs of riders, but none of them were the friends we were looking for.  During this time, Kaylee kept telling me that she did not want to be the last to cross the finish line.  Finally, I spotted them in a chicane intersection in the distance.  They were paralleling a rail road track now and the noise of the engine masked our approach!  We were so delighted to meet up with our friends, and that experience of leading a hot pursuit with Kaylee will be the most treasured experience of this ride!  Unfortunately, we were spent, and Sam and his 12 year old were not.  We rode to the 90 mile SAG and then parted ways again.

Kaylee and I moseyed along, until a new challenge greeted us…fading sunlight.  I did not anticipate us being on the road this late, so did not make provisions for lights on our bikes.  As the sun began to set behind Mt. San Jacinto, it became dark surprisingly quick!  I had a red flasher on my seat post so on dangerous roads, I would have Kaylee lead so drivers would have a warning that we were ahead of them, but without head lights is was difficult to navigate, and at this point the remaining riders on the road had thinned out so much that there was no one to follow.  I could not even read my route slip, and to make matters worse, the race officials had started gathering the arrow signs that would tell us which way to go.  I could not believe that a simple thing as not knowing which way to go might make us last to the finish line, perhaps long after the banners had come down…and then my phone rang!  It was Sam, and he was dealing with navigation issues himself, but he had a light and had just figured out a tricky part of the route instructions that in daylight would have been easy to see but at night it was another matter.  Being eight blocks ahead of us, he could tell us where to turn. 

Now that Sam realized we had no headlight on our bikes he and Adelaide decided it most important to make sure we made it through the dark neighborhoods (a missed turn after nearly 100 miles is a terrible thought) and finish this ride together.  It was not long that we were a foursome again.  And after doing one victory lap around a downtown Palm Spring block, we sprinted past a group of four riders…Kaylee was not last after all…and the two Dads and their Daughters road under the finishing line banner together!  The race organizers were shocked to see these two young girls go the 100 mile distance, and immediately took pictures, and asked me to write this article!  Sam and I were so glad we could share this day-long experience with our daughters, and to see them prove to themselves that they could accomplish anything that they persist at!

Little did I know the damage that had been done to our hydration levels during that time of riding without water?  We reached the Truck Stop that served as the location for lunch, but since we were ridding slower than the main group, the stop had run out of some food.  While Kaylee rested under a tree, I waited for a pair of Jelly sandwiches with chopped bananas, but no Peanut butter…the much longed for PBJ was not to be had!  When I came back I saw my weary daughter with a red face and a defeated expression.  I handed her a sandwich, which she only nibbled at, and then I rushed to find cold water.  This helped some, but still her emotional energy tank was close to empty.  I went back out into the parking lot to see what else I could find to lift her sprits, when I came across Sam.  A smile lit up my face, and turning to my daughter, I yelled, “Kaylee, Adelaide is here!”  The once tired girl rushed from her shady hideout to search for her riding companion.  The two girls embraced, related their experiences thus far and ate peanut M&Ms under a shade tree while the Dads rejoiced at their good fortune of having found each other at the half way point; Kaylee and I thought they were miles ahead of us!

We all got back on our bikes fully refreshed and decided to ride together for awhile.  The next 20 miles clicked off easily as fun conversation and jokes were shared by all.  We did see far more downed riders than we would have expected, and had to make way for a number of emergency vehicles responding to incidents along the road, but it appeared that all would recover from the events that changed their course for that day.  Furthermore, Kaylee got a puncture in her front tire, but upon removing the thorn, I noted that green slime was filling the wound.  Eight years earlier I had put Super Goo in this tire when her brother road this same bike off-road at Lake Calaveras, and the goo still worked, no need to get the wrenches out to change tires on this old bike (no quick release on these wheels)!