The Ride Up from Batopilas, Part 1

Summary

An avid cyclist embarks on a challenging mountain bike ride from Batopilas to the paved highway intersection at the top of Copper Canyon in Mexico, aiming to break an unofficial ascent record.

Abstract

The cyclist, driven by a personal quest, sets out on a grueling 40-mile gravel road ascent with the goal of completing it in under four hours to break the unofficial record. Despite facing irritating mechanical issues, fatigue, and physical pain, especially in his right leg, he pushes on. The journey is mentally and physically taxing, with the route offering little respite from the relentless uphill climb. Encountering wildlife and enduring pain, he finds solace in the ideal weather conditions. At one point, he believes he can ease up and still achieve his goal, but a recalculation of his pace dashes this hope. As he grapples with the reality of the pain and the challenge ahead, a mysterious flute sound offers a brief mental escape from his discomfort.

Opinions

The cyclist initially underestimates the difficulty of the ride, believing it will become easier, which turns out to be a mistaken assumption.
He employs mental strategies, such as visualization, to cope with the monotony and pain, though these prove ineffective in alleviating his physical discomfort.
The cyclist's determination is evident as he considers the pain to be a mental construct rather than a purely physical sensation, which helps him push through his limits.
He experiences a mix of emotions and thoughts, from hope to disappointment, as he miscalculates his pace and realizes that breaking the record will require sustained effort despite the pain.
The unexpected flute music provides a welcome distraction, shifting his focus from the pain and the daunting task ahead to the mystery of the music's source.

A personal quest

The road to La Casita from Batopilas, photo courtesy of the author

I set off from Batopilas, at the bottom of Copper Canyon in Mexico, intent on riding my mountain bike up the 40 or so mile gravel road ascent to the intersection with the paved highway. My plan was to ride it as fast as possible and break the unofficial record of 4 hours. Whether or not my quest was realistic will forever remain to be seen.

As I rode, the bike made a sickening squeaking sound each time I pushed the pedals down. The road was dry and dusty, so I figured the chain just needed more lube. Even though the noise was irritating, it provided a distraction from the incessant uphill riding tedium. Initially, the ride was simply tedious, but that soon changed.

The pain and fatigue begin

After only a third of the way into the adventure, my legs were already feeling heavy. Each time I approached a bend, I hoped to be greeted by a flat or downhill section. But time and again, that hope disappeared when I was invariably greeted by the sight of yet another long, painful-looking, and persistently uphill straightaway. Besides my mistaken assumption that the riding was about to get easier, I did have other things to think about. But unfortunately, those “things” mainly involved the physical pain I was dealing with in my right leg. I did keep trying various mental tricks like visualizing birds flying or my legs pedaling in smooth circles to mitigate the pain and monotony. Unfortunately, doing so did nothing to alleviate my pain, although it did lead me to ponder the concept of a loop that was all downhill. My mind began wandering more and more as I rode, but my lungs and legs stuck to the reality of the situation, and they began to scream.

At this point in the ride, I knew that my goal (and the high point on the road) was still more than 20 miles away and a couple of thousand feet higher. Then, as I rounded a corner near an old graveyard, a mongrel of a Border Collie came at me quickly and deliberately. I yelled, stopped abruptly, got off my bike, reached down, and actually picked up a rock to throw at it (which I ultimately didn’t). Thankfully, with my rock-grabbing motion, it retreated back to wherever it had come from, and I was able to move along, bite-free.

The temperature was almost ideal, not too hot and not too cold. The sun mostly stayed behind the clouds, and there was just enough of a gentle breeze to keep the air fresh. And so, at least the weather wasn’t an issue. Up until this point, I had avoided looking at my watch but finally did so and saw that I’d been riding for nearly two hours. After some mental ciphering, I determined that I was several minutes ahead of the record pace. So, I decided I could slow down a bit. I concluded I could just soft-pedal the rest of the way to the top, not get so tired, and still break the record. But then, the reality of the situation became more apparent as I realized that I’d miscalculated the time. So, going easy from that point was not an option if I hoped to beat the record.

Was the pain real?

The bike didn’t have the same choice of whether or not to ease up and began to get louder as it continued to climb. Once again, I thought about how it must be the fine dust of the road getting into the chain. I grasped at any sort of thought or idea that might take my mind off the pain that continued developing in my right leg. And then, my knee on the other leg began hurting, and I suddenly concluded that perhaps what I was feeling wasn’t actual physical leg pain.

“Is the sensation I’m feeling just a thought in my head,” I wondered?

I knew for a fact that both knees hurt, or at least they seemed to. I realized the pain and fatigue had developed after first seeing and then pondering the route. So, I began considering how it might have actually blossomed in my head (and not my knees) after looking toward the top and seeing what lay ahead. All the while, I continued looking at my watch. And I was well aware that I’d been riding for a couple of hours, and if I wanted to break the record, I was still at least 2 hours from that imaginary finish line. At that point, I realized that the main things in my immediate future involved pain. So, I just lowered my head and continued riding, avoiding doing the arithmetic, pondering my leg situation, or thinking about the lung burn that was beginning to develop. I knew that thinking about those things would only worsen matters, and I didn’t need that.

Right then, almost at the halfway point, a faint flute sound came into my ears and seemed to float right on through my head. It was as if it was in one ear and out the other. The flute melody was just suddenly there in the air, and I felt like my ears were just going along the dusty road and scooping it in. In an instant, I went from looking ahead and above and thinking about my pain to pondering what was going on somewhere out there in the brush and cactus with the flute.

To be continued……

This story also appears on my website, adventurestold.com

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