If you aren’t in the know, let me catch you up. A month ago I challenged my company’s CTO to a bike-off. We’d track our mileage and vertical elevation gain using Strava, a cool website that let’s you visualize workout data collected on your GPS device or smartphone. We'd get a point for every mile and 100 vertical feet and keep a log of our rides in a spreadsheet. (Need to catch up on weeks 1-3? Check out The Great Bike Bet of 2011.)

So, things were off the rails... Neither Adam or I were what you could call a cyclist before the bet. Yet, here we were doing things novices aren't spotted doing all too often. Waking up early in the morning and riding Hawk Hill in the fog. Going on a 55 mile Tiburon ride on the way home from work. Riding a bike with platform pedals and cages 230+ miles a week for a month.

Adam was putting the pressure on by riding 511 miles in two weeks. Meanwhile, we were both getting weary, sore, and even a little sick of biking at times, but we were also learning new routes, experimenting with our gear, forming rituals, curing common injuries, reading magazines and blogs, and becoming initiated into the Marin cycling culture. 

Week Four: My bike starts fighting me.

In the first week I had gone through three tubes, a tire, a spoke, and a little skin. So, as I was telling my girlfriend how much easier everything had gotten she cringed warning me to, "Knock on wood, or something..." I laughed, but it turns out that maybe she was right. 

So, Sunday I went for a ride in the afternoon planning to go for a long Paradise Loop ride into the evening when I met Adam coming back from his ride! He and I chatted on the Golden Gate Bridge about his day and my plans before he went his way and I went mine. Then the first minor disaster struck. I got a flat on the bike trail and before I could fix it my CO2 bike pump exploded (see picture) stranding me only 14 miles into my ride. I sent an SOS text to Karie and got picked up. Adam had taken the lead.

The next day after work I went to ride P-Loop again, but about 20 miles in I hit a pot hole and popped a spoke off my rear wheel. I pulled the spoke off, saw that my wheel was only kinda warped and rode the rest of that night's ride and the next morning's 30 miler with a wobbly wheel. The bike was starting to make lots of unidentifiable noises, shifting improperly, and the brakes were almost non-existant. So, Thursday, after finishing up a 260+ mile week with another P-Loop ride, I took my bike in to get tuned up and fitted with clippies.

Meanwhile: We have day jobs, you know?

Getting up before the sun is not on my list of common activities. At Yammer, where I work, it's pretty much common knowledge that if you see me before 8 in the morning that there's a high probability that I didn't sleep the night before. But, "War does funny things to men." as Max Fisher (played by Jason Schwartzman) put it in Rushmore.

At about this time we were working hard trying to launch a daunting set of game changing features as part of Yammer 3. Adam, as the CTO, was incredibly busy working with teams of engineers, QA, and product people trying to get everything banged out on time. Meanwhile, I was working on building landing pages for our marketing materials and help troubleshoot sticky cross browser issues. 

So, our lives had become rather interesting... there was Yammer 3, cycling, eating, and sometimes sleep. Everything else was on hold.

Week Five: Drama

Well, on day one of week five I had what felt like a new bike. I had a new rear cassette, chain, brakes, pedals, handle bar tape, etc. So, for the first two days I just rode some short recovery mileage getting the lactic acid build-up flushed from my legs and dialing in my new pedals (because I've heard that one can get a nasty knee injury if you get this wrong.) Then, on Saturday Adam and I planned to ride a century to Point Reyes and back together. A truce ride with friends. A chance to not worry about points while pushing ourselves a little.

That's when the unthinkable happened... About 52 miles into the ride we were coming down a hill at about 30 miles per hour when I locked up my wheel and skidded through the other lane and into the shoulder. I was shaking and had a one-word vocabulary (guess which word.) I just kept repeating that word on exhale as though it was my meditation mantra... Dan, who caught the event out of his peripheral, came back up the hill to help me. He offered to help me put my chain back on. I thanked him, pointing out that my hands were, "F"ed.

"I hate to break this to you, but your butt is 'F'ed too!" he replied, fixing my chain (see picture.)

We hopped on the bike and rode another 12 miles in an attempt to get closer to home, but eventually got picked up and carted off to Dan and his wife, Janice's, house. My girlfriend picked me up and Adam rode the rest of the way with his GPS off out of solidarity. 

I felt totally dejected... Had I just lost the bike bet? Was this *really* the way this was going to go down? I couldn't believe it. The pain was ridiculous. I wanted to ride, but it was impossible. For the next few days sitting was excruciating, walking was difficult. Just the idea of riding a bike was painful.

What is Next?

All week I had the anxious feeling that I might be out of this thing for good. Adam, himself, was bummed out, because neither of us wanted to win this way. But, here I am today, with thirteen days of "The Great Bike Bet of 2011" left and a 130 point deficit. I can thank the product launch for taking Adam away from riding this week and he can thank my injury for keeping me from mine. Come tomorrow, however, we'll both be hopping back on our bikes and riding for keeps...

One thing is certain, things will come down to the wire!