Team Dai 2010 Ride – Day TWO – Hills of Hell

Day Two
I had been dreading this day since I first heard of Team Dai. Riders from the two previous years told horror stories about the road between Vang Vieng and Phou Koun. “Oh sure, you don’t ride as many kilometers that day,” they’d say in hushed voices, “but it’s straight up the whole way. It’s hell. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

No lie.

Although we rode fewer than 100 kilometers (62 miles), we pedaled from an elevation of about 260 meters (850 feet) to an elevation of about 1,300 meters (4,265 feet). These hills didn’t roll. There were no memorable moments of gratitude for the blessed descents. The road just wound up and up and up, and as the day wore on, the temperature did the same.

I cranked my “bike playlist” on my little iPod shuffle, but many times I couldn’t even stay in the saddle for one whole song. I had to stop at the roadside, catch my breath and slam some warm water (enriched with Royal-D, an orange-flavored electrolyte mix that we all grew to despise). With sweat pouring down my limbs (and every crack and crevice on my body), I was exhausted, overheated, chafed, and unbelievably cranky for most of the day.

Already deflated by the endless climb, my spirits took another hit when we rolled through several areas where fires raged on the hillsides. Slash-and-burn agriculture had blackened the mountains and the sad faces of the children lining the roads. Sometimes the flames licked out from the roadside ditches, heating my skin as I choked on the smoke-filled air. At the end of the day, I actually brushed cinders out of my teeth. Maybe I was projecting my own misery, but I felt a palpable desperation in these displaced tribal people.

I only had one reason to live this day: chocolate. Grete, a cyclist from Belgium, runs a catering company, bakery and gourmet food shop in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Her husband’s work brought them to Laos, where she sells her elegant Belgian chocolates. Grete whipped up a special collection just for Team Dai, and these chocolates were, for much of this agonizing second day, my only motivation to keep moving. At each rest stop, the support crew opened the cooler and pulled out boxes of the most incredible delicacies I’ve ever tasted – candied ginger coated with dark chocolate, crispy balls of milk chocolate with a center of gooey goodness, hard chocolate bars perfectly complemented by a fruity-grainy topping. Grete also donated the white jerseys we wore on this day.

As I neared the end of the day’s torture, I heard cheers from a hilltop restaurant, where faster team members waited for the rest of us. But I had long ago tossed all pride off the side of that mountain. I eagerly hopped off my bike and pushed it for the last 10 minutes. At the restaurant, we stared out over the valley at the winding road that had brought us to the top. “Are we insane?” we asked.

Phou Khoun isn’t a typical stopover for tourists in Laos, so the little town was poorly equipped for our group. We took most of the rooms at local guesthouses and then met for dinner. My roommate for the trip was Tina, a Swede who has a couple kids at our school. We took turns using the one washroom, where the “bath” involved filling a bucket with cold water and dumping it on yourself. The thought of getting up to ride again the next morning nearly brought me to tears.

Posing after a rest break outside of Vang Vieng.
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Scenes along the route.
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Slashing and burning.
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JJ changes a flat tire while the local fan club cheers.
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Pant … pant … pant … rest stop!
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Posing at the top with Grete’s chocolate.
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The restaurant owner at the top of the hill had Team Dai photos from LAST YEAR’S visit!
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Looking back at the godforsaken road we took up the mountain.
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We made it to Phou Koun! Hanging out at the town’s roundabout.
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Chillin’ in our guesthouse “lounge.”
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