Well since you said it has to be a lugged steel frame then I need to go back a few years to when I rode my Colnago Master Piu (would that be Italian for Pro?) in RAGBRAI (a tour across Iowa).
This particular RAGBRAI was going to be passing through my home town of Atlantic so my 2 older brothers and I decided we'd ride at least a few days of it. As well as my brothers Paul and Mark a friend of Paul's came along. This was to be a problem for me later.
Anyway, our first day of RAGBRAI started out bright and early. Shortly after hitting the road we were into the rolling hills that can really be tough. Yes, most people think Iowa is a flat state (no mountains right?) well it's overall topography is rather flat but there are plenty of rolling short, steep hills that make some of the roads quite hard to ride. We were on several that day.
Mark, who'd ridden RAGBRAI many times took it easy to start with and soon dropped back. Paul, his friend, and I on the other hand decided to hurry right along. Paul's friend is a very fit young man and decided we should paceline our way along, taking turns pulling the other 2. The problem was that we did this almost from the starting line - no time to warm up first.
After several miles I finally dropped off the back as Paul and buddy sped away. I had worked hard though while I was with them. Unfortunately my right knee didn't like doing so much hard work when it was still not warmed up. So at about mile 45 of the 70 to do that day I began to have pain in it. By mile 55 I had to drop my pace way down (from about 18mph to 14 or so). I was also taking several breaks to sit and massage my knee joint. The pain was a hot, slight sharp pain on the inside toward the back of the joint. Not good.
By mile 60 I was stopping every few miles to give my knee a rest and massage it. Now I was lucky to be doing 10-12 mph. Few cyclists on this ride were so friendly. Many people who were passing me or saw me sitting beside the road asked if I was okay. "Yes, just a bit of knee pain but I'm okay" (a bit ?? I was hurting but I was going to finish damn it!).
With about 1 to 2 miles to go I was now pedaling with only my left leg - thank god there wasn't too much farther to go. I finally rolled into the town that RAGBRAI stopped at that day. I knew I'd be riding no more days of RAGBRAI this year - I couldn't use my right leg to pedal at all. So, hobbling around I found my brothers and friend. We had had quite the day.
Afterwards I went see a doctor as the pain was not subsiding days later. He diagnosed tendonitist - no doubt brought on by riding too fast too long and too soon - "should've warmed up first". He prescribed 8 pills of Ibuprofen a day for 6 weeks with NO RIDING allowed during that time. Off the bike for 6 weeks ! That was the most painfull part of all.
Now, if you'd not said lugged steel I would've told you about climbing up the Big Thompson Canyon and Devil's Gulch in this year's Colorado MS150 (was on a titanium bike for that one).
John "my knees all better now" Price
Denver CO
-----Original Message----- From: Jim Merz [mailto:jimmerz@qwest.net] Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 6:25 PM To: 'Classic Rendezvous' Subject: [CR]What is your most challenging ride?
Can we get some stories? What is your most challenging one day ride? Has to be on a luged steel frame bike of course.
Jim Merz
Bainbridge Is. WA