You can tell a lot about a person by how they behave on the Death Climb.
It's 2018 or so, and I finally catch John Anderson on the steep stuff near the top, before you get to Aid Station 5. John owns Crozet Running, and I've bought shoes from him before, and he's always seemed like a pretty good guy - but I don't really know him. The death climb was interminable that year, muddy, painful, and at this point in the SM100 you'll basically take any company you can. Together, John and I ride the top third of the Death Climb. I observe that he's the kind of person that - when he really gets to work on the bike - you can't tell if he's grimacing or smiling. He is in pain, but he is jubilant. He is a runner, but he is our kind of masochist. As we climb, he occasionally dismounts and walks a steep section, purposefully pushing his bike instead of riding it, a sound strategy for dealing with the 3,000 vertical feet it takes to get to the top of Reddish Knob. I make a mental note to go buy some shoes from Crozet Running before winter, and we push on. Somewhere near the top we get separated. That Fall was busy, and I didn't make it to Crozet to buy shoes. I don't know much else about John.
I was saddened to hear it announced that Crozet Running is the latest in a long barrage of retail closures in our area. Casualties of Covid. They will have to clear out all product, end their lease, and do something else. I should have bought more of my shoes there. We all should have. What the pandemic has made clear - and very sad - is that you can only trust your neighbors. Your neighbors will buy the right way, from a local business. But you can never, ever trust "the consumer." The consumer is a thing, not a person. The consumer is remorseless, impatient, driven by whim and convenience, and mostly it's online now.
2020, Covid, Crozet Running; these things will come to pass. But the Death Climb goes on. Of the 264 registrants for SM100 this year, some amount of them still toed the line in a Covid-appropriate manner. They teed off in small groups for safety, like golf. By all accounts, the event was safe, and perfect. I am both heartened and dismayed by the state of things, where the collective will of good people only allows one business to survive while another dies.
When this is over, I'd like to ride the death climb with John again, make sure he knows how sorry I am. I'd like to walk some with him on the steep stuff at the top, slow things down, make patient decisions that are right instead of easy. We must not forget what those things are.
Up, up, up.
