Saturday 3/19/2002 -- 200km brevet
I really like to intersperse my training with "Milestone Rides", this weeks 200KM brevet was one of these. Milestone rides are organized rides that I plan on doing regardless of weather, on a given date, and sometimes with additional goals attached. These rides help breakup the training season, and remove the whole "where am I going to ride today" question that normal training days present. Milestone rides also force me to get on the road a little earlier then I might otherwise, which is a good thing too.
This Saturday, was the annual SIR 200KM Brevet, the actual course was ~138 miles. The ride started sharply at 7:00, at one of the member’s house, located around 45 minutes outside of Seattle. Thankfully I finally got the majority of my bike maintenance under control, and was able to hit the sack a few hours earlier then I have been these last few weeks, making the required 5:00 AM revelry call ever so slightly less painful. I picked up Ben from his place a little after 6:00 and then a little before 7:00 we arrived at Gregg’s, with just enough time to pee and register.
The bulk of the Randonneurs are not the speediest of cyclists, all functions of their average (fitness, age, fitness, and equipment choices, and did I say fitness). After about a mile or two all relatively down hill, Ben and I were leading the charge with at most 6 other Randonneurs in toe, this group was widdled down to 3 extra riders, then a few miles later, one of the Randonneur’s remarked, that we really didn't need to ride as hard as we were as arriving at the first checkpoint to soon could result in disqualification! Now this just blew me away, who ever heard of getting disqualified for riding to FAST! How lame is that!
We eased our pace a bit arrived at the first stop, got our silly brevet cards signed and were back on the road again. The weather forecast called for rain, but while overcast everything was currently dry, and coming into the first stop I was over heating slightly, I took a minute to put my hat in my hip bag. Jan, the one fast Randonneurs who's modus operandi is "I will wait for no one, pull no one, and draft anyone fast", didn't wait and took off down the road. Two other riders waited a minute, and then the four of us were off auickly catching Jan.
We pushed the tempo slightly heading down to the next control point. The one of the other riders disappeared; he was either adducted by aliens or dropped. Anyway with this Jan, the nameless rider, Ben, and I arrived at the next control point. Cards signed we were back on the road. Jan again taking off, with out waiting for Ben or I but then sucking our wheels like a leach once we caught him. Over a few more hills, we were back on the course heading out to Enumclaw WA, and fighting a real bitchen headwind. We started a four man pace line with Ben, myself, and the Nameless rider doing 99% of the work. And then the aliens hit again, and coming off one of my pulls I noticed we were down to three riders: Ben Jan, and myself. Since Jan never pulls this left Ben and myself to pull our up through the gale. On hitting Enumclaw, we turned up mud mountain road and started the ever so gradual but very constant 10+ mile climb up toward Crystal Mountain, a ski resort located on Mt. Rainier.
Climbing up the mountain Ben and I started pacing up the mountain, doing ~21 - 22+ mph. After a mile or so at the front we would rotate. At first, on each rotation, the one of us rotating of the front would slide back behind Jan and the other rider would take off up the road opening a 20 - 40 foot gap on Jan. Jan would close the gap, and then the rider behind Jan would attack again. Well, after a few rotations, it became apparent that we finally had Jan in difficulty, Ben took a pull, I road around Jan, I think he might have tagged my wheel, after which I attacked with Ben in tow.
At the top of the climb we hit another control point and then turned around to head back down the mountain, and out to another small city. Ben, was on the ball, and marked our time coming out of the control point. Heading down the mountain, we had 9 minutes on Jan, and a half an hour on the next group. Coming down the mountain, we road tempo, but didn't push the pace as we would soon be back on the windy flats.
Flying down the mountain it started to rain, it would continue to rain solid through the end of the ride.
Back on the flats the course took us out and back through a small city, before heading back to Gregg's house. Back on the flats, Ben and I kicked the tempo up a notch. Coming back from the turnaround at the city, we had upped our gap on Jan to 18 min and a 45 minutes on the next group.
At this point Ben and I started to run into caloric deficit. The plan for the ride was to start the ride motoring on Chocolate Ensure, but as we would have to carry all our bottles, we were limited to starting the ride with only 3 bottles each. Thus after the first three hours we had to switch to other foods, cliff bars, gel’s, bananas, and PB&J. This transition wasn't handled well, thus the impending caloric crash. Sensing doom we both grabbed our hammer gel flasks and just started chugging. Hammer Gel is a fantastic sub hour fuel, but there is around a 45 minute lag between consumption, and caloric availability. Thus started the suffering period, I just hammered away staring at my polar heart rate monitor counting down the time till the gel would start its magic, and hoping that we wouldn't loose much of our lead.
The gel kicked in, and both Ben and I started to motor, at around 1:20, we thought, there was a chance we might get in before 1:30 which we both thought would be very cool. We started to up or pace for a final push to the end. The pace shot up from 21-22 mph to 23-25 mph, if my computer is right I even hit 28 or 29 for a little bit. Anyway, 1:30 came and went, and at 1:38 we rolled into Gregg's place. Jan wouldn't arrive for another 35+ minutes, and it was over an hour before the next riders started to arrive.
Ride Stats: 138 miles, 20 mph average speed (not bad with the wind and climbing), at most 15 minutes off the bike (getting control cards signed, etc). Both Ben and I felt that with a few extra bottles of ensure we would have been even faster.
This Saturday, was the annual SIR 200KM Brevet, the actual course was ~138 miles. The ride started sharply at 7:00, at one of the member’s house, located around 45 minutes outside of Seattle. Thankfully I finally got the majority of my bike maintenance under control, and was able to hit the sack a few hours earlier then I have been these last few weeks, making the required 5:00 AM revelry call ever so slightly less painful. I picked up Ben from his place a little after 6:00 and then a little before 7:00 we arrived at Gregg’s, with just enough time to pee and register.
The bulk of the Randonneurs are not the speediest of cyclists, all functions of their average (fitness, age, fitness, and equipment choices, and did I say fitness). After about a mile or two all relatively down hill, Ben and I were leading the charge with at most 6 other Randonneurs in toe, this group was widdled down to 3 extra riders, then a few miles later, one of the Randonneur’s remarked, that we really didn't need to ride as hard as we were as arriving at the first checkpoint to soon could result in disqualification! Now this just blew me away, who ever heard of getting disqualified for riding to FAST! How lame is that!
We eased our pace a bit arrived at the first stop, got our silly brevet cards signed and were back on the road again. The weather forecast called for rain, but while overcast everything was currently dry, and coming into the first stop I was over heating slightly, I took a minute to put my hat in my hip bag. Jan, the one fast Randonneurs who's modus operandi is "I will wait for no one, pull no one, and draft anyone fast", didn't wait and took off down the road. Two other riders waited a minute, and then the four of us were off auickly catching Jan.
We pushed the tempo slightly heading down to the next control point. The one of the other riders disappeared; he was either adducted by aliens or dropped. Anyway with this Jan, the nameless rider, Ben, and I arrived at the next control point. Cards signed we were back on the road. Jan again taking off, with out waiting for Ben or I but then sucking our wheels like a leach once we caught him. Over a few more hills, we were back on the course heading out to Enumclaw WA, and fighting a real bitchen headwind. We started a four man pace line with Ben, myself, and the Nameless rider doing 99% of the work. And then the aliens hit again, and coming off one of my pulls I noticed we were down to three riders: Ben Jan, and myself. Since Jan never pulls this left Ben and myself to pull our up through the gale. On hitting Enumclaw, we turned up mud mountain road and started the ever so gradual but very constant 10+ mile climb up toward Crystal Mountain, a ski resort located on Mt. Rainier.
Climbing up the mountain Ben and I started pacing up the mountain, doing ~21 - 22+ mph. After a mile or so at the front we would rotate. At first, on each rotation, the one of us rotating of the front would slide back behind Jan and the other rider would take off up the road opening a 20 - 40 foot gap on Jan. Jan would close the gap, and then the rider behind Jan would attack again. Well, after a few rotations, it became apparent that we finally had Jan in difficulty, Ben took a pull, I road around Jan, I think he might have tagged my wheel, after which I attacked with Ben in tow.
At the top of the climb we hit another control point and then turned around to head back down the mountain, and out to another small city. Ben, was on the ball, and marked our time coming out of the control point. Heading down the mountain, we had 9 minutes on Jan, and a half an hour on the next group. Coming down the mountain, we road tempo, but didn't push the pace as we would soon be back on the windy flats.
Flying down the mountain it started to rain, it would continue to rain solid through the end of the ride.
Back on the flats the course took us out and back through a small city, before heading back to Gregg's house. Back on the flats, Ben and I kicked the tempo up a notch. Coming back from the turnaround at the city, we had upped our gap on Jan to 18 min and a 45 minutes on the next group.
At this point Ben and I started to run into caloric deficit. The plan for the ride was to start the ride motoring on Chocolate Ensure, but as we would have to carry all our bottles, we were limited to starting the ride with only 3 bottles each. Thus after the first three hours we had to switch to other foods, cliff bars, gel’s, bananas, and PB&J. This transition wasn't handled well, thus the impending caloric crash. Sensing doom we both grabbed our hammer gel flasks and just started chugging. Hammer Gel is a fantastic sub hour fuel, but there is around a 45 minute lag between consumption, and caloric availability. Thus started the suffering period, I just hammered away staring at my polar heart rate monitor counting down the time till the gel would start its magic, and hoping that we wouldn't loose much of our lead.
The gel kicked in, and both Ben and I started to motor, at around 1:20, we thought, there was a chance we might get in before 1:30 which we both thought would be very cool. We started to up or pace for a final push to the end. The pace shot up from 21-22 mph to 23-25 mph, if my computer is right I even hit 28 or 29 for a little bit. Anyway, 1:30 came and went, and at 1:38 we rolled into Gregg's place. Jan wouldn't arrive for another 35+ minutes, and it was over an hour before the next riders started to arrive.
Ride Stats: 138 miles, 20 mph average speed (not bad with the wind and climbing), at most 15 minutes off the bike (getting control cards signed, etc). Both Ben and I felt that with a few extra bottles of ensure we would have been even faster.
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