Sorry for the lack of posts lately, Real Life(tm) has a way of being a pest at times, I should be back to my regular schedule now though.
A few weeks ago I had to miss a 400k hosted by The Crescent City Randonneurs after crashing my bike a few days before. This 400k would have been an indicator letting me know if I would be ready for the 600k in May. Pat, the CCR RBA was nice enough to invite me to a 300k permanent followed by a 100k in order to get in the miles needed to prepare for the 600.
I woke up at 3:00am Saturday morning and was on the road by 3:30. It’s funny how easy I can get up and ready to ride my bike an absurd distance while it takes incredible effort to get out of bed on a normal work morning, but I digress. I arrived at Pat’s house right at 5:30 and we were on the road at 6. From the very start you could tell it was going to be an amazing day to ride. The route was more or less the same as the 300k brevet from March which caused me so much trouble. Thankfully the winds were very mild on this day, smoke from a factory we passed was going straight up; a very good sign.
We arrived in Sorrento, about 60 miles in and stopped at our first control. I was very optimistic at how good I felt. I knew that barring anything drastic, I would hold up just fine and complete both rides.
Of course that something drastic did happen and an old knee injury flared up. In 2002 I initially hurt it in martial arts. The doctor I saw told me it was probably torn cartilage and there wasn’t much I could do about it. Every now and again I will do something that makes it hurt again. During my marathon training last year I (against some sage advice) used pain killers to mask it so I could continue to run. This turned out to be the worst thing I could do and I was unable to run for a couple weeks while it healed.
With that in mind I decided to DNF rather than risk hurting it more. Since I also depend on riding my bike to get to work, being completely unable to ride would be a very bad thing. I told Pat who was nice enough to DNF and ride back to the start with me. The pain gradually got worse although I was able to control it by not pressing down hard with my left leg. An aleve I took along the way also did wonders.
I got home, iced it down, and took some ibuprofen. The pain went away quickly and by the next day I felt fine, so I assume no harm was done. I’m not certain why I hurt my knee just now, but I suspect it’s because I raise my saddle a little bit before this ride. This would also explain why I was pretty sore in muscles that never really get sore.
I guess DNF’ing a ride is part of the randonneuring experience, but I don’t like it one bit, I hate quitting anything. But I’m not letting it discourage me, I’m planning to do a century this weekend to see how I feel and hopefully I can catch the next 200k that comes along.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I picked up a Cateye EL220 for last weekends brevet. Price was an issue as I couldn’t afford much at the time, but I needed something that would produce enough light to safely ride at night. Knowing that the brevet could last as late as midnight, it was important to get something decent.
Now quality is a bit of a relative term here, the other two riders in the brevet are almost certainly mistaken for motorcycles from a distance with the amount of light they produce. This light does not come close to approaching that sort of output. That said, I’m happy with the EL220 for the price. It is powered by 4 AA-batteries and has 5 LEDs that provide good coverage exactly where needed.
All I cared about was being able to avoid hazards on the road in the dark. The long stretch of Old Hwy 51 in Louisiana was unlit and provided a good test which this headlight passed very well. I’ve used other budget lights which did not provide nearly enough illumination and anything more than the slowest speed. I’ve also used it in town for night commuting and running errands with no problems at all.
If you can afford it, I would definitely step up to a higher end light, if money is a constraint, this is a great light and performs well especially for it’s price point.
After feeling great about my first 200k last month, I was pretty confident going into this 300k. I quickly found that confidence was misplaced.
Pat, the Louisiana RBA was gracious enough to let me stay at his place the night before the brevet, saving me an early morning drive from Hattiesburg the morning of the ride. We rode from his house to the starting point at 5:15 and go there at 6:00. There we met up with Steve and set out from Audubon Park towards Sorento. This route took us directly into the winds coming out of the West. The winds were worse than I expected and it slowed me down quite a bit.
At its worst, I was in the granny gear and still applying decent force to my pedals. The stronger gusts would slow me to a near stand-still. This is by far the worst wind in which I have ridden. Not even 1/3 into the trip I felt like I was completely drained of energy and didn’t know how I could continue. I made up my mind that once we reached the Sorento control I was going to call for a ride and DNF. Before that stop however, Pat gave me some advice about eating on the ride. I thought I was eating enough, but it turns out I wasn’t even close. Hearing that I could possibly recover from bonking, I decided to at least leave the first control after which we would be riding with those strong winds to our backs.
At the first control I was so desperate to recover I decided on the spot to give up being a vegetarian hoping that animal protein would help my strength. I ordered a chicken/bacon sub from Subway and consumed a rather large Power-aid. I felt much better after that but was still very fatigued. I was also sore as my posture was very bad for the first part of the ride. We went back the way we came and it was indeed a much easier ride from that point.
About half-way between the start and the first control, we turned north to head towards Ponchatoula. This section was a very pleasant ride on old highway 51 where the traffic was light and the view was scenic. We stopped at a gas station in Laplace for our second control soon after the turn. We were still facing a cross-wind, but it was manageable. When we reached the town of Manchac, I noticed in the distance a rather steep bridge, the kind designed for boats to pass under. The look of terror on my face must have been humorous to Pat as I asked “Are we actually riding over that?!” as he answered with a round of laughter. The climb was hard for me as the cross winds were very bad at this point. Against good judgment, I did about half the climb out of the saddle which left me out of breath as I reached the top. Thankfully coasting all the way down was a big help.
We finally reached Ponchatoula which is both the strawberry and antique capital of the world apparently. We stopped at a Sonic where Steve treated us to food. A Reeses Sonic Blast was never so good. At this stop we got our lights ready as the sun was starting to set. Steve said that nightfall makes it a completely different ride and this certainly seemed true. Riding back down Old 51 in the dark was very nice. I felt fully refreshed at this point and knew I could finish.
We went to our next-to-last control which was again in Laplace. It was here a woman exclaimed “Wow, you guys are real bicyclists!”. She also mistakingly assumed that since I was nearly half the age of the others on the ride, I must be leading the way. This is one activity where young was not a virtue at all! I had a canned iced coffee and a blueberry pie before we left again. The rest of the ride was pretty easy. I was pretty sore in my back, arms, and in certain unmentionable areas, but i did my best to ignore it. A couple Aleve that Steve gave me at the Laplace control seems to have helped as well.
We finally made it back to Audubon Park for a total of 192 miles in 11 hours and 50 minutes. Pat and I had to turn around and head back to his house, about 10 miles away (this seemed like a much better idea in the morning). Steve rode with is for a bit so he could get 8 extra miles needed to round out a double century. Pat and I arrived at his place finally for a total of 211.8 miles.
After that I took perhaps the best shower of my entire life before falling into a coma on the futon.
Lessons learned:
Chamois Butter. Must acquire
Eating is not something I can guesstimate, I need to do it on a schedule.
I need bigger water bottles and more cages.
I need to get some padded gloves also, my hands were killing me after the ride.
I’ll need to do some long rides before next months 400k
This 300k was a challenge to complete. At 18 hours, it was 3 times as long as the marathon I ran in December and I feel that it was much harder to complete. I’m really glad I didn’t DNF and I’m really thankful to Pat and Steve for helping me finish. Looking forward to the next ride, 400k here I come!
Tomorrow at 6am I set off on my second brevet. This time it’s a 300k!
It is technically about 180 miles, but I’m staying with the organizer who is about 10 miles from the start. The ride there and back makes this a 200mile ride. While being a good bit longer than last months 200k, it looks like a much flatter route. The 200k wasn’t terribly difficult for me, so this should be ok.
This time around I’m bringing a plastic water bottle instead of my stainless-steel one. It turns out “it matches the bike” is not a practical reason to bring such a hard to open bottle. As this will last into the night, I also purchased a new light. My Light&Motion Vega 120 just won’t cut it with a 2 hour battery life. I ended up getting a CatEye EL-220. It seems fine from the night riding I’ve done, and claims to have 30 hours of run time, which is a big plus. This time I’m also not wearing the cycling shorts I picked up on sale for $5 at Academy. I quickly learned thats an area where you should spend a little more. I recently picked up a pair of Pearl Izumi Quest shorts. I’ve yet to ride with them, but just from trying them on they feel so much better. We’ll see how I feel about them at the end of a long ride. Hopefully all these lessons learned from the 200k make the 300 even better.
I woke up at 3:30am. I could tell it was not a work day, because even with minimal sleep, I shot right out of bed. I loaded up my bike in the back of Karen’s (my wife) Geo Metro and headed to Louisiana. The brevet was set to start at 6:30, and I timed it to arrive at about 6. I got there just on time and was actually the first to arrive. I got my gear on and rode around a bit to warm up. About 10 minutes later Roger from north Georgia showed up. This guy has been riding a brevet per weekend for a long time now. Shortly after Pat (the rba), Dennis, Steve, and Roger showed up and we were soon off.
The temp was in the low-mid 30’s most of the morning but I managed to stay very comfortable with the exception of my toes. I had hoped that a combination of shoes with little ventilation and wool socks would keep my toes toasty, but this wasn’t the case. It would be several hours before I could feel them again. The ride was pretty easy even until the half-way point. I was happy to be keeping up with the group on my longest ride yet. We stopped at a po-boy shop in Folsom, LA for lunch. Much to my delight they had a veggie po-boy which was really good. Along with everyone else, I saved the second half of my sandwich for a stop about 30 miles from there.
The we started out on the second half and I was still feeling fine. I was eating a gu pack every now and again as well as eating a couple FRS energy chews at controls. In the city of Bush, about half-way between the start and mid-point (this was a there-and-back brevet btw) we stopped again to eat. I ate the other half of my sandwich and also enjoyed a regular coke. This was a welcomed treat after all the Powerade I had been drinking. I was feeling a bit sluggish by this point and my quads were burning just a bit on climbs. Maybe 20 or so minutes after leaving Bush I felt a lot better… until the pain started. Apparently a large sandwich and coke was a bad idea as I developed a cramp in my side which didn’t go away for well over an hour. There was nothing I could do about it, so I just did my best to ignore it. It finally faded not long before the end of the trip, teaching me a lesson about how not to eat on a brevet.
At some point early in the ride, Roger decided he wanted to ride at a faster pace and was not to be seen again until he passed us on his way back to the finish. I think he finished somewhere around the 10 hour mark. The rest of us rode as a group and finished at 6:35PM for a total time of 12:05. I felt surprisingly good afterwards considering this was a good 40 miles longer than my previous longest ride.
I had a great time and can’t wait for next month’s 300k. I think it’s safe to say I’m hooked!
I saw this beautiful Miyata 615 on Bikehugger this morning and just had to repost it here. It’s setup somewhat similar to my Voyageur, but much much nicer. Great work on this!
Yesterday I did a really nice 80 mile training ride an the Longleaf Trace. This ride is tied for the most miles I’ve done in a day as I’ve made this ride once before in May of 2008. This time over I made it in 6 hours instead of 9, and I could walk afterwords.
My nutrition was good as I was able to ride strong even towards the end. The temperature started at 40 but was 50 near the end, everything was fine except for my toes. Wool socks and shoe covers are next to buy.
I’m really happy with how well this one turned out and I expect to do well at the brevet January 16th.
As I’ve posted before, I’m doing my first brevet in January. There are a few things that I’m not quite sure about still.
First is of course training. I’m commuting as always, but now I’m trying to push harder. The cold weather has allowed me to turn it up a little without worrying about showing up for work too gross, but that’s only a 10 mile round trip.
I’m trying to do a couple rides during the week, tonight for instance I did a fast 12 mile ride. Other nights I try to do about 20 or so. On the weekends I go longer when the schedule permits. I did 60 a few weeks ago, 30 last weekend. This weekend I will probably do 60 again.
All my rides I push much harder than needed 60%-70% of max heart rate on the 60 miler 80%-90% on the 30 miler, and my 12 mile rides I generally dont wear my monitor as I try to go all-out the whole ride.
Any changes you would make to this?
The second area I’m wondering about is clothing. I don’t yet own a pair of padded shorts and want to get a pair. As the weather here is warm most of the year, i don’t want to get too much cold weather gear if I can help it. The brevet is in January and it tends to be in the mid-30’s then. Would shorts and leg warmers suffice? The upper body I’m less worried about, I have a good jacket I’ll wear over my jersey and a base layer under that. I’m also wearing arm warmers and mittens. I ride with panniers so it shouldn’t be an issue if I need to remove some layers in the event it warms up.
Any other tips from the long-distance pros you could share?
As I posted before, I’m riding a 200k brevet in January. I’m also planning a solo camping trip for Thanksgiving weekend which will be about 100 mile round trip. Thanks to marathon training, my saddle time has been limited to commuting lately, but a sore hamstring made me decide to do a long ride instead of a long run this past Sunday.
I wanted to do a longer ride to serve two purposes: Make sure I could do the camping trip in a reasonable about of time, and serve as an indicator to see how my training should go for the brevet.
I decided to do 60 miles with a goal time of 4 hours. I ended up doing it in 4:15, so I’m happy with that. That time includes 3 stops which I didn’t time, but were all between 5-10 minutes.
At the half-way point I was a bit behind my goal time, so I decided to see if I could finish the second half with no stops, I managed to do this and it wasn’t as bad as I expected. It helped that a faster rider caught up with me about 15 miles from home and we chatted for about 15 minutes. I had to maintain a faster pace to keep up with him which helped my time a lot. The kind soul also gave me one of his Gu packets which really helped as I was out of food at that point.
Things I learned:
My fitness is better than I thought, the longest ride I’ve done before this was a very leisurely 20 miler with some slower riders. Not sure if the running is what has helped, but something has.
Need. More. Food. I brought a rice crispy treat and a pack up peanut M&M’s. I found 6 fig newtons on a picnic table that had been left behind from the previous days event on the Long Leaf Trace. This was still not quite enough and I could tell I was close to bonking, had it not been for the Gu pack, I dont think my finish would have been nearly as strong.
I really need to adjust my rear dérailleur, I use one gear in commuting, the hills around town are small enough that I can just climb in the taller gear with no issues. On the trace they are not steep, but are extremely long, and after a couple hours, you really wish you had better gearing.
The Brooks B-17 would have been worth double the money I paid for it. The day after, I feel no soreness at all, none.
I’m really happy with how it turned out. I caught a ride to work this morning not because of fatigue, but because of concern over a squeaking noise I’m hearing on the bike.
