winter

19 degrees, but I sweated coming into work. Thank god for tailwinds.

Back from Ragbrai. I'll try to post some photos soon.
2 easy days, 2 hard days.

Almanzo 100

Last weekend I rode the Almanzo 100 - a hundred mile gravel road race.
I showed up not knowing what to expect. I assumed that with 70 entrants it would be a self paced ride, similar to the brevets I did last year to qualify for PBP.
It was, and I went with the lead group. Picking the lead group made it a race for me, or at least race pace. I haven't raced for 6 or 7 years, except for dabbling in a few TTs and the Chequamegon Fat Tire festival.
We rolled out in a big group and it was only about a mile until we hit gravel. Right away there was a fair sized hill and we started shedding people. I sat in with the leaders and within 5 miles we were down to 14 riders, then 12. The pace was quick for me, but I was happy to get some fast miles out of the way early. At about mile 20 one of the guys up front started throwing down, and shook four of us off. I thought we might work together, but that never happened. We all came off one at a time, and just didn't put it together to form any kind of chase. The leaders went up the road about a half mile and just stayed there.
At this point I was resigned to just doing my own thing for the next 75ish miles, but one of the guys I was with (I use the term loosely) got out of the saddle and hammered to go across the gap. At first I just watched him, but then I decided to go with him - it would be much easier riding in a group than strung out in a line with 10 feet between riders. So... I picked it up and got up to the lone chaser, and came around so he could catch on a take a break. And when I looked back he was gone. Long story short, I wasn't sure if I could do it, but I got on the rivet and eventually did catch on. I was tired, but it was indeed easier riding when I got back in the group.
...until the first sizeable hill. I swear my bike weighed in at around 35 lbs. I have not mentioned it, but Almanzo 100 is a self supported ride. On gravel. For 100 miles. A fair distance from home. In addition to my fairly heavy 29er mountain bike, I had a big ol' saddle bag with a few tubes, spare tire, clothes, pretty full tool complement, lights, and the usual
braunschwieger sammitches.
I hope that I couldn't climb with everyone else because they were all on road or light cross bikes with a tiny saddle bag that held a single tube. That's my story, and I'm sticking with it.

I came off on the next climb, and then went my own pace, just me the gravel, dogs, and wind.
Made a couple stops, one in Chatfield for some delicious chocolate milk, and another in Spring Valley for en equally good Starbucks drink in a can. On the way out from Chatfield I saw some other Almanzoers ahead of me. We eventually got together and ended up back in Rochester with a total time of 6:33.
The Jet 60c2 wheels on my Wyganowski were excellent. 23mm wide rims rule. Without them I never would have caught the leaders in my ill-fated run at glory. I ran 28mm conti Gatorskins, but next year I will probably let the air down to 90 or 85. I put 100lbs in them on friday afternoon, they probably had 99 in there on Saturday. A couple of those downhill sweeper corners we a little sketchy at that pressure.
I had a good ride, and plan to be back next year. Thanks Chris for organizing this awesome ride.

when???

will spring come?
I like winter as much as the next guy, but the snow is getting a little old.

Don't even get me started on rain and 34 degrees.

too cold, too heavy

9 below this morning, I had about 8 lbs of spokes to bring in to work. Northwest wind ( a headwind) took the windshield factor to around 25 below. It was too cold, too heavy. not for everyone, but it was for me. Kate didn't need the car, so I drove to work.
I expect I'll ride the rest of the week though

a nice photo at Carcassonne

Don't panic, I'll get there eventually.

Leaving Brest (by the way, the Tour starts in Brest next year). The weather was great. Bright sunshine, about 70 degrees, a little tailwind. Although the first stretch out of Brest is uphill, back over Roc Trezevel, I was feeling a lot better about riding back to Paris than I had been the day before. Aside from the weather, there were plenty of fellow riders on the road, a big change from the night before. It seemed like my luck had changed, and I even started wondering if I should stop and get some sunscreen(!). Unfortunately, the weather only held for few hours.

I got back to Carhaix, feeling good, and on schedule, and was eating lunch at the control there. I glanced outside, and it was raining. CRAP! I jumped up and ran out to cover my (all leather) saddle. In spite of all the rain I had managed to keep the Brooks dry thus far: if I hadn't it would have been sagging like a 2x4 with the entire cast of Riverdance stepdancing away on it. The rain was over by the time I was done eating, but there were spotty showers all the rest of the day. After the steady rain of the day before, spottiness was not a real burden. Stopping to pull my rain jacket on and off was a small price for the relatively dry stretches.

I was still feeling fairly good, all things considered. My speed was dipping just under 15mph average but I knew I would make it. I got to the next checkpoint, Loudeac, ate and left about 7pm. I planned on sleeping at one of the checkpoints that night, but had not decided which one - I would just play it by ear and stop when I got really tired.

On I plowed. The wind started to pick up a little, a headwind/crosswind which slowed my down. There were not as many people on the road now, and I was getting picked off by little groups. It was a little demoralizing but I was well into the homeward stretch now so I wasn’t worried.

I haven’t mentioned enough that the French truly take an interest in this (and I assume other) rides. There were still people on sidewalks and in driveways shouting “Bon Courage!”, and lots of little ad hoc rest stops. A family would set up a table with drinks, cookies, fruit and sandwiches, and just give them away. At dusk I stopped at a little table run by 4 girls, about 12 years old. I had cookies and STRONG coffee, which were very welcome. I also noticed that they had a little bar set up at the end of the table. No beer or wine, just three bottles of spirits. CRIKEY!, none for me thanks. I still have no idea how you can have a stiff drink and set off into the sunset after 490 miles without getting even sleepier.

The wind was picking up a little more and I was slowing down even more, when a 34 year old Belgian named Christophe rode up and asked if I wanted to work with him. Does the Pope wear a funny hat?? Of course I would work with him. He was quite obviously stronger than I was, but he told me that he only wanted someone who could pull a little bit to give him short breaks. With Cristophe doing about 75% of the work, we took off into the evening.

Of course it started to rain, and hard. We were getting pelted, but I stuck with Christophe. True to his word, he pulled me a majority of the time, only taking short breaks. We were only going 16 or 17 but it felt like we were flying. We were picking off little groups steadily, and sometimes a rider or two would try to get on with us, but our blazing (ha-ha) speed apparently didn’t allow it. Both of us would have welcomed more horsepower for our little break, but Christophe didn’t want to slow down, and I didn’t want to lose my ticket back to Paris.

There is a control at Tinteniac. I ate and met up with Christophe as I was rolling out. (by this time I had taken to thinking of him as "Franck, the Belgian Wonder Pony".) We struck out for Fougeres. It was still raining hard, and pitch black. Even with the terrible weather I didn’t feel too bad. We were making great time, but the pace was starting to take its toll. When we got to the outskirts of Fougere I told Christophe to go ahead, as I was planning on sleeping, but he slowed down and stuck with me.

Interesting side note here: Franck had a fancy Polar HRM (heart rate monitor) that was linked up with his speedometer. These things are pretty accurate because you can enter a lot of specific data about yourself into them. While we were stopped at Tinteniac, which was about 840k (520 miles) into the ride he told me that his Polar said he had burned 20,000 calories up to that point. That would be exactly 8 times the recommended daily calories that you find on that nutrition info chart on the side of the Captain Crunch box. I had a good laugh over that, especially because his reading was in actual calories, not Kcals. What he really told me was that his Polar told him he had burned 20 million calories. It was pretty late at night, and I about fell over laughing. Then I realized what units his computer was using - it was still an impressive number.

At Fougeres I ate and showered then went to the Dormir to get some sleep. The spaces were all occupied, so I had to wait a few minutes for someone to vacate a spot. When one opened up, I told the volunteers that I wanted to get up at 6AM. They marked the time on a post-it, stuck it to my assigned spot on the grid, then I took off my shoes and tip-toed to a gym mat in a classroom.

When I woke up I felt pretty good, until I saw the clock on the classroom wall. 11:00!!!! WTF! The volunteers had not woken me up! I was alone in the room. I got it together, packed up and started riding. But after a few K I turned around. According to my control booklet I only had til 1pm to ride the next 80k. There was no way I could make that and I knew it, but I planned on finishing the ride, even if I was outside the time limit. If I went fast I might be able to finish at about 4 am.

I got a little ways out of town and thought “this is nuts. I’m on vacation. I have to catch a train at 7 tomorrow morning”. I turned around and went back to town.

Eventually I found a travel agency (where I had to deal with one of very few "typical" non-english speaking, slightly rude French people), and got a train ticket back to Paris. I still had to ride 78k to get to Laval, where I could catch a train.

It took til 10 to get back to Paris, but at least I had time to clean up, break down my bike, and sleep. Though I could have ridden all the way, I doubt I would have made the 7am train, I probably would have still smelled, and it would have been pretty awful for my wife to travel the next few days with me while I caught up on sleep.

That is my best race excuse ever. It wasn’t the rain, or the flat tire, I didn't get sick and develop lockjaw-nightvision. I slept through PBP. I may be back in four years.