I guess I was in better shape than I thought because I ended up finishing with my best time ever for a Double Century. It was my third time to do the Solvang Spring Double. I did reasonably well last year and had been looking at my data to see how I might improve this year. I wrote about my strategy in a prior blog entry . My cycling training this year has been better than last year because I did not have a spring marathon to also train for. But I was concerned I had not done enough speed workouts, something I was doing last year while training to run the Boston Marathon, which was only 2 weeks after the Solvang Double Century.Joe Farinha, Gary Franck and I decided to start the day off with a nice breakfast at Paula’s Pancake House, which opened at 6:00. That was enough time to get a big breakfast and still have it somewhat digested before we started to hammer. Just as we did last year, we started with the 7:30 am group, the ones that wanted to be timed. Joining us was. This 7:30 start group is made up of mostly fast riders. We had a large gathering of 47 riders. Unlikely last year they did not do a roll call.

The whole group stayed together for many miles in a large peleton. The pace was brisk but I didn’t feel over taxed, around 21-24 mph. After 20 miles we turned to head up Foxen Canyon. This has two moderate climbs and after the second one there is a longer descent. It was on this second descent that I lost the group last year and never was able to catch back on.My strategy this year was to stay right near the front of the pack for the second climb so I had a better chance to stay connected. It may be the fact that this year there were no tandems to chase down the hill, or that I had been working on descending down faster, but in any event this time I was able to stay connected to the front pack, something only about half the group were able to do. We lost the other half on either the climb or the descent and I knew that they would never be able to catch back on.We stretched out to a single pace line. Except for a few wheel suckers at the back, everyone was taking a turn pulling, some longer pulls than other, which was okay. One guy, who was particularly strong, would ramp up the pace every-time he pulled. I found myself right behind him on a couple of rotations which meant I had to drive hard to hang on his wheel, then do a pull and still keep enough left to rotate to the back.

I had already planned to skip the first rest stop and sure enough this group went right by it. We made one wrong turn which costs us an extra 2 miles and some lost time trying to get back on course. There were some rollers right before the 2nd rest stop (our first one) that proved a bit difficult due to the pace. I was glad when we finally stopped with a total of 84.8 miles averaging 22.0 mph. My heart rate for that stretch averaged 149.

Some of the group had a very quick stop, just enough to fill water bottles. I needed a bit more time but was was able to get back on the bike in less than 6 minutes. There was only one other fellow from the 7:30 group who started with me by the name of John who was from Nevada. He and I biked together for awhile. We were soon joined by others from the 7:30 group that had taken a little longer at the rest stop. But there was a couple of young guys who were driving the pace too high for me, so I eventually dropped off the back. I slowed down to wait for John who had fallen off earlier. We biked together, taking turns pulling until we hit the check point at Morro Bay. We had to wait 1 minute there to get the dot to prove we had gone to the turn around point.

While riding through Morro Bay I hit a bad bump and came down on the back of my saddle, which tipped up the nose. I couldn’t get it to move back level. Although it was quite awkward to ride like that I decided I could not afford to stop so I rode that way until the lunch stop, which was another 14 miles from Morro Bay. That section was done at an average speed of 20.1 mph and an average heart rate of 145.

It took me about a minute to fix my saddle and then another 6 to 7 minutes to get some food. We saw some of the 7:30 riders leaving, so John and I jumped on our bikes and caught them.

We started to form a pace line behind a tandem and rode with that group for awhile but eventually some of us moved out ahead and we never saw the tandem again. Soon it was just John and I again as we pulled into our third rest stop with an average speed of the last section of 19.5 mph. The pace was clearly slower while we kept behind the tandem for those miles.

After a 5 minute stop John and I took off, again just the two of us. I hit another bump and my seat got tipped once again with the nose pointing up. I didn’t want to take the time to fix it again so I decided to just keep riding that way. It made it hard to use the aero bars but I felt maybe I could just wait until the next stop.

We were taking turns pulling but on one uphill grade on Highway 1, where I was pulling, I notice that John had fallen way off the back. I had been doing some calculations in my head and figured at this point I had some slight chance to finish under 10 hours so I made the decision to ride on solo, which I did for the last 50 miles. I had a thought of skipping the last rest stop completely but was down to a half of water bottle so I made a 1 minute stop for water. Fatigue was setting in so I was having a hard time keeping my heart rate up. Fortunately we had a tail wind now. There were several club members at that stop who had started earlier. One told me that Gary was about 10 minutes ahead of me, so I jumped on the bike to chase after him. I noticed at that point I had averaged 20.6 mph rolling from the start.

On the way up Drum Canyon, I heard a popping noise so I stopped to check my bike, only to find I had broken a spoke. That was so unexpected for a light guy like me. I wrapped the broken spoke around another spoke, opened up the brake, then jumped back on the bike and started to climb. I had yet to fix my saddle and wondered if I had time. I decided to stop again and to level the seat. As I started to climb again I kept worrying about breaking another spoke and was not sure how hard I should be torquing the pedals as I climbed. I decided to climb carefully, but steady. I was getting very tired and found it hard to do the math in my head to see if I could still finish under 10 hours. My rolling average speed had now dropped to 20.1. When I made it to the summit, I was wondering how fast I should go down, considering it is a rough road. I decided to ride down fast, just hoping no more spokes broke.

Periodically I would calculate again how much further I had to go and how much time I had left. It seemed to be an impossible task and I was about ready to give up trying to make it under 10 hours. I felt lucky to make all the traffic lights in Beulton, thinking one single stop was more than I could afford. That final uphill as you are entering Solvang was just about enough to kill my chance. I then started to hit the traffic in the town of Solvang so I turned right one block early to take a back street.

I finally made it to the end and clicked the split button on my Polar Heart Rate Monitor just as I came to a stop. I was almost afraid to look down but when I did it read 9 hours, 59 minutes and 51 seconds. Ann was there, a bit surprised I finished so fast. She watched my bike as I ran to check in. I had finished 20th place of the 47 riders who were riding for time. See the posted results here. I had averaged 20.3 mph moving for the entire ride and had a total stopping time of less than 23 minutes. Funny thing was that I felt better than I did last year after finishing 43 minutes slower. I believe this was due to the better training this year.

After taking a shower, we went to eat. I had not eaten much on the ride because of the short stops and was ready for a big meal. Sometimes I wonder why I do this, but the sense of accomplishment makes it all worth the effort.

Over the total of 194.3 miles, I averaged 20.3 mph with a maximum speed of 46.3 mph. My average heart rate was 145, peaking to 173. The total ascent was 7,400 feet.

I took a look at the data for both this year and last year for the first 36 miles. As I mentioned before it was around mile 30 that I lost contact with the lead pack but was able to stay connected this year. Click the graph to enlarge.

You can see from the above graph on the descent at mile 25 my heart rate was much lower than last year and I had considerable margin left. This may be due to better training, allowing me to kept a lower heart rate while climbing the second hill at mile 21.

This graph shows my heart rate and altitude plotted against distance. Click to enlarge.

Here are the splits. Click to enlarge.

The route started from the Royal Scandinavian where we were staying. We did a short warm-up in the eastern Santa Ynez Valley, then heads up world famous Foxen Canyon. We essentially bypass Santa Maria by jogging around that town on dead quiet Bull Canyon to Hwy 166. Next we more or less parallel Hyw 101 as we headed north. After some really neat back roads, the route skirted the edge of San Luis Obispo, then went all the way into scenic Morro Bay, right to the waterfront and a dramatic view of “the rock.” Next we rolled through some of the prettiest state park miles anywhere, then head south on PCH along the coast through Pismo Beach, and such. After Guadalupe, we stayed southbound on this desolate and beautiful stretch of Hwy 1, bypassing the whole Lompoc area, and then continuing onto Hwy 135 to the neat little western antique haven of Los Alamos, site of the final checkpoint. From Los Alamos, we encounter what is essentially the only real climb of the entire day, up and over Drum Canyon, a quiet, twisty, 800 foot, 3.4 mile ascent. It’s had a gnarly downhill. On the other side, we hop onto Hwy 246 back to Solvang, with a big shoulder all the way to town!

This was to be Ann’s first attempt at a full century ride so I wanted to make sure she didn’t push too hard at the beginning. I put my second heart rate monitor on her handlebars so she could see my heart rate at any time and then she wore her Polar heart rate monitor on her wrist. I asked her to keep her heart rate well below mine through the ride. I think at times she let it go up higher because we were sure moving fast.

This event has excellent support and a lot of features that I have not seen before in a Century ride. One such feature was allowing teams to compete in essentially a team time trail. My younger brother, Mike, was on such a team so I caught this picture before his team started out at 7:10 am.

For the rest of us that were not competing on a team, we started to line up for the 7:30 am mass start. Ann held the tandem while I grabbed this shot. You can see there is a very large field, around 2,000 riders all together.

I was a bit nervous because we only bought the tandem 8 days ago and I had not yet ridden it in a group type ride, let alone a big field like this one. I put the tandem off to the side and up near the front of the field so I would not need to go around a lot of the slow riders who should start at the back but don’t.

Right at 7:30 am we were off and we quickly got into a rhythm and soon were passing one rider after another. The first several miles were through some city streets so it was hard to get the speed up as fast as I wanted. The tandem does take wider turns. We soon came by the first rest stop and decided to blow by it. Then the second rest stop we blew by, and the third. We kept passing riders who would jump onto the train. I think we may have had over 50 riders drafting behind us at some point. I found it easier to to pull because the few times I tried to draft I found it hard to control the speed with Ann and I both pedaling.

I saw a set of railroad tracks ahead and slowed down as Ann gave the signal to those behind of the tracks ahead. We had glided over other tracks earlier in the day but these were real nasty and we had a big bump. I was glad we had 700×28c tires on the tandem and that I had fully inflated them last night. I looked to the side of the road now and saw a slew of bikes all pulled over to fix flats, pinch flats I am sure.

It was a lot of fun pulling and soon we had another large group drafting behind us. With a tail wind we cranked the speed up to the 27-33 mph range and soon were passing a lot of riders, including some of the teams that had started early. I was real surprised to pass the team my brother was on. Maybe his team jumped on the back of the train. I slipped the camera in my rear pocket so Ann could take it out and snap some pictures while riding.

I suppose it was the excitement of pulling such a big train that caused me to allow my heart rate to go up to above 170 at times. I started to slow a bit and then we hit some rollers. Some of those behind went ahead and others stayed in our slip stream.

We were thinking about stopping at the next rest stop but we finally decided to ride all the way to the lunch stop at mile 67. They had a great lunch spread out for the riders. You could make your own Subway type sandwiches with ham and turkey and all the fixings. Plus they had the typical food you find at other events. We sat in the shade to get some rest.

I needed to get some recovery because I had not been drinking enough for those 67 miles. I found it hard to reach down and get the water bottle on the tandem. I felt like I needed both hands on the bars to keep it stable and hence put off drinking too much.

After a relatively short lunch we jumped back on the tandem and off again. The rest and hydration really helped. I was having both Ann and myself take Endurolyte tablets which are an electrolyte replacement. That helped because the temperature was quite hot (my cyclometer was reading 109, but it was in direct sun).

I knew I could not go again without drinking enough so we found it worked best if Ann passed me a water bottle while riding. I had installed 3 water bottle cages on the rear of the tandem and that is where most of the water was anyway. The water and Gatorade was great because at the lunch stop they had ice chests so you could feel you water bottle with ice. That was very much appreciated as the temperature continued to rise.

I knew we could not ride the rest of the course without making another stop so we stopped about half way between the lunch stop and the end and sat for awhile and again drank a lot of liquid. Then it was off again because I did not want us to start to cramp. I decided to take the pace down a bit and keep my heart rate more in the 150-160 range for the last 20 miles. Ann did start to get one cramp but I had her keep pedaling with no force while I was keeping us moving and she worked it out.

We finished the 111 miles just after 1:30 pm. This graph shows our speed and my heart rate.

August 11th must be a popular date in Utah because two events we want to do up there occur on the same day. First is the Provo River Half Marathon that I ran last year and Ann has been training to run with me this year. Then there is the ULCER bike century of 111 miles, which I have not done before but would like to. Ann and I now both registered for both events and are leaning toward doing the bike event on our new tandem. The only issue is that I have been getting Ann ready to run the half marathon and not quite as focused on biking, but I feel she can do either one. I have not trained to run the half marathon at any fast speed because I have been more focused on biking and figure I was going to just run at Ann’s pace which I can do without as much speed workouts as I did last year.

We might just wait to see what the weather is and how we feel. If it is going to rain that day I would vote to switch to the half marathon. I would rather run in the rain for 2 hours than bike in the rain for over 6 hours.

I was lucky that another club member was willing to let us use the campsite she had reserved. I drove up with Gary F. while Joe F. was driving himself after work. Yes, the three of us are the three “Fs” that set out to do the Solvang Double under 11 hours (which we all did). It was a great campsite and a real treat that there were five other club members in the campsite next to ours so we had a great time chatting that evening and the next day after the ride.

The three of us decided to start at 6:00 am and bike directly from the campsite, which was 4.5 miles from the town. That is where I started my Polar heart rate monitor, which also provides cycling functions. It was rather cool that morning, around 45 degrees, but I only took arm warmers because I didn’t want to carry a jacket or vest with me. I figured we would be climbing soon and would warm up.

It was downhill or flat to Markleeville where we turned right and headed toward Monitor, the first of the five passes. The three of us stayed together until we started to climb. I went ahead of the other two as I tried to make my way up the hill, winding around the mass of riders. It was fun at first passing so many riders but later in the day it was a chore. I did like coming up upon many friends. I probably should have slowed down and chatted more with them but I was thinking more about keeping up the pace. I skipped the first rest stop because it was way to crowded and I didn’t need any water anyway. In fact I kept skipping rest stops until mile 62, although I did take on more water at a rolling water stop on the way up the back side of Monitor. I ended up stopping at only four of the rest stops all day, mostly to get water and a little food, keeping each stop to less than 10 minutes.

It was beautiful country, and the hills were great. The support was outstanding. I loved the climbs and found the whole event to be not that difficult for me, but still some challenge to do all five passes. I did buy the 5 pass jersey because it is cool looking, unlike the DMD jersey that I don’t care for and didn’t buy. Look at the back of the jersey and you can see “Five Pass Finisher” vertically in red.

You were not allowed to buy this particular jersey until after you finished and showed the pin you received at the top of the fifth pass.

Overall I just felt the Death Ride to be too dangerous because of the number of riders. Because three of us started at 6 am, I must have passed 2,000 riders on the climbs and found I had to keep crossing the center line because of cyclists who were wandering all over the place. I hated to do that because cyclists were coming down the hills at the same time.

I suppose that because you can do only one pass and still ride in the event that it brings out a wider range of people. But I would think most any cyclist that could climb one of the hills would think that maybe someone might want to pass them and they should stay to the right a bit more and not climb near the center line, or wander back and forth. I don’t want to infer that this is a description of most of the cyclists, just enough of them to be an issue for me.

The last pass was not closed to traffic and with no bike lane and heavy traffic it was an effort for each person I passed on the climb, waiting for a break in the traffic and then shooting by them to minimize my time cycling where the cars were driving. On this pass I didn’t find the erratic cyclists as I did earlier on, it was just the road/traffic issue. We did have a lot hotter weather by now (high 80’s) and a head wind, but I still felt fine during that climb. After getting an ice cream treat at the top of the last climb, it was a real fun decent back to Turtle Rock finish. I let my speed get a bit on the fast side for me when a strong cross wind gust hit me. I was a bit spooked but handled it okay.

I ended up finishing the 5 passes with a total time of 9:22 and a rolling time of 8:40. The data from my Polar heart rate monitor shows:

Start Time: 6:01 AM
Duration: 9:21:23
Distance: 125.2 miles
Heart Rate Average: 140
Heart Rate Maximum: 178
Speed Average: 14.5
Speed Maximum: 45.6
Cadence Average: 37
Cadence Maximum: 120
Total Climb: 14,459 feet

The heart rate and altitude graphs looks like this. The time scale is total time so you can see where I actually stopped at the rest stops, the first one being 62 miles and 4.5 hours into the ride. Click to enlarge.

If I do this ride again I am going to start much earlier just to avoid some of the crowds.

I am now thinking of doing the Everest Challenge (206 miles, 29,000 feet in two days) on September 23/24. You can do either as a USCF race or as a non-timed tourist/randonneur. It is only 2 weeks before the 508, so I am still not 100% sure I will do it.

I checked the website and they still had registration open until 11 pm that evening, so I signed up and swallowed the higher fee for late registration. I then contacted Paul (who will do the 508 with me) who was looking to share a ride and room. He told me he had already matched up with Gary (who will be camping with me for the Death Ride). So I contacted Gary and asked to sleep in the same room and I would bring my pad and sleeping bag and sleep on the floor.

My next decision was which bike to take. My new bike is lighter and I feel more secure descending on it, but it has only a double crankshaft so not nearly as low of a gear as my older Trek. The Climb to Kaiser has 13,500 feet of climbing (and 155 miles) so I was wondering if I could do it with a double. I decided that I could and ended up taking the new bike.

We all stayed at the Best Western motel in Clovis, which is the town that adjoins Fresno. We decided to get up at 4;15 am, but somehow everyone started to get up at 4. It was still dark as we drove the car over to the high school for the start of the ride but by the time the ride was ready to start at 5:30 am, it was light enough to not use lights.

The mass start was a lot of fun, maybe about 400 cyclists all riding together following a police escort through the city streets, with no need to stop at the stop lights or stop signs. The pace was fast, ranging from 22 to 27 mph. I was surprised that much of the group stayed together at that pace, but I think we had a tailwind and when you are in a big pack (peleton) you kind of get sucked alone. I had entered the mass start toward the back so I was working my way up toward the front. After 25 miles we started to reach some rollers so I knew I needed to move up closer to near the front since the good climbers would be there. As we started to do a little climbing it was easy to pass people and the group started to really spread out.

I felt good as we more or less climbed for the next 55 mile, with a few downhills and some flatter sections. It was not long before I found myself around the same people. Climbing really separates people out. It was a beautiful course and the weather was wonderful. I had heard bad things about this ride but found it to be a lot of fun. Some grades were up to 20% but I was able to do fine with my double. As we turned off to go up Kaiser Pass we were already at 7,000 feet so I was feeling the effect of less oxygen. The road narrowed down to a single lane and the air got thinner as we climbed up a rather steep section to the summit at 9,100 feet. My legs were fine but I was breathing hard to get enough air. When I arrived I was greeted by some cheering volunteers and some horn blasts signaling finally reaching the top. Since this part of the course was an out and back, I had seen about 6 riders coming down as I was still climbing and I saw about the same at the top, so I knew I was near the front. I asked and was told I was the 12th guy to reach the summit, which I felt good about.

We had not stopped very long at any of the rest stops, usually just long enough to fill the water bottles and stuff some food in the jersey pockets so eat while riding. But up at the top I did take a few extra minutes to drink a soft drink, which tasted mighty fine.

Gary reach the summit very shortly after I did and so we started down together. We reached back to the main road and were not sure which way to go, but Jeff, another club member, who was just coming up and told gave us the directions before I could get my route sheet out of my pocket to check. We met two other riders that we kind of grouped with. I could go a bit a head of them on the climb over the rollers, but would lose them on the downhills. After awhile it was all downhill and I lost the pack. I rode the rest of the ride solo, except for maybe about 8 miles where I had come upon a younger guy would was real tired, so I pulled him. He gave a few pulls but was clearly worn down. The last 20 miles were flat, hot and a headwind. It is not fun ridding solo like that, but I thought it was good 508 training.

I finished back at the start at 3:45, for a total time of 10 hours 15 minutes. When I checked the results the next day I was 24th overall. Gary had come in 19th. I was real happy with how I did considering it was my first Climb to Kaiser and I decided at the last minute to do the ride. It is clearly a ride I want to do again.

I started out on the 100 mile route (actually it was 107 miles) and moved out quick to the front of the pack from the start. I knew the fastest riders would be there and if I was not with them from the beginning, it would be too hard to ever catch them. I found myself in a peleton of about 60 riders moving at an incredible speed, ranging from 22 to as high as 30 mph. Sometimes it was 4 abreast so I found myself fully surrounded by riders. At that speed it requires intense concentration, knowing a wrong move could be disastrous for me and all those behind me. At around 45 miles, I checked our average speed and it was over 23. I don’t think I have gone that fast before for that distance. I was happy to finally see a climb on the road out to Promissory Point. I was the 4th to the summit and found myself grouping with the other 3 on the way down. I could not help to notice the other three guys looked like they were in their 20’s. The rest of the group never caught us before we reached the rest stop.

At mile 72, I reached the rest stop where I met Ann. By then she had completed 48 miles on the 100K loop. She looked like she was totally fresh, so I figure that maybe she would want to switch to the longer loop and ride with me, which she decided to do. I calculated in my head that would mean 80 miles for her. “Hey, that is only an extra 13 miles” compared with the 67 miles on her original course.

Ann said she had averaged over 16 mph so far on her ride so I was holding the pace close to that. She stayed right on my wheel and I was able to capture a few pictures while we were riding together. It was a lot of fun riding together. While in the morning I was skipping most of the rest stops, after lunch we made some brief stops at each of them. At the last stop, we took a bit of a break and told Ann it was only 10 miles to the finish. “Hey, only 10 miles to go”. I guess my calcualations was a bit off becasue when Ann hit 80 miles there was no finish in sight. I said, “it must be right around the corner”. I might have said that several times. Finally we hit 500 west and 600 north and I then could see we had only 9 blocks to ride. But the last mile is always hard. Ann did great and finished with 85 miles total.

Ann’s average speed for the 85 miles was 15.8 mph. She was riding for 5 hrs, 20 minutes with a total time of 6 hrs, 30 minutes. I was very impressed she rode this distance at that pace considering she only started road cycling in February. It was a lot of fun, especially after we finished!

Ann, on the other hand, got her road bike on February 5th, and today she rode her first 50 miles ride, less than 3 months since she first started road biking. It is quite unusual to reach that distant within such a short time period. On Monday we went over 40 miles on a ride and decided that exceeding 50 miles today would help her to obtain the confidence she can do the 60 mile ride for the Tour de Cure next month. Anyone who can ride 50 miles on a training ride can ride 60 on a supported ride.

It was raining this morning and cool so we were not quite sure we would be able to ride. Ann decided to run 4 miles on the tread mill and I went out side for a run. The rain stopped, more or less, around noon and we even started to see some sun at times. Around 1:15 pm, we finally left but dressed for cooler weather, in the high 50’s.

The course took us out Watsonville road, then left at Uvas, down to Bailey. We had to fight a strong head wind all the way. We then descended down Bailey over the freeway and over Monterey to the bike path, which we took back to Morgan Hill. From there we took Hill Road, over to Tennant, then back west to Monterey where we enjoyed lunch at Erik’s Deli. The food sure tasted good as we sat outside on the patio in the sun.

After lunch we made our way over to Santa Teresa, then rode that with a strong tail wind back to Gilroy. At times we were going 22 mph. Two guys in San Jose Bike club jersyes passed me at one point but I didn’t need to race them, because I knew I could easily pass them at the pace they were moving. We finished with a bit over 50 miles. It had warmed up considerably by the time we returned and the last few miles in Gilroy were with a temperature in the high 60’s.

So it is 92 miles this week for Ann on the bike, more like a 100 if you count the times in the exercise bike. A good week for her. It was particularly impressive she ran 4 miles and biked 50 in the same day. Kind of like my dual training when I was getting ready for both a double century and a marathon at the same time. Hum, if we only had a tandem, Ann could ride the double century with me. I wonder how she would like being in the saddle for over 12 hours, however.

I felt good in the morning as we climbed Mt. Diablo and then Morgan Territory, and was riding fast enough clear to the Mines Road rest stop. After another brief stop there I headed for the junction. I looked at my watch when I hit about the half way mark of 103 miles and roughly 10,000 ft. of climbing and saw I had taken 7.5 hours. Not bad, I thought,so that meant I could finish in about 15 hours, our around 8 pm. But then the problems began. People were dropping like flies. I usually do well in the heat, but something seemed to have gone wrong suddenly. I started to feel weak and sick.

I was completely out of water by the time I hit the lunch stop at the Junction. I decided to take a long lunch, maybe around 30 minutes, unlike the Solvang Double were I was shoving food down and then jumping back on the bike. I was feeling a bit better as I headed toward Mt. Hamilton were I was able to draft behind a tandem. I started the climb up the backside of Mt. Hamilton and felt strong again, but I was worried about running out of water again so I was conserving it, but probably too much.

About half way up I started to cramp, big time. All of a sudden I couldn’t even peddle and I felt sick to my stomach. I had to get off the bike and sit in the shade. I looked at my legs and they were drenched in sweat. I had never seen that before because usually in California the sweat evaporates about as fast you you can generated it. Then I started to lay down on the dirt along side the road. Some other riders were stopping around me, doing the same. The SAG drove by and I motioned to them all was okay, becasue I was NOT going to be SAGed in. After about 10 minutes I tried to get back on the bike but the cramping started again and was very painful, so another 10 minutes on the ground. I then tried a 3rd time and I could not peddle. I decided to start to walk the bike and try to work it out. I walked to the spring and drenched myself. That plus the walking helped and I was finally able to get back on the bike and finish the accent. I knew once I reached the summit it would turn a bit cooler and I was then confident that I could make it, but would need to do so with a slow pace and lots of resting.

I spent a long time at the Crothers rest stop. I was trying to get my stomach feeling better, give myself some time to hydrate and hopefully have it cooler before doing the last major climb up Sierra. Four riders were being SAGed in from there. When I did start up Sierra it was still 85 degrees but I was able to keep from cramping again by riding slow. I was very glad I had followed the advice to bring my old bike with the triple crankshaft. I don’t think I have ever climbed up Sierra so slow before. Lots of people were walking their bikes. A rest stop past the summit is where I had sent my lights forward to and it was a good thing because I needed them. The sun was just setting and I had to ride half of Calaveras in the dark. It was cool now and I found myself riding fast again, like in the morning.

I arrived at Sunol, the last rest stop at 9 am and learned from a club member there who had DNFed that several others had also. I was not going to give up at that point, so continued on chasing some riders in the dark. I was close behind two fast riders and noticed the lead one didn’t have any lights at all. They made the right turn to go up Palomares and bam! they both went down hard, slipping on gravel (which was hard to see at night). I was lucky that I avoided hitting them. I helped them to get up and used my lights for them to check themselves and their bikes. We then started the climb and I went ahead, not wanting to be around those guys any more. I was climbing well now but most people were still climbing like a tortoise.

I found one other rider who I had ridden part of Caleveras with and we rode together to the end. He mostly was drafting off me, but he didn’t have a very bright light so I didn’t mind waiting for him at the top of the climbs. The last 10 miles seemed to go on forever. It was a great feeling when I finally arrived at the end, just past 11 pm.�

Here is the graph from my Polar HRM. You can see that my heart rate was much lower the second half of the ride. While on the bike, I averaged 14.4 mph, which is not too bad considering the climbing. It was the stopping time that really added up.

I am planning on doing the 5 am start. The start location is over an hour from my house so that means getting up at 3:15 am and out the door in 30 minutes. I am not expecting to finish until past 10:30 pm. That who period will be on the bike except only about an hour total at the rest stops. It is going to be some day. I only wish I had another week to get ready for it. It would have been much better to do the Mt. Hamilton Challenge this Saturday and the DMD the following, but they fall on the same day. I did the Mt. Hamilton Challenge a couple of times before and recall seeing the DMD riders going the opposite direction on Mines Rd. and thinking how stupid could anyone be to do that ride!

To put this in perspective, this is what they say on the DMD website: “THIS SHOULD NOT BE YOUR FIRST DOUBLE! This is a VERY TOUGH RIDE. On average, riders who have done the Terrible Two say the DMD takes two hours longer. The staff will do all they can to pamper you at the rest stops but THE COURSE WILL SHOW NO MERCY! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!”

Ouch!

Normally I would not even do this ride if I had trained specifically for it, but I have not been on the bike that much lately because of the Boston Marathon. I just must be crazy!