In 1998 the Adventure Cycling Assiciation published the world’s longest off off-pavement cycling route called the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. The Tour Divide is an unsupported, unsanctioned race that mainly follows the GDMBR route and begins with a “Grand Depart” the second Friday every June. The route starts in Banff, Canada and primarily follows long dirt roads, jeep trails, some single track and the occasional bit of pavement through the provences of Alberta and British Columbia in Canada before crossing the US border and passing through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico to get to the finish at Antelope Wells on the Mexican border. It covers approximately 2,750 miles with over 200,000 feet of cumulative ascent (like climbing Mount Everest from sea level 7 times). Details on the Tour Divide can be found at http://tourdivide.org.
I first heard about the Tour Divide when a friend rode it several years ago. You are required to use a Spot personal satellite locator with real time tracking enabled to show where you are at on the course. So I was able to follow my friends progress on this epic course and knew I’d have to do it some day. Definitely a bucket list item!
I’ve done a lot of ultra distance road cycling, but had never done any long distance mountain biking, so this would be a new experience for me. Leonard Zito has the same event on his bucket list and we have been talking about when would be a good time to do it. We tentatively planned to do it in 2016. Preparing for this type of event requires a lot of time, effort and commitment. And you have to be able to get a full month off of work!
Both Leonard and I changed jobs in 2015 which unfortunately pushed Leonard’s timing for the ride out, but I still wanted to do it. So I started focusing on the training to make it happen. The job I had didn’t pan out, so I found myself in a position where I needed to make a decision to find another job and try to negotiate a month off right after starting, putting off the Divide or waiting to find a new job until after the Divide. I was almost at the point of pushing the ride out when my wonderful wife Annette told me I should do it. Luckily we’re in a financial position where I can take a few months off of work.
Training for the divide has had a huge positive impact on my health and well-being. Riding the Divide is going to be good for me in a very real physical sense. So the decision has been made. I’ll be looking for a new job sometime in mid to late July. In the meantime, I’ll be on my bike.
My original goal for completion was 25 days (averaging just over 100 miles a day). But I no longer have a time restriction on me like I would have if I was taking vacation time. So I plan to be more flexible about the time. People who know me will laugh, but my plan is to take the first week slow, keeping my heart rate below 145 and preferably in the 120-135 range. I don’t want to start this ride too hard. I really don’t want to be part of the 50% failures!
I’ll be riding a 2015 Niner Air 9 RDO, full rigid (no suspension at all) loaded with Revelate Designs bike packs. I have a Sweetroll handlebar bag that will contain my stove, cold weather gear, a change of clothes, my tent poles and tent ground cover. Strapped to that is a “Pocket” that will have some food and quick access items like sunscreen, bug spray, first aid kit, etc. My tent is strapped between the pocket and Sweetroll. I also have a pair of Feedbags. One will have quick energy food (bars, gels, gummies). The other will have two 11,000 mah portable power units with short charging cables for my Garmin, cell phone and for recharging the portable power units.
On the frame I have a frame bag that I bought from someone who rode an Air 9 RDO on last year’s Tour Divide (is it good luck to have something on your bike that has already gone the distance?). The frame bag will have 2.5 liters of water. It will also have a pump, cassette cleaning tool, chain oil and a few miscellaneous other items. On the top tube is a “gas tank” that will hold my wallet and cell phone, a micro fiber cloth to clean my glasses, and other miscellaneous stuff. Under the seat is a Jerry can that will have spare batteries, tire repair tools and plugs, a multi-tool and whatever else I can pack into it.
In the back I have a Terrapin dry bag holster with dry bag. It will contain my sleeping bag and pad, a change of everyday clothes, and anything else I don’t want to risk getting wet. The idea when it’s raining is to get my tent setup and unpack the drybag in the dry tent.
I’ll also be wearing a camelbak Mule with a 3 liter water bladder. The camelbak will also be my pantry and hold the majority of my food.
I learned on my ride across the Mogollon Rim to strap a gallon water jug to the front of my bike which would give me a total of over 9 liters of water for the long stretches between water points (I sweat a lot, so I tend to drink a lot).
The ride starts on June 10th and I head to Banff on Wednesday the 8th. You can follow my progress on the Track Leaders website. Rain is in the forecast this week. I’m looking forward to amazing scenery and an absolutely epic ride! Journey On and Live Your Adventure! 👊👍😊
Well I wasn’t too good about sharing training updates and all of a sudden the Tour Divide is a short few days from starting. I started my training with a lot of miles on the road to build base miles. I rode El Tour de Mesa and the Tour de Cure which really help me get back my form. I also rode a hard 200k, a 300k and part of a 400k. On the 400k I didn’t keep up with my electrolytes, wound up with some bad cramping and DNF’d. Bit of a yellow flag for the Tour Divide.
After the 400k I transitioned to primarily training on my full rigid Niner. The first trip was a quick over nighter with Leonard Zito from Tortilla Flat to Roosevelt Lake, up the back side of Four Peaks, camp at the top and return via the Beeline Highway the next morning.
It was a great learning experience. The rough road kept causing my bag straps to come loose so I had to figure out how to get them secured. We refilled water at Roosevelt Lake, but didn’t bring enough to get all the way home, lesson learned is to carry more water than you think you need. In the morning I had no energy and Leonard was kind enough to share his electrolyte drink. My legs came back quickly after drinking that. I had only been drinking water and that’s just not good enough, so I will be carrying an electrolyte mix with me on the Divide.
My next training trip was a solo ride across the Mogollon Rim. I parked at my brother’s house in Show Low, rode to FR300 and followed that all the way to SR87 outside of Strawberry. I took one wrong turn on the way out that added about 8 miles, but I’ll be following the Tour Divide route on my bike computer so I’m not anticipating a problem with Navigation. That trip went really well. The only real problem was that I ran out of water at SR87 where I had planned to turn around. The closest water was in Strawberry so I went down the hill. I could have ridden the 11 miles back up to the top of the rim, but decided to get a room, get cleaned up and have a nice dinner.
The climb out of Strawberry was a hard 6% pretty much constant for 11 miles. I was pleased that I didn’t have an issue riding up. There were a couple spots that tipped up to 8-10% and I’d get off and hike-a-bike up those. Same thing when I got back on FR300. If the road tipped up over 6%, I’d walk. Slow but steady progress. In my lowest gear I ride at 4.5 mph. I walk at 3-3.5 mph. The way back also had some really hard cross wind. I took my time and finished strong. 2 nights camping and one night in a hotel. Key lesson on this ride was to be flexible and change you plan based on what you need at the time.
I was feeling pretty confident after the Mogollon Rim, so I decided to make a more challenging route as an out and back starting in Sedona, going up Schnebly Hill, crossing I-17 and following various forest roads to Lower Lake Mary, camp at Marshall Lake, go through Winona, pass through the Cinder Hills and pass by Sunset Crater, go to the endo of Shultz pass, turn around, find another place to camp then turn around and go back the way I came. Good plan, right?
The ride up Schnebly Hill really wasn’t bad. I was following a route on my Garmin computer, so I never got too far off route. The first problem was that there was a big snowstorm the weekend before my ride. The temp had really come up, but there were several sections of deep mud that I couldn’t ride through, so I got some good hike-a-bike practice. I got to the store at Lake Mary just before the store closed. So I was able to refill fluids, get an early dinner and use the hose outside to wash the mud off my bike before heading to Marshall Lake.
Marshall Lake is where the real problem started. The area had a thick clay that clinger to my wheels and just kept building up until the tires literally wouldn’t turn. I spent a lot of time scraping mud off my tires and walking until I found a flat spot to setup camp.
The next morning I wound up carrying my bike for a bit over a mile to get through that section. There were a few more spots where I had to carry it, but I learned how to be comfortable carrying a fully loaded mountain bike! So great learning experience.
I made it through Winona and to the Cinder Hills OHV area pretty quickly, then my progress went way down. Cinders are a lot like sand…deep sand. I wasn’t able to ride very much through that section. Walking definitely takes more out of you than riding. When I got to the road leading to Sunset Crater I took a break to enjoy the afternoon for a bit. I knew I needed food and I was running low on water so I decided to change my plans and hit a Subway just outside of Flagstaff and spend the night at my friends Dave and Jackie Flake’s house.
I knew a storm was expected later in the week, but when I checked the forecast it showed a wind advisory expected with 40-50mph gusts and potential for hard rain in the afternoon. I knew I didn’t want to go through the Cinder Hills again, nor did I want to deal with that clinging mud so I decided to take the express route through Flagstaff and ride the pavement back down to Sedona. It was a quick 45 mile ride and I got back to my jeep right about noonish.
Unfortunately between regular daily training rides and my training bike packing trips my small chainring wore out and caused my chain to get sucked up between the crank and chainstay, crushing part of the carbon on the chain stay. Thanks to Mike Cox at Curbside Cyclery for getting that fixed for me! My bike was in the shop for about a week, but came back good as new!
I planned to do one more multi-day bike packing trip, but knew that might be tough with some family events. I had hoped to do that ride the week it wound up in the shop, so I decided to shorted that ride to be a quick over nighter leaving my house, riding through Tortilla Flat to Roosevelt and see how close I could get to Young. I thought I knew this route, so I didn’t load it on my Garmin.
I had planned to go through part of Bulldog Canyon and take a dirt bypass to get closer to Saguaro Lake and avoid some pavement. Unfortunately I took a wrong turn that took me up a super steep hill that deadended at a campsite. When I tried to ride back down, I wasn’t far enough back on the saddle or my front tire hit something and I wound up doing an endo. Sprained a couple fingers pretty bad on my left hand and road rashes on bothe knees and my right shoulder.
Nothing seriously injured, but I had trouble riding with my hand, so I turned around and headed home. Not much of a training ride, but better to heal and be at 100% for the big ride instead of risking further injury.
Last week we had some family trips planned so I wasn’t able to ride at all. Forced recovery time. I’ll be well rested and ready to ride this Friday in Banff! My bike is all packed and ready to go! 👍😊
A modern bicycle computer is a wonderful thing. You can look at distance and estimate how long it will take to get to the next cue based on your expected speed. Looking at the time gives you a reminder that you need to eat. Power and heart rate let you know if you are working too hard. Where was my computer for this ride? Sitting on my desk charging up for the ride! Ouch. But I paid close attention to the cue sheet and didn’t make any mistakes.
The ride started relatively quick. The route zig zags through Phoenix and Glendale before heading to Wickenburg, so I tried to keep the lead group in sight so I’d know where the turns were without having to refer to the cue sheet. I got very lucky. They would ride away and invariably get caught at a red light, which allowed me to either catch them again or get through the light just behind them. 25 miles down before turning towards Wickenburg.
As soon as we left that first checkpoint I let them ride away and dropped back to my own pace. I had a friendly tailwind pushing me along so that section was pleasant. Until I got to the outskirts of town where I had my first rear tire flat. Got that changed relatively quickly and went around the corner to the second checkpoint.
I took my time getting the rest of the way through town before the turn towards Vulture Mine. The friendly wind continued so I continued making good time. This is the first time on this road and I have to say Vulture Mine impressed me. Much larger than I expected with a number of rundown historic looking buildings. I’d love to get a tour of that someday!
Shortly after passing the mine I came up on an accident. Two riders touched wheels on a slight descent with a nice tailwind. They had to have been really moving when that happened. End result one rider with a broken clavicle and broken ribs. Bad day for sure! The ambulance hadn’t gotten there yet, but it did pass me on it’s way back before I got to the lunch stop in Tonopah.
Tonapah is 104 miles into the ride and I got there in 6 hours 20 minutes. Not too bad. Without stops, that was probably a 5 hour to 5.5 hour ride time century. My form is definitely coming back!
After finishing lunch I turned right into a cross headwind. The wind had shifted while I was eating. A few miles later I turned left into a soul sucking direct headwind. My speed really dropped. A couple miles down the road I turned left again and damned if that wind didn’t stay right in my face. Did I mention how nice it is to have a bike computer to remind yourself to eat? Obviously I wasn’t because at about 120 miles I bonked. Hard. No power at all in my legs. I stopped and started fueling up. Amazing what food does for you. It doesn’t happen right away, but within 15 min or so I suddenly felt better.
When I got to the next checkpoint I decided to really fuel up. Campbell’s Chicken Soup to get some sodium, a pickle for more sodium, a bottle of muscle milk with 40 grams of protein and water for my bottles. I got back on the course and the wind became friendly. Suddenly I was making great time again!
Just after getting back into the outskirts of town my real wheel felt squishy. So I stopped to change it, but noticed I had neglected to close the presta valve. So I took a risk and decided to just hit it with another CO2. Wrong choice. Within a mile or two it was feeling squishy again, so I stopped to change it. And put my arm and leg warmers back on because the temp was dropping quickly as the sun began to set. Unfortunately the first tube was defective. I wasted two CO2 cartridges on it. Then realized those were my last CO2’s. So I put my last tube in and hand pumped it. Man, I really like CO2!
When I was finished the sun had set. Luckily a group of three came by and invited my to jump on. I tried, but just didn’t have the legs, so I let them go and watched their tail lights in the distance to show me the turns. That worked out well and got me to the next checkpoint where I refilled bottles and had another 40 gram protein muscle milk. That group of three was still there when I left, but they passed me within a mile or two.
Luckily we were back in town, so I’d check the cue sheet as I passed under street lights. I decided to just do recovery riding to the finish … And I didn’t really have legs to do anything else at that point. I pulled into the finish at 8:37pm, so 13:37 total time to ride 187 miles. I’ll take it!
What did this ride teach me? My form is coming back, but I still need to work on long distance endurance. I’m good for 100 miles, but need to adjust what I’m doing to be comfortable on longer rides. A cycling computer may or may not have made a difference. I’ll find out on the 400k next month! I also need to learn how to take pictures on rides. I suck at that, so no pics this time.
Wow 5 years goes by fast! Can’t believe my last post was in August 2011. Lot of change in 5 years. New house, new job, sold the cabin, kid about to graduate from UofA and another about to start there. Time flies by so fast you occasionally have to sit down and look at your bucket list and set some goals. My big goal this year? Ride the Divide! 2,700+ miles self supported on the mountain bike riding from Banff, Canada to Antelope Wells, New Mexico.
2015 Tour Divide Route Map and Profile
The past few years haven’t been great in terms of cycling. Stress and other commitments have kept me away from ultra events. But the Divide is definitely on. Nothing quite like a big hairy assed goal to get your motivation up to get out and ride!
My training plan is to mix road cycling, mountain biking and bike packing between now and June. Road cycling helps you develop good cadence and helps you get comfortable for really long stretches in the saddle. I’m planning to do a full brevet series and have already completed the first 200k of the year (so my fitness level isn’t completely horrible). The 300k is Feb 6th, 400k in March and 600k in April.
Last year I bought a Niner Air 9 RDO full carbon (even the rims on my wheels), full rigid mountain bike. That bike is FAST. Love it (and thanks to Mike Cox at Curbside Cyclery for helping me with that). I’m planning to use Revelate Design bike packing bags. I’ll post a list of my gear later. I’ve been doing a lot of miles out at Usery park recently, but plan to expand to some gravel grinders as part of my training.
I’ve never been bike packing before, so this is going to be quite the experience. Leonard Zito is going to be my bike packing companion while training. He has a route defined to ride the Maricopa trail system (circles the Phoenix metro area through the mountain parks) that we will start with, then start spending some time up on the Mogollon Rim and around Flagstaff for weekend trips.
Stay tuned, I’ll start posting some updates as I prepare for this epic event. Take the time to live your bucket list folks, you only get one shot at your life, live it the way you want.
This weekend was the “Dirty Mogollon Mormon Madness 205k Permanent”, a ~130 mile mountain bike adventure that started in Clint’s Well, AZ (near Happy Jack) and took fire roads and OHV roads down to the Mogollon Rim before heading back up to AZ87 and crossing over to head up to Mormon Lake. I’ve never done this route before, but did read Paul Layton’s ride report. Sounded like a hard ride. But hey, who can pass up riding in cool weather through the woods!?! Apparently quite a few people. There were only three of us at the start. Paul Layton, Mike Sturgill and myself.
Should say "Summer!"
I have to admit Summer has not been good to me from a training perspective. There’s a cycling team called “Old Guys who get Fat in Winter.” I don’t have too much trouble staying in some kind of shape through Winter, but summer in Phoenix can be tough. Too much travel or weekends with non-traning plans and not enough focus on maintaining my base mileage. And my “big” goals for this year actually aren’t cycling related (weird). I’m planning a Rim to Rim Grand Canyon trip with my Uncle Robert and I have a series of 30k trail runs planned so when I have made time to exercise, it’s typically been going out for a trail run. Which means I really wasn’t very well prepared for a ride that is much harder than I thought it would be.
But I kind of knew that going into it so I examined my topo maps to find the places where you could bail out and cut the ride short. I didn’t realize I’d be doing that MUCH sooner than expected! I was up at 4:20 am for the drive up to Clint’s Well. Getting up that early is always a kind of shock to the body and I wasn’t able to ummm… go. Until I got to Payson, then I really had to go, so I stopped at McDonald’s and was surprised by the wait for the men’s restroom. Apparently lots of guys have to go when they get to Payson! That put me a bit behind on my travel time, but I was still able to get to the start at about 5 minutes to 7am when the ride was planned to start.
Mike and Paul were pretty close to ready when I pulled up, so I quickly changed my shoes and got myself together and we rolled out a few minutes after 7am. Not bad. Paul led us up AZ87 to FR141. Man FR141 is a scenic road, but it’s mostly a pretty tedious climb. Mike Sturgill said there weren’t any really hard climbs on the route, but he had just come back from a Colorado high country 1200k (750 mile) event. His idea of hard climbs and my idea of hard climbs don’t exactly mesh at the moment, especially since we were going up a 5-6% grade at that time! He said there was about 9,000 feet of climbing over the course. Ok, that’s not so bad…
Near Clear Creek
The problem is that it’s the kind of climbing that has never suited me well. Short, steep climbs with moderate descents. Or long, slow 2% climbs that sap your motivation. Most of 141 was a gradual climb. There were a couple times where it leveled out or even dropped, but for the most part it was up. Not only was it generally up, but there were several shorter 8-12% climbs! Mike and Paul would drop me on the climbs then I’d pull myself back on the descents. But those climbs were some harder efforts. I noticed that my heart rate wasn’t dropping on the descents like it should be, not a good sign.
Mike stopped to wait and take photos a couple times along the way, then he would ride away from me. Right after turning onto FR300, there was a pretty long climb. All in all, I’m a pretty good ascender (that word is for Sue!), but I could tell I was getting tired already. I mentioned to Mike that I wasn’t in the best shape and I probably wouldn’t be doing the full 130 miles, so they should just continue without me. We dropped down to General Crook’s cabin, which was the first check point at about mile 18, and I told Paul the same thing.
Wow, only 18 miles into a 130 mile ride and I was already faltering! But I didn’t dawdle (again, for Sue), just answered the check point question and started the climb back out. I started to get a few twinges in my legs that generally indicate a cramp is coming on, so I backed off and watched Mike and Paul ride away. Mike was waiting again taking pictures at the turn for the long descent down FR95 to Clear Creek. When I passed, Mike rode away from me again, but I was able to catch them again once along the descent somewhere. At about mile 26, there are three short steep climbs that just sapped the rest of whatever strength I had in my legs. On the last of those three climbs my right quad started to seize up in a cramp, so I had to stop and recover a bit. I ate some food, took some electrolytes, drank, rested. And felt a bit better and made it to the top of that climb and started the LONG descent. It was steep and fast! I liked it! I tend to back pedal a quarter turn to put my feet horizontal at times. That’s just a super bad habit! You should always forward pedal. When you back pedal on a bouncy descent, your chain may bounce right off the big ring and get jamed up in the derailluer. Trust me, I know this from personal experience on this descent! I had to stop and work on unjaming that chain without damaging anything. It took a few minutes, but I finally got it and finished the descent. Of course, by then Mike and Paul were long gone.
Cooked!
I didn’t stop at the bottom, just started that next climb. A long 2 mile, 6-8% climb. And me with no leg strength left! Yes, I stopped. Multiple times. Any time I tried to get out of the saddle, my right quad would complain. I looked at the time and realized there was no way I’d meet the cut off time for the Blue Ridge Ranger Station checkpoint. So I texted Mike Sturgill to let him know I was calling it a ride.
Once I got to the top of that climb it didn’t take too long to get back down to 87 and the ranger station. But I pulled in at 11:40 am, 40 minutes past the checkpoint cut off time. Ouch. I called Annette to tell her I was done, then sat at a table and re-hydrated. My legs were pretty much toast at this point, so I decided to take 87 back over to Clints Well. Only 9 miles back! Except for that nasty little 2 mile 6-8% climb that started at mile 42. THAT one hurt. Yes, my right quad finally decided it had enough and let me know in a painful way. So I’d ride in my granny gear for a bit, then sit and rest my leg for a bit. Super slow climb to the top.
Luckily the last few miles were flat or down, so once I was over that it was a relatively easy ride to the finish. All in all a good day out on the Mountain Bike (when isn’t a ride a good ride??). I’ll need to get a LOT more time on my Mountain Bike before the Tour of the White Mountains 60 mile event in October. But this ride was a good indicator for me of how much form I’ve lost over the summer, so now I know what I need to do to be ready for my bigger events in the Fall. To be ready, I’ll need to actually make training a priority and block out some time. Training is no longer optional!
Saturday, April 9th was the Dawn til Dusk Mountain Bike race just outside of Gallup, NM. I previewed the course when I was visiting my dad over Christmas last year. It’s a hard course. It’s a 13 mile loop with almost 1700 feet of climbing. One big climb at the beginning and a lot of short steep climbs scattered across the course. I’m relatively new to Mountain Biking, my only other real event being the 2010 Tour of the White Mountains in Show Low, Arizona. And I only did the 35 mile version of that event. Quite a big jump for me to attempt a 12 hour epic event!
The weather forecast for Saturday was pretty dismal. High expected to be 44, Low in the low 20’s, strong sustained winds expected to be over 30 mph with gale force 50+ mph gusts and rain expected in the afternoon. Ouch. But I’ve ridden my road bike quite a bit in similar weather, so I was concerned, but not concerned enough not to give it a try. I took Friday off of work to drive down to Tucson to pick up my brother Leo and we stopped in Show Low to pick up my brother Joe. They would be my pit crew during the event. But that made a long day driving around the state. We pulled into Gallup just after 5pm MT and stopped by the course to check things out. It was windy, but the course looked dry and people were already setting up. Since I’ve never done a 12 or 24 hour mountain bike event before I didn’t know what to expect, but it looked like people were setting up pit areas along the course, so that’s what we planned to do. We then headed over to the historic El Morro Theater for packet pickup. They were very efficient and we were in and out in record time.
We stayed at my dad’s house and had dinner there. My brother Reuben came by for dinner then we all went to Sammy C’s bar and grill for a drink. I didn’t want to drink too much before a big event, so I avoided the strong stuff and just had a glass of wine. We just stayed for the one drink, but it was a pretty neat bar. It’s built in an old historic building that use to be a J.C. Penny’s way back in the day. Old bricks with lots of arched entryways. Reuben introduced us to Sammy and his wife. They’ve done a great job decorating the bar with signed sports and music memorabilia. If you are in Gallup looking for a place to spend an evening, Sammy C’s is a pretty nice place. Not really the best place to go the night before a 12 hour mountain bike event though! But we didn’t stay too late, just long enough for one drink / glass of wine.
We planned to get up at 5am to ensure we were at the start with enough time to setup and get to the pre-ride announcements at 6:40. Dad got up at 4:30 (that’s 3:30 for us AZ boys) to start making some oatmeal for breakfast. My dad is not exactly the quietest guy, so we were all pretty much awake within a few minutes of him getting up. Leo and I had some fully loaded oatmeal (with craisons, almond slivers, etc…), Joe opted for just a cup of strong coffee before heading to the start. There were already quite a few people setting up and we didn’t get a great parking spot, but walked over to the solo area and noticed a big unused spot. I asked the guy setting up there if he minded if we setup next to him and we were good. Moved the car over to a prime spot and started setting up. I had a canopy to put over a small table and Leo brought a tent just in case the weather turned bad. It was pretty brisk at the start, probably in the mid-30’s, but at least it wasn’t too windy yet.
I walked over to the start at 6:40 and listened to the pre-ride meeting. Some folks apparently were scared off by the weather, but there was still a pretty big turnout. The morning was expected to be relatively nice, but bad weather was in the forecast for the afternoon. We were told to check in at the main tent if the weather got really bad. Then I rode up the hill to the start line. They start the race down a long dirt road to spread things out a bit before getting onto the single track loop. My first tactical error was thinking I was stronger than I really was and I slowly made my way closer to the front going down that road. There was a turn down another dirt road that had a pretty long 7% climb that put me back in my place. When we turned onto single track, I was in a group that was way faster than me and I was working hard not to slow people down. I should have immediately pulled off, but I kept my place for quite a while, but eventually pulled off to let the fast guys go by.
After that I rode in a bit of a recovery mode, but you don’t easily recover from that kind of mistake. I felt pretty good when I got to the pit on that first “lap.” I was overheating a bit with the jacket I had on, so I stopped to switch to a vest and I also switched gloves and put on some toe covers before heading off for my second loop. The climb to the top of the mesa is tough. I don’t have enough experience for a couple of the steeper sections and had to walk a few times, but honestly I did better than I thought I would and didn’t have to get off my bike nearly as many times as I did in December when I previewed the course. The wind was steadily picking up, but it wasn’t too bad and the course itself is spectacular. I had a good second lap. I was probably still working harder than was wise, but was having a good time. The only real issues were that my feet were still cold and my lower back was starting to bother me.
So I stopped again on the second lap to refuel really quick. Joe suggested using some chemical warmer pads for my shoes. GREAT suggestion! I didn’t need to toe covers anymore so left them. I also switched gloves again trying to find a pair that were comfortable and warm. Then I headed off for lap number 3! I was having a good morning all in all, but I knew I was working a bit harder than I should have. The wind had really picked up by my third lap. Dust was starting to become a factor and I was noticing it a lot more when I turned into the wind. Luckily on the way up it was blowing me away from the cliff edge! But I had to stop several times on this lap to catch my breath and let my heart rate go down. Elevation may have played a factor as well because I wasn’t recovering as fast as I normally do.
On the backside of the loop there is a pretty good descent. While going down that descent a really strong gust of wind hit and the rider in front of me was blown up against a large rock next to him. He got going again and made a turn on a switchback when another gust hit. This time he was literally blown off his bike. I asked if he was ok, but he said he was fine and I kept going. Several more strong gusts hit and a couple of them knocked me off the trail, but I stayed upright. That was some really strong wind!
I pulled into my pit area and the canopy had been taken down. The wind was damaging it, so Leo and Joe were huddled in the tent. I knew I didn’t have the experience or bike handling skills to deal with that kind of wind, so I decided to hang out in the tent for a bit to see if it would calm down. Then it started to sprinkle. I wanted to check the status of the race so I got on my bike and went through the finish area to officially clock my 3d lap and check things out. The race was still on and a lot of people were starting new laps. Hmmm…. I went around to my pit area to contemplate things. The wind died down a bit, but the rain picked up. Leo checked the hourly forecast and the wind was expected to not only continue, but to get stronger as the afternoon progressed. I changed into a dry jersey and dry vest, but the temperature, which had gotten up to the mid 50’s, was dropping fast and I wasn’t warming up. Cycling is a very mental sport. There’s no reason I shouldn’t have continued. I’ve done road rides in worse weather and have skied in worse snow conditions. But for this ride I was done. Just done. The weather delivered a one two punch between the high wind and the sleet. If I had just kept going when I finished that 3d lap I probably would have been ok. But when I stopped, my core temperature dropped and that’s probably what led to my decision to stop. I was frickin’ COLD!
There was a light rain when we started packing up and the snow started to fall just as we were finishing. On the drive back to dad’s place, it started to snow hard. I was happy not to be out on the course. I figured they would have cancelled the ride given the weather, but the Dawn til Dusk is a hard core event, so they kept going! For 5 more hours after the snow started falling! Wow! They did wind up cancelling it two hours earlier than expected, but those guys are hardcore! Check out the AWESOME pictures of the event from Brian Leddy. The majority of riders kept riding. I was one of a few that called it due to the weather. Ouch. But I’ll be back next year, although instead of doing it solo, I’ll probably be looking to ride with a 2 or 4 person team. The course is fantastic, the people organizing the event did a great job. By next year I’ll also have a bit more experience and won’t be quite so intimidated by high wind and foul weather.
I wasn’t planning to do El Tour de Mesa (name changed from “El Tour de Phoenix”) at the beginning of the year, but I attended the kickoff meeting for “Uphill into the Wind” a non-profit organization dedicated to the memory of Bob Griffiths. Uphill into the Wind provides loaner bicycles to individuals who would like to participate in charity related bicycling events. My kind of charity, so I decided to register for the event to support Uphill into the Wind. Jeff McKenna, one of the guys in the office who is relatively new to cycling had already registered. We’ve tried to connect a few times to ride together and this was a good opportunity to do that. I didn’t have any time goals this year and Jeff was shooting for a “Silver” placing with a finishing time between 4 and 5 hours. Sounded good to me. Since I only live a mile and a half or so from the start, Jeff parked at my place to avoid the start line madness and we rode over together around 5:30am, still pre-dawn so I had some blinky lights on my bike.
PBAA had a record turn-out this year with 1300 cyclists expected to be at the start. We got there early enough to get in with the back of the Gold group (those shooting for a time under 3:45). It was a pretty nice morning for the ride. Not too cold with a clear sky and light wind. The ride started at 6:15am, so we had a bit of time to wait. With that many cyclists it takes a minute or two before crossing the start line, but we got off ok and set a pretty good pace. We didn’t try to move ahead, just stayed with the group we started with. The course starts slightly down hill with a tailwind, so we were moving along at a good 26-28 mph clip. The size of our group would thin out as people tried to jump gaps to the groups in front of us or swell as groups behind caught us.
Jeff McKenna at the start
6 or 7 miles into the ride our group became dangerously large. There was a touch of wheel a few riders directly in front of me and someone went
Me at the start
down. I yelled “Riders down!” and started moving to the right to get out of the way, but the crash had a domino effect, unfortunately to the right. The farther right I tried to go, more guys were going down blocking me. I was almost at a stop when someone rolled into me and I did a bit of an end-o. Yep, hit the ground, but not too hard. My left brake lever needed to be moved back into place and I had a little scratch on my knee, but otherwise no damage. Jeff was able to stop before hitting the pile. A couple guys who went down at a higher speed were bleeding pretty good, their rides were probably done, but Jeff and I were able to continue pretty quickly after the crash. Just needed to do a quick check of my bike and body and we were good to go.
After that, I avoided the bigger groups. We picked up some riders behind us along the way, but I maintained a pretty consistent pace and some of them just rested a bit, then tried to jump the gap to the next group. We pretty much had our own little pace line going until we stopped at the SAG before the climb on Shea. I rode ahead a bit and thought I’d have time to get a couple pictures, but Jeff kept a good pace and wasn’t as far back as I expected, so I only got one picture and missed him finishing the climb. There’s a nice descent on the other side that provides some recovery and the initial bit on Beeline is also a descent, but we made pretty good time overall. We stopped at another SAG on Beeline. Jeff dropped back a few times on the climb. Beeline is a long, tedious 2% grade that is just mentally draining. But overall he did pretty good. We stopped once more just after the turn onto Bush Highway, but didn’t stay too long.
Riders coming up the top of the Shea climb
We recovered a bit on the ride down to Saguaro Lake. I told Jeff there was a pretty good hill right after it and to try to get some speed up on the last part of the descent so he could use some momentum getting up the other side. He capitalized on that and his momentum carried him around me for a few seconds on the climb. Luckily it’s pretty short, just really steep. We made more good time along Bush Highway, but I had been working Jeff pretty good most of the morning and he did drop back a bit before the turn up Usery pass. We made a last stop at the SAG on Usery Pass then headed up the hill.
About midway up I saw rider #1! Rich Pierson, owner of Pierson Construction who has been a PBAA sponsor for many years. I rode up to Mr. Pierson and thanked him for his support of PBAA over the years. It’s generous people like him who make these events so great. Another rider and I chatted with him for a couple minutes, then I noticed Jeff had dropped pretty far back, so I let them go and soft peddled until Jeff reached me. He was definitely fatigued. Usery Pass is a long 4-6% hill that will take a lot out of you. It starts at 4% for a mile or so, then jumps to 5-6% for a bit, then starts to taper off. We saw a couple people stopped on the side of the road. The temperature was in the high 80’s and there was a pretty good head wind blowing, which made the climb a bit harder. About 1 mile or so from the top Jeff said he needed to stop, but I told him it would be really tough to get going again and we were almost at the point where the grade dropped back to 2-3%. We slowed the pace to let his heart rate come down and took our time getting to the top. He demonstrated great will-power getting over that hill! Without stopping either!
Finished with a well earned Medal!
I didn’t mean to, but I dropped Jeff on the descent on the other side. I thought he was on my wheel, but he wasn’t when I looked back, so I coasted for a bit. Then he’d catch me for a few minutes, then drop off for a bit. It’s pretty much downhill the rest of the way once you get over Usery Pass, but that climb really did him in, so he struggled a bit staying with me. I remember when I struggled like that when I got back into cycling. But he pushed through it. There was one more SAG stop about 8 miles from the finish, but Jeff wanted to just finish this ride, so we didn’t stop there and just kept plugging along.
We went over the finish together in 4 hours 11 minutes. Jeff set a very respectable time for someone who hadn’t ridden the course before. My Garmin Connect details are at http://connect.garmin.com/activity/77500692.
Super Randonnuer! This past weekend Leonard Zito and I completed the fourth brevet in a set of four and are now qualified to ride in the longest running cycling event in history — Paris Brest Paris! Randonnuer’s USA’s description of PBP:
First run in 1891, the 1200-kilometer Paris-Brest-Paris, or “PBP” as it is commonly called, is a grueling test of human endurance and cycling ability. Organized every four years by the host Audax Club Parisien, the Paris-Brest-Paris Randonneurs is the oldest bicycling event still run on a regular basis on the open road. Beginning on the southern side of the French capital, it travels west 600 kilometers to the port city of Brest on the Atlantic Ocean and returns along the same route. Today’s randonneur cyclists, while no longer riding the primitive machines used a hundred years ago over dirt roads or cobblestones, still have to face up to rough weather, endless hills, and pedaling around the clock. A 90-hour time limit ensures that only the hardiest randonneurs earn the prestigious PBP finisher’s medal and have their name entered into the event’s “Great Book” along with every other finisher going back to the very first PBP. To become a PBP ancien (or ancienne for the ladies) is to join a very elite group of cyclists who have successfully endured this mighty challenge. No longer a contest for professional racing cyclists (whose entry is now forbidden), PBP evolved into a timed randonnée or brevet for hard-riding amateurs during the middle part of the 20th century. The event is held in August every four years.
300k
200k
By riding a full brevet series (200k, 300k, 400k, 600k), we’ve also earned the designation of “Super Randonnuer.” We also get some pretty sweet medals for each event and can wear the exclusive Super Randonnuer jersey! This was Leonard’s first attempt to complete a brevet series and he did great!
We got a bit of a late start heading to the “Day’s Inn” hotel in Eloy on Friday night and didn’t get to bed until close to midnight. That made the 4am alarm a bit harsh. Felt like I had just closed my eyes when the alarm went off. But we were pretty quick about getting ready, checked out and headed to the start in Casa Grande. I don’t know what was going on that weekend, but all the hotel rooms in Casa Grande with two beds were booked. I like Leonard, but not enough to share a bed with him! Hence the hotel in Eloy. Anyway… we put our reflective gear on for the visibility check and got our queue sheets for the ride. It was relatively warm, so I opted not to put on my arm and leg warmers. We were ready to roll about 10 minutes before the start. Good timing!
600k
400k
About 4 miles out of town Leonard realized he didn’t have his water bottles. Were they stolen? Left in the car? hmmm… Where did he last see them? The refrigerator in the hotel room. D’oh! Luckily, the Day’s Inn was about 1/2 mile off our route, so we dropped off the group we were riding with and made a quick detour for his bottles. It had really cooled off when we got out of Casa Grande, so while Leonard went up to our room to get his bottles, I decided to put my arm and leg warmers on. Boy am I glad I did that! We got rolling again and the temperature steadily dropped until it got down into the high 40’s. Brrrr….
There was a bit of a head wind heading down the i-10 frontage road, but we still made pretty good time and got to the Circle K in Marana while quite a few riders were still there. I bought a couple bananas, an egg salad sandwich, a bottle of coconut milk with pineapple juice and some water for my bottles. We took our time, but still left before several of the other riders. The light headwind would continue pretty much all the way to Green Valley. I stopped at the turn on Mile Wide Road before heading into Tucson Mountain Park to strip off my arm and leg warmers. I caught Leonard shortly after the top. We made good time through the park and stopped at the Circle K on Kenney and Ajo to refuel. Don’t recall what I bought at that stop, but I’m pretty sure it included coconut milk.
The ride up mission road is always tedious. 1 to 2 percent uphill grade with a light headwind. It’s just a long mentally draining section of the ride. When we got to Helmet Peak we started passing groups of racers who were competing in the Tucson Bicycle Classic stage race. Those guys were MOVING! The sound of the packs going by was also quite impressive. Makes you wonder what a Tour de France stage sounds like when the main pack goes by. Pretty impressive I’m sure.
Trevetti Restaurant in Green Valley, AZ
We stopped in Green Valley for lunch at the Trivetti restaurant for lunch. They assured us they could get us our food in 10 minutes. Great! They let us put our bikes in the office in back, very nice! We ordered the three course special. Homemade Minestrone soup, Lasagna and a slide of super sweet cake. After ordering I went and washed the salt off my face. That felt pretty good. It took a bit longer than 10 minutes to get our food, but it was REALLY good. Then the problems started. Apparently they were having some problems with their computers. It probably took a good 45 minutes if not longer to pay our bill. We were probably there an hour longer than we should have been. Steve Kinney, a fellow Brevet rider from Canada who wasn’t doing the 600k walked in and said HI! (Sorry Steve, I think I called you Paul… for some reason I keep mixing you up with Paul Danhaus, so sorry to both of you!). Steve was supporting a friend who was participating in the TBC. Several 600k riders walked in while we were trying to pay our bill and they were able to put their bikes in the main dining room. The folks at Trivetti were really nice, too bad about the computer problems to pay.
We caught a good tailwind all the way to the turn to Sonoita. On the way up Sahuarita Road I told Leonard to look back. You could see the climb up Helmet Peak Road off in the distance. One of the final climbs we’d face on the way back. We also stopped at the RoadRunner convenience store on Houghton Road to refill our bottles before hitting the climb up to Sonoita.
Climbing is a very individual activity. You have to find your rhythm and just ride your own tempo to the top. So Leonard and I split up on the climb. He wasn’t doing too badly, but it’s a super long climb. Probably the hardest climb he’s ever done and he had to face it with over 100 miles already on his legs. It’s been a while since I’ve done that climb, but I told Leonard there were 4 or 5 “false” summits, where you think you are reaching the top, but as soon as you crest, you see the road going up even further in the distance. That part was true, but I also told him there were a number of big rollers, then a 4-5 mile descent to Sonoita. That was just plain wrong. There was one long one mile 6% descent that was fun, but that was before the rollers and it’s a pretty flat ride into town.
Leonard cresting the LONG Sonoita Climb
We stopped at the convenience store in Sonoita and I had a ham and cheese sandwich with potato salad. That was just what I needed. It was starting to get dark by the time we were ready to leave, so we changed the lenses in our sunglasses to clear, put on our reflective gear and put on our vests because the temperature really plummets up there after dark! We stopped once on the climb out of Sonoita to check the distance to the Elgin turn. We really didn’t want to miss that! Susan had grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup waiting when we got to the Elgin lodge. We both had a sandwich, but passed on the soup. It was a slow ride to AZ83, the road to Tombstone. But once we made that turn, we had a strong tailwind and a gradual descent which made for a really fast ride! People started passing us going in the other direction. They were several hours ahead of us. But our goal was to finish and we just took our time.
The temperature had really dropped by the time we got to Tombstone. We both opted for some Chicken Noodle Soup at the Circle K in Tombstone. I also got some chocolate covered pretzels. Those were tasty! Unfortunately Leonard forgot his sunglasses on top of the ice box outside of the Circle K when we left. But he flagged down a couple riders who were still headed into Tombstone and asked them to look for them. The ride back to the Elgin Lodge wasn’t too bad, but we were back to that tedious headwind with a slight climb. That slowed us down a bit. I told Leonard the temperature would really drop when we made the turn towards Elgin and I wasn’t wrong. It dropped down into the low 30’s. That was cold. We got our brevet cards signed, but didn’t stay to eat. We had another 9 miles to the Sonoita Inn and we were both ready for bed. Those 9 miles seemed to take forever. It didn’t help that I had to stop for a natural break along the way.
When we got to the Sonoita Inn, we found food waiting for us! A carafe of red wine with cheese and crackers was on the common room table, so I helped myself to a glass (or two) and some cheese. There was also a small fridge with orange juice, yogurt, muffins, bagels, cream cheese… mmmm…. We ate are fill then headed up to the room for showers. We were ready for bed by 2 am with a 5:30am alarm set. Ouch.
When the alarm went off we decided to wait another 45 minutes before getting ready to leave. Packed up our overnight bags and brought them downstairs for Susan to pickup then had some breakfast. Leonard also called Susan to check on his sunglasses. They were found! Thanks to whomever picked them up in Tombstone! There was another rider eating and we chatted for a few minutes before heading out.
It was a bit brisk, but we had waited for the sun to come up, so it wasn’t too bad on the rolling hills heading out of Sonoita. We had finished about 235 miles with another 140 to go. The quads were a bit tired on the climbs. Leonard said he was going to take it easy on the long descent to Sahuarita road because he didn’t have his sunglasses to shield his eyes from the wind, but every time I looked back he was pretty close to me. That is one fun and fast descent! I didn’t have to wait long before Leonard pulled up to the turn onto Sahuarita road. He said he couldn’t resist enjoying the descent.
We stopped at the “RoadRunner” convenience store on Houghton for breakfast. We shared an avocado and both had a “Big Boy breakfast wrap.” That was really good. We took our time at that stop and met a pretty strong cross wind when we headed out again. But we were still able to make pretty good time. The climb up Helmet Peak road is similar to the climb up Mission road the previous day, just a bit steeper 2-3% with a cross wind that just makes it mentally draining. Leonard stopped once for a natural break but when he remounted and tried to stand, his knee gave out. I’ve had that happen before, it’s not a fun experience! It forces you to stay in the saddle way longer than you want to. Everytime you try to stand your knee just won’t take it. We still had 70 or 80 miles to go! Not a good time to have knee problems. He took the rest of the climb pretty cautiously. Susan caught up to us and gave Leonard his sunglasses and refilled our bottles (Thanks Susan!) about mid-way up the climb.
At the top we had a nice strong tail wind when we turned onto Mission road, but with Leonard’s knee issue we weren’t able to capitalize on it too much. But easy spinning is great for overall recovery and I’m sure that helped with his knee and allowed him to finish the ride. Mission road has some really nasty sections of road. I was going relatively fast and wasn’t paying enough attention to the road in front of me and hit a pot hole that gave me a pinch flat on my rear wheel. I told Leonard to continue while I quickly changed the tube. Then I really started moving, maintaining over 30mph until I caught Leonard outside of Tucson. On one of the nice smooth newly paved sections I noticed my rear wheel didn’t feel right… almost like it had a flat spot. When we got to the Circle K in South Tucson, I took a look and noticed I had cracked my rim. It was ride-able, but it definitely needs to be replaced. If the road wasn’t really smooth I didn’t notice it.
The counter lady said they didn’t have a public restroom, but let me use it “if I was quick.” So I was, then picked up a can of chicken noodle soup and some coconut milk. When I finished that I realized I was a bit too quick, so I went across the street to the Diamond Shamrock to use their facilities and to get a pickle. Leonard made his way over and we headed back out. The temperature had really gone up. While sitting in the shade, my Garmin registered just over 100 degrees. As soon as we started riding it dropped back into the 90’s but that’s still pretty hot.
The majority of the climbing was over, but we still had to get through the big rolling hills of Tucson Mountain Park. Leonard dropped back a bit to take it easy with his knee. As I approached Old Tucson I realized I needed to use a restroom again. Odd. I figured I’d stop at the Desert Museum on the far side of the park. But as I rode along, that call of nature got much more urgent. Then demanding. So I had to make an emergency stop! For the first time I had to break out the emergency roll of Charmin I’ve carried on these long rides for probably 6 or more years!
Leonard had gone by while I was off in the bushes, but I caught him just before the descent down Mile Wide Road. I explained what happened and he reminded me of the scene in Cast Away. Who knew that coconut milk is a natural laxative!?! I won’t be drinking that in large quantities anymore! We had to stop again at a Chevron on Sandario road so I could use the facilities. This was not good. I drank a bunch of ice water and had a “Big Poppa” pickle before we headed out again. We still had a tailwind, but it was starting to shift around a bit.
We stopped at the last official checkpoint at the Circle K in Marana where I used the facilities yet again and resorted to some Imodium. With my stomach feeling the way it was, I just filled my bottles and skipped eating anything. The rest of the way to Casa Grande we pretty much had a cross wind or cross/head wind. The frontage road stretch on the way back just seems to take forever, but we eventually made it to the turn outside of Picacho. Leonard was holding up pretty well with his knee, but was starting to bonk a bit so we made one last stop at the Circle K in Eloy, about 13 miles from the finish.
I pushed the pace a bit to the finish in an attempt to get there before dark. We got there before dark at 7:02 pm, just over 38 hours after the start. Leonard showed great determination finishing this ride and is a Super Randonnuer!
Wow, has it really been over a year since I’ve posted anything?? Man time flies! I did have a bit of technical difficulty, but certainly should have fixed it sooner than I did. In my last post (from Feb 2010(!)) I mentioned that 2010 would be a year of cross training and down time. That’s pretty much how it turned out. I didn’t do any ultra-distance events, although I did finish several centuries on my road bikes. One highlight was the 2010 Multiple Sclerosis “Bay to Bay” Tour. This was the third year my company has participated in the event. For 2010 we had 36 people on the team who raised over $55,000 for the MS Society! NetApp was also an official sponsor for the event. Good times! For 2011 we’re shooting for 100 riders working to raise $100,000! Contact me if you’d like to join us or you can DONATE to help us reach our goal.
Ride Marshal at the 2010 Multiple Sclerosis Bay to Bay tour
I also did a couple half marathons with Annette and shaved 45 minutes off my Tucson Marathon time! It may not sound like it, but I really did take quite a bit of time for recovery and relaxing. I needed it, my motivation at the end of 2009 was lacking.
2010 Tucson Marathon Finisher!
Finishing the 2010 Tour of the White Mountains in Show Low, AZ
In terms of cross-training Mike Cox at Curbside Cyclery hooked me up with a sweet 2009 Cannondale Rize 2 mountain bike. I have to admit I’m really enjoying single track riding! I bought an annual pass for Usery Park and have been hitting the trails there quite a bit. Blevins trail with Moon Rock trail is my favorite loop there, although I’ll occasionally throw in Cats peak trail when I want a bit more intensity. I’ve only done Pass Mountain trail once, but need a bit more experience before I try that again! My only mountain bike event for 2010 was the Tour of the White Mountains in Show Low, AZ. I originally signed up for the 65 mile event, but after getting some feedback from friends who have done it before, I wisely decided to back down to the 35 mile version. That was a tough ride, but I finished strong and plan to do the full 65 mile event in 2011!
Speaking of 2011, I’ve been off to a pretty good start! My buddy Leonard Zito decided he wanted to do the 2011 spring brevet series.
Me and Leonard Zito after 200k Brevet
He’s done a few centuries over the past couple years but hasn’t done any ultra-distance events. So I decided I’d serve as a domestique and pace him through the series. A brevet series consists of 4 rides of progressively longer distance. So far we’ve done 3 of 4 events and Leonard has proven himself to be quite a good ultra-distance rider. He’s done an excellent job capturing images and details of the events on his blog.
Leonard climbing Gates Pass on the 300k Brevet
The series starts with a 200k (126 mile) event. No sweat, well maybe a little sweat, but not too bad. The second event is 300k (190 miles) which is a bit more challenging. The 400k (260 miles) is always a challenge and this year was no different (these links go to Leonard’s blog). It was truly epic and very reminiscent of the 2005 400k Brevet. Leonard’s blog on the 400k is a quick read with some great pictures. The final 600k (380 mile) event is this coming weekend (March 19-20).
In between the 300k and 400k Annette and I ran the Lost Dutchman 1/2 marathon. We shaved about 12 minutes off our time from last year and set a new “couples” best time (our personal best time running a 1/2 marathon together, nothing official just our own tracking of our completion times…). The Lost Dutchman course is very scenic without too much climbing. I highly recommend it! If you’ve never done a 1/2 marathon, the Lost Dutchman would be an excellent choice!
That pretty much brings us to this weekend. For various reasons I haven’t been able to train as consistently as I’d like, so I was starting to get a bit worried that I’d be ready to pull Leonard through 380 miles. Leonard is excellent about recognizing his capabilities and adjusting. I’ve ridden with some other friends who have turned themselves inside out before telling me I’m going too hard. But Leonard has a good feel for his “ride all day” effort level. I use power meters on my bikes, so I know how many watts are being created at a given effort level. During the 200k, Leonard would tell me when to back off and I found that if I maintained about 180 watts, Leonard stayed comfortable. I generally ride at 220-240 watts, so that was well within my comfort zone. It worked well for both of us. Riding based on watts is great because it negates the effects of wind or climbs. 180 watts is 180 watts. So we’d slow down on hills or in the wind, but our effort level remained roughly the same.
Back of the Enfield Chalet in Show Low, AZ
Anyway, back to the concern about the lack of consistent training… Mesa Schools are out for spring break next week, so Annette and I decided to spend a few days at our “chalet” in Show Low, AZ (Chalet is the architecture type, really … and I’ve been told cabins don’t have garages).
Enfield Chalet in Show Low, AZ
Jake had a commitment Saturday night, so we were planning to drive up on Sunday. I didn’t have any plans for Saturday, so, what the heck, I decided to ride my bike up. I’d done the Scottsdale to Payson ride several times as part of the “Answer to the Challenge” but had never turned right in Payson onto 260. I’ve been wanting to try to ride my bike to Show Low ever since we bought the chalet and this seemed like an ideal time. So that’s what I did.
I didn’t have any time pressure, so I left Mesa around 7:30am with my bike loaded with my standard long Brevet setup (generator hub light, couple rear flashing lights, reflective straps, trunk of extra food and clothes…). My course was over Usery Pass to Bush Highway. Bush Highway to Beeline. Beeline to Payson for that right turn onto 260. 260 to Show Low. Simple. It took about an hour to get to Beeline from my house. There’s one steep climb right before Saguaro Lake. I definitely felt the extra weight on my bike going up that hill! I got into a zone and set a good pace to the Beeline. Apparently I passed Leonard somewhere on Beeline where he was stopped to change a flat. Leonard put in a nice 101 mile training ride that morning. I didn’t even notice him, I was in my cruising mode.
It’s amazing how much you forget about how hard a ride is when you haven’t done it in a while. There is some serious climbing to get to Payson along with some super nice descents. I set my high speed for the day at 50.9 mph on the first big descent. Nice. I took my time on the hills and stopped twice for natural breaks. The temperature at the start of the ride was around 58, dropped into the low 50s through the Salt River section, but jumped to 78 near Rye. That was pretty warm. Sweat was pouring off of me on the climb up Rye hill. That is one LONG climb and I was starting to bonk about 3/4ths of the way up. I ate some food, but my energy level was still off. It took about 5 hours to get to Payson. Not too bad considering it included over 7,600 feet of climbing! I stopped at Cousin’s subs for a sandwich and to relax for a bit. One sandwich wasn’t quite enough, so I had a second! I felt MUCH better after that!
Checking the label on the Coconut Milk w/ Pineapple juice. Mmmmm...
With renewed energy I make my way out of Payson, but stopped at the Circle K in Starr Valley to get some coconut milk. If you haven’t discovered coconut milk yet, give it a try! A single serving has more potassium than 2 bananas. The Coconut w/ pineapple juice (pina colada!) is my favorite. Most sports drinks tend to taste nasty when they warm up. On this ride I decided to test the coconut milk and stuck a box (yes, it comes in a box) in my jersey pocket before I left Mesa. It. tastes. good. warm. For some reason Circle K stocks this miracle beverage, so if I see a Circle K, you know I’ll be stopping for some Coconut milk!
With the turn out of Payson I picked up a tail wind that would stay with me most of the way to Show Low. Nice!
Quick stop on the climb up the Mogollon Rim
Made the 5-8% grades just a bit easier to deal with, but the climb up to the top of the rim really kicked my ass. That’s just a super tough, super long climb. It was really slow going. I did stop once for a quick pic (hard to show how steep the climb is, but notice the angle of the trees).
I was wiped when I got to the top! And it was freakin’ freezing! Should have taken another photo of all the snow. I had to stop again to put on my arm and leg warmers! I started again, but pulled off once more after about a mile to put on my full finger glove liners. Wow, that was cold! But now I was ready to ride! From the top of the Rim to Heber is primarily down hill. With that tail wind I started making really, really good time. The easy spinning also allowed my legs to recover from the climb up the Rim.
There’s a Circle K just outside of Heber that I stopped at to replace my now empty box of coconut milk and to refill my water bottles. The ladies at the counter asked how I was doing and I said “I’m tired.” They didn’t seem too surprised that I had ridden up from Mesa, guess other people have made the trip by bike. Anyway, I enjoyed the ride down into Heber then started the climb to Overgaard. It was about 5:30pm so I decided it was time for dinner and stopped at Subway for a footlong ham and cheese with avocado. That was just what I needed. I called Annette and we talked about the remaining 35ish miles. Neither of us expected it to be too bad.
Nasty looking jersey!
The worst was definitely behind me, but there were still several 5-6% grades between Overgaard and Show Low. That friendly tail wind became more intermittent as the road zig zagged along causing it to become a strong crosswind at times. I can honestly say I was getting tired of the climbing by the time I saw the lights of Show Low. Of course there’s a nice long climb to actually get into town, but it wasn’t too bad. Neither was the final climb up to the Chalet. It peaks at about 18%, but it’s a pretty short section. When I got to the chalet I looked in the mirror and had to take a picture of the dried sweat on my jersey. That’s what almost 18,000 feet of climbing does! Leonard said to just scrape it off and use it in my next electrolyte drink! LOL!
Ok, so I haven’t been updating this site in a while and I haven’t been posting anything on examiner.com, so what’s up??? I’ve actually been pretty busy, but haven’t gotten around to posting any updates. For the “off” season I’ve been focusing on running. Strange, I know, but Annette discovered that she actually likes running and I _LOVE_ spending time with my wife, especially when it involves exercise! Those endorphins go a LONG way! 😉 So, we did the Phoenix 1/2 marathon and the Lost Dutchman 1/2 marathon. I did throw in the Casa Grande century in the mix in January, but it was a pretty uneventful ride. I rode hard. At the beginning I wanted to ride easy and started with a slow group, but two guys past me and I couldn’t resist that draft, so I jumped on the back.
We worked well together and started picking up other riders. At the first stop a few of us stopped to re-fuel, but by the second stop there were only 4 of us at the front. There was a pretty good cross wind blowing and I didn’t have nearly enough base miles in my legs to maintain the pace that was being hammered, so I dropped off. Never saw those guys again. At the lunch stop I saw a bunch of Bullshifters pull in, but I was getting ready to leave. There was a strong head wind on the way back and I was by myself most of the way. About 5 miles from the finish a big group caught me and I pretty much drafted into the finish.
After the Casa Grande century I shifted gears to focus on running for a bit. Annette and I planned to do the Phoenix 1/2 marathon AND the Lost Dutchman 1/2 marathon, which are not too far apart. I was disappointed in the Phoenix marathon. There were a TON of people, but the course… sucked. It wasn’t very scenic and had hills near the end that just killed my right knee. We wound up walking the last few miles. The Lost Dutchman 1/2 marathon on the other hand is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! They changed the route since I did it last year and it’s a lot flatter over all — and the course is extemely scenic! Annette and I set a personal best “couples” time of 2 hours 34 minutes doing a run/walk.
So we’re done with running for a while. I’ve decided to make this year a “rest” year and haven’t defined any specific cycling goals. I’m just going to go with the flow and see how that works out. I’ll be doing Mine Country Challenge in March and a friend wants to get Gold at El Tour de Phoenix, so I’ll ride that with him, but otherwise, no cycling on the schedule. Weird. Annette and I are thinking about doing the Napa 1/2 marathon in July, but haven’t committed on it yet. There are a few other rides like the Taylor House century in Flagstaff that I know I plan on doing, but I haven’t written down any specific goals for the year.
Ultimately I think this will be a year of cross-training and down-time. I’ve been going pretty hard for many years now and am looking forward to some changes. The running is definitely a change! Annette and I just bought a cabin in Show Low, so I’m thinking I may try to add some mountain biking into the mix. Stay tuned for that! 😉
