Mike Cox asked me to post some pix of the new Calfee (probably to show off what great work he does!) LOL. Calfee does great work (http://www.calfeedesign.com)
Me and my new ride. Calfee Tetra Pro with a translucent blue (you can see the carbon fabric under the paint) that fades to black. Notice the titanium couplers on the top tube and down tube that allow me to pack it in a “normal” airline approved suitcase.
This bike was literally made for me. 🙂 Closer shot of the titanium coupler. Interferes with the fade in the paint job a bit. Didn’t think about how that would impact the paint. Still love it though!
Tetra Pro, 25 year warranty on the frame, love that translucent paint job!
Hope this picture shows well on the web page. The paint really pops in the sun. Notice the Calfee signature gussets that add to overall frame stiffness. Head tube is extended 2mm from standard so I don’t need as many spacers for my handlebars.
Subdued graphics. Logo on the head tube and name down the fork and rear drops.
Very beefy bottom bracket. Notice all the gussets that add to stiffness. Power goes right to the back wheel. Stiffest bike I’ve ever ridden. Very nice!
My “Find Me Spot” personal satellite tracker secured to the back of my seat bag. The spot has a “patch” antennae located unter the spot logo that needs to have a clear view of the sky. I was having some problems getting consistent real-time web updates until I put together this mount. Now it works perfectly.
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Mike put a Shimano Ultegra SL Triple group on it for me for some of the more, ummm…, ok yeah, “extreme” climbing events that I like to do (happy Kim and Robert? I admitted it!). I’ve had it for a bit over a month and have two centuries on it, plus a quite a few loops around Usery! It handles extremely well on fast descents and lets me spin up steep or long grades. The true test will be “Son of Death Ride” on September 5th. 17,000 feet of cumulative ascent. Should be a great ride!
THANKS! to Mike Cox for custom ordering this for me and putting it together! As always, you did a fantastic job! For the rest of you, if you need a high quality bicycle mechanic (or any other bike needs), you can’t go wrong with Mike Cox at Curbside Cyclery!
I didn’t do as well as I would have liked during my last two “big” events, suffering from knee pain during each. Hindsight is 20/20 and I know I wasn’t properly prepared, especially considering the amount of hill climbing involved for both of them. My next “big” event is the “Son of Death Ride” … 129 miles with 17,000 feet of cumulative ascent. A HARD ride. This time I plan to be more prepared!
Barry Reger told me he tried a number of remedies when he was experiencing knee pain, but taking 4000 mg of fish oil was what helped him. I’m not partial to fish oil, but don’t mind krill oil which has similar benefits, so I started taking that regularly. I also have been much more consistent about getting daily training rides done. So I’m feeling pretty good overall, but was still concerned about the knee pain from the Taylor House Century a few weeks ago and decided I needed some high altitude distance with moderate hills to see if the knee was still a problem.
I got on Google and looked at the distance between Clint’s Well and Lake Mary. 38 miles. Hmmm… Add a loop or two around Mormon lake and that would make a good century. I’ve ridden Lake Mary road before and there’s a pretty good shoulder most of the way, so it’s relatively safe. I was up at 5 am Saturday morning, but was slower than I wanted getting ready. The drive up to Clint’s Well also took longer than I expected. I had hoped to be on the road riding by 6:30, but wasn’t able to until around 7:15am. I also forgot my Find Me Spot locator, so no real time tracking on this ride.
The route has some nice long 4% grades with a few flat sections for making time and a couple steeper hill for some good let work. I was riding strong and the hills weren’t bothering me. About 20 miles into the ride I had a front tire flat. Dang. Very small fragment of glass that I think I picked up on Thursday while riding in the rain (had a front tire flat then too). A quick tube change and I was on my way again. It was a perfect morning at the start. Not too cold, slight breeze and not a cloud in sight. Riding in the pines is sure nice! As I got closer to Mormon Lake, a pretty strong cross wind started to develop. Three guys passed me on a hill about 2 miles or so from Mormon lake, but they were riding pretty inconsistently, so I went around them on the last climb and lost sight of them on the descent before the lake. That cross wind got incredibly strong as I went along the edge of the lake bed. Strong enough to turn my handlebars and I kept my bike angled into the wind. Hard riding!
Once I got to the far end of the lake I had a choice about riding a loop around Mormon lake to get my mileage up to the 100 mile mark. With that wind, I knew I’d be pretty tempted to bypass the loop on the way back, so I made the turn and rode around the lake to the Mormon Lake convenience store. There were a few other riders there commiserating about the strong wind. I filled my bottles and had a cream soda and a giant 1/4 pound oatmeal raison cookie, then headed out again. That cross wind was a super friendly tail wind on the way back to Lake Mary road, then cross/tail for a bit before shifting to the side and causing my bike to lean over again.
When you encounter another rider off their bike, it’s cycling courtesy to slow down and ask if everything is ok and if the cyclist has what they need (never know when you may be in a similar situation). Going down a slight descent, there was a cyclist walking her bike so I slowed and asked if she was ok. She said she thought the wind was going to blow her right off her bike and decided to walk down the hill. As I continued on I heard her yell “How are you staying up?!?” A few miles down the road I encountered another guy walking his bike. When I asked him if he was ok, he just yelled “damn wind!” and kept walking.
As I neared Lake Mary, the wind started shifting around quite a bit, so I’d get a really strong head wind for a few minutes, then a strong tail wind pushing me up 1-2% grades at 27 mph! That wind was just crazy. Once past upper Lake Mary I started to wonder about my Google distance estimates. 38 miles between Clints Well and Lake Mary. Was that “Upper Lake Mary” or “Lower Lake Mary”? Hmmmm… The convenience store I was headed to was at the lower end of Lower Lake Mary. I pulled in at about 11:15 and had a ham and cheese lunchable for lunch with some Doritos and a Cherry Cream soda.
When I left, that wind was still shifting around but became a strong cross wind again once I got past the upper part of Upper Lake Mary. Luckily the trees broke the force of the wind and it was only when I past open fields that I felt the full force. Unfortunately Mormon lake is one huge field. I think the wind actually got stronger since I had been by before. I looked at my mileage and realized my Google estimate was off and I’d be doing around 110 miles, instead of 100, so I decided not to do another loop around the lake. It may actually have been a better decision to go around because that would have kept me protected by trees. Instead, I faced a gale force cross wind that literally blew me off the shoulder into the regular traffic lane several times. I’ve ridden in a lot of hard wind, but I think that stretch along Mormon lake was the strongest cross wind I’ve ever encountered. Wow, just brutal. I was down to one water bottle when I got to the other turn towards Mormon Lake village. It was only 2 miles from that end, but it would have been directly into that head wind, so I decided to just keep going. I felt pretty good, even with that wind.
Once I got back into the trees on the far side of the lake, I was protected again and started making better time. The wind shifted a bit and I found myself with a cross tail wind to make even better time. I knew I’d have 20 miles left when I passed the spot where I had the flat. The Happy Jack ranger station is about 15 miles from Clints Well and I had to stop there to fill my bottles. The office was closed, but the station has a water tap outsite. I sat on a bench and drank a bottle, ate a honey stinger bar and relaxed for a few minutes.
The rest of the ride was pretty much downhill, so it didn’t take too long to get back to my car. 112 miles total in 7.5 hours (including stops). Not a bad day on the bike. I felt good and didn’t have any of the knee pain I’ve had in the last couple rides. Thanks for the fish oil suggestion Barry, it seems to have helped! Next weekend is the High Country 200k Brevet (ShowLow to Springerville to Sunrise back to ShowLow). With this ride I should be well prepared for it!
Mike Cox at Curbside Cyclery finished my new Calfee while my kids and I were off camping at Kinnikinick Lake the weekend before the Taylor House Century. Luckily Jeff Lockwood was able to squeeze in a bike fit for me on Monday, so the bike would be ready for it’s maiden century! I had decided to try one of those saddles with the gap in the middle to see if it was more comfortable on long distance rides, but we couldn’t get the fit quite right, so I defaulted to a tried and true Fi’zi:k Arione which corrected the fit issue.
I drove up to Flagstaff on Friday night and spent the night at Dave and Jackie Flake’s house (thanks for the hospitality!). Dave was planning to get up early for work, so I got up pretty early myself and had more than enough time to get to the start. So I stopped at a Village Inn for a good breakfast. I still got to the start with over a half hour before the start. I checked in, finished getting my stuff together, then headed over to where some fellow Bullshifters were gathered.
We had a nice tailwind for the early part of the ride, so the pace picked up pretty good. I rode with a few Bullshifters at the start, then someone flatted and we stopped for a minute, but another group of Bullshifters went by, so a couple of us continued on. We split up a bit on some of the faster descents and I found myself riding alone for a bit. Then Dave Holdeman came by with a couple other guys, so I jumped on Dave’s wheel for quite a while. The two guys he was with pulled just about all the rest of the way through the flats outside of town, but they pulled away on the climb up to the Sunset Crater turn.
I stuck to Dave’s wheel, then went around him at the top. I think he may have decided to wait for someone because I didn’t see him again. I had a fast ride down to the Wupatki turn. Shortly after that turn two guys caught me and we worked together for quite a while. There were a number of false ascents and descents through there. On one of the 2% descents, we dropped one guy, so two of us rode to the SAG stop together. I filled my bottles, used a port-a-potty, then headed off, taking a pretty short break. It was starting to warm up pretty good, so I wanted to get back up into the pines before the temperature got too hot.
About 5 miles or so out from there, the guy I rode into the SAG stop with pulled up, but I knew what the climb up to Sunset Crater was like, so I told him I’d be taking my time so he rode on with another guy. I saw him again at the SAG stop shortly after the climb started, but he was getting ready to leave when I pulled in. They had little bite size red potatoes at this stop, which are turning into one of my favorite mid-ride foods. They also had a tasty seasoned salt mixture to go on them. Tasty!
The Calfee had been riding GREAT so far. The couplers make a bit of noise that I can hear in the headset, but it’s not too bad. It handles REALLY nicely on fast descents. And the triple gearing was just what I needed for a long climb. I was a bit concerned about my left knee, but it hadn’t been bothering me up to that point.
Anyway, the climbing really started in earnest after that water stop with several long 6-8% grades. I just dropped into a granny gear and slowly spun up those sections. I hadn’t really been on my bike much since the Death Ride and the lack of training was starting to have an effect. Those steeper grades started to feel a bit harder, so I was ready for a break when I got to the SAG stop that was at an overlook about 3/4ths of the way up. I filled my bottles again and had a popsicle (the temperature was getting pretty warm).
A mile or two before the summit, there’s a relatively short 13% grade, but it was enough to make that knee pain return. This time it wasn’t the sudden, sharp pain, but a constant ache. Not good. I eased off my effort quite a bit, but even spinning that knee pain was still there. There was one more SAG stop just before the turn back onto 89, so I decided to take a longer break there to rest my knee. Clouds had been slowly building up and it looked like we had a pending monsoon storm. A loud crack of thunder convinced me it was time to leave. The last time I did this century I hit a solid downpour right before getting back to town and didn’t really want to repeat the experience.
We picked up a pretty strong headwind with the turn onto 89. I had a good descent, the plowed my way through the wind. Only 10 miles left, but with that headwind and some slight inclines, my knee was really starting to bother me. There is a steeper climb about 2-3 miles from the finish. I got most of the way up, but my knee was really starting to get bad, so I got off about 200 meters from the top and walked the rest of the way up. Luckily that last mile was a descent, so I pretty much coasted to the finish.
Overall it was a great ride until my knee started acting up. I was talking to Mike and Cindy Sturgill at the finish lunch about my knee and Cindy mentioned that she had a problem with her IT band that was causing knee pain. I think that may also have been my problem because my knee stopped bothering me almost immediately, but my lower back and the bottom of my leg started to ache pretty good on the drive home. I don’t think I have enough climbing miles in my legs to be doing the more extreme climbing events that I did in July. But I’ve done quite a few Usery Loops and a trip out to Beeline without any knee problems.
I’m still planning to do the Son of Death Ride in September, so I’ll be focusing on getting a lot of climbing miles in between now and then! 🙂
I was oncall the week before the 4th through the weekend. That translated to a lot of time on my rollers. Not the best way to prep for a ride with 15,000 feet of climbing! We had quite the vacation week planned. Drive up to Las Vegas on Thursday (after a morning Bush Highway Loop ride), then a longer drive to Markleville for packet pickup and then to South Lake Tahoe. After the ride, we headed to Magic Mountain for some roller coasters, a long drive back to Mesa to pack for a camping trip at Kinnikinick lake up near Flagstaff for the rest of the week. 2200+ miles of driving! Ouch!
I was feeling pretty good for the start of the Death Ride. I got to the start a little later than I wanted and left my car at around 5 minutes to 6am. It was a pretty nice morning overall. I took my time to the start of the first climb up Monitor Pass. Lot’s of 6% grades. I made pretty good time overall to the top where I got my first pass stamp and stopped to enjoy the refreshments. They had little boiled, salted red potatoes. Wow, those are my new favorite ride food. Good stuff! After filling my bottles I headed over the top for the fast descent down the other side.
There were a TON of people at the bottom, so I just got my second pass stamp, turned around and started for the top again. About 70% of the way up I ran into John and Liz Mazzola who were on their way up on their tandem (sorry about calling you the Toussaints!). We chatted for a bit, then I started riding my own pace up the hill again. I made a quick stop at the water stop on the way up since I hadn’t stopped at the bottom, then continued back up to the top. Sadly, they were out of those red potatoes, so I snacked on the more standard fare (nuts, orange slices, bananas) before heading down for another really fast descent.
Two passes down and I was still feeling really good and made quick time to the start of the Ebbets Pass climb. In my opinion the front of Ebbets is the hardest climb on the ride. It’s not as long as the other passes, but has the steepest grades and goes up to the highest point. I started to suffer on that climb. It’s a hard, hard climb. When I was a couple miles from the top I felt a sudden sharp pain in my left knee … “What the???” I backed off my effort and the pain didn’t come back, but then the altitude started to get to me. I had a great ride over Monitor Pass, but not so much with Ebbets. Couldn’t seem to catch my breath and just didn’t feel right when I got to the stop, so I just got my third pass stamp and continued straight over to get to a lower altitude.
I remembered from prior Death Rides that the back side of Ebbets is very rough in spots, so I took my time on the descent. By the time I got to the bottom for my 4th pass stamp I was feeling a lot better. But I decided to hand out for a while and recover some before heading back up the hill. They had another unique item on the food table – oatmeal cookies with a slab of sweet cream cheese on them. Man those were GOOD. Ok salted boiled red potatoes or oatmeal cookies with sweet cream cheese… MMMmmmm.. Hard call, but I think I preferred the red potatoes.
I was feeling good again when I started again, but forgot to re-sunscreen. So I stopped shortly after leaving and reapplied sunscreen. When I started up again, I had another of those sharp sudden pains in my left knee. It hurt bad enough that I think I actually groaned out loud. It didn’t seem to bother me if I just spun easily (thanks to my triple, that was possible), but when I tried to use power, I’d get that pain. Not good at all. I still have a number of rides I want to do this year and a knee injury would compromise them all.
I made it slowly to the top, then had a fast ride down again. There as a pretty bad looking accident on one of the corners and I passed an ambulance on it’s way up a bit farther down. The lunch stop was at the bottom. They had wraps for lunch, but they didn’t look all that appealing, so I continued. I was spinning easily, but wasn’t making very good time. I checked the time and I still had almost 3 hours before they closed the checkpoint before the climb to Carson, so I had plenty of time to get there even at my slow speed. I went into a mental debate on whether or not to continue. “I could do some significant damage to my knee if I kept going.” “I had plenty of time to finish, even at a slow pace.” “There was still a lot of climbing left to risk serious knee injury. “ “I could still make it though.” Then the wind picked up and spinning easily became more difficult. Crap. That finalized my decision and I decided not to continue onto Carson Pass. So 91 miles with 4 passes completed.
And with this ride I “retire” my 2002 Trek 5200. It’s been a great bike, has taken me on some of my absolute best rides and was my primary mode of transportation to work for several years. Hopefully I’ll find a home for it with someone who will get just as much enjoyment as I got from it.
I’m finally moving into the 21st Century! The original website is still available and linked to the left under the “Legacy/Original MikeERides.com.” All of the old content is still there, but I won’t be updating that site anymore (except maybe to reference this site). I maintained that site with Microsoft Frontpage, then changed to Sharepoint Designer. But I was restricted to the one PC with those applications installed on them. I’ve been doing more and more on laptops and essentially stopped using that PC, so updating the website became inconsistent. So I started looking for alternatives. Originally I was thinking about Drupal, which is very flexible … too flexible. Then I tried WordPress and love it! It’s easy to maintain, has a TON of pre-defined plugins, allows people to subscribe to or comment on my posts and allows me to post from any machine I happen to be using. The more I played with the interface, the more I liked it. Anyway hope you like the new layout. Comment or send a contact form and let me know what you think. 🙂 Mike
Three weeks after I only made it 200 miles on a 400k attempt in Southern Utah, I went back for a much less ambitious 200k! Since the ride fell on Saturday June 20th, the day before father’s day, I expected to make the drive alone. Luckily, my friend and fellow randonnuer Carlton VanLeuven also wanted to do the ride and contacted me the week before to see if I’d be interested in carpooling to Utah. Even better, I had some work to finish before I could leave on Friday, but since Carlton was going I stuck him with the first driving shift (thanks Carlton!) so I could do some work until we got far enough north that I lost my cell signal. Relatively uneventful drive up north. We did pass one femaie RAAM racer between Flagstaff and Tuba City, but I’m not sure who it was. I took over driving in Page and we made pretty good time overall up to the start in Panguitch.
The Bryce Canyon 200k is essentially the first 100 mile loop from the Desperado Dual, with additional out and back rides to Tropic, Utah in Bryce Canyon and an out and back a bit farther along to Junction, UT. The weather forecast called for some strong wind out of the south/southwest and scattered showers. We wouldn’t be let down. Carlton and I got up early and made it to the start with plenty of time. Panguitch isn’t a big town, so we just rode our bikes from the hotel to the start. We chatted with Lonnie Wolff, the RBA, and a couple other riders while we waited for the official start time.
After last month, I decided I wanted to keep my effort down to around 180 watts. With 4,500 feet of climbing on this ride, keeping that average would be a bit tough for me! Carlton and I started together and worked pretty well together. Carlton hasn’t been riding ultra distance for long, but he certainly is getting strong fast! There is a pretty good climb shortly after getting out of town that goes past some Hoodoo’s. We stopped once to take a couple pics on our cell phone cameras. A guy from Yuma past us while we were paused. The wind had been blowing at the start, but it really started to get strong when we got to the top of that climb. But at least it was a cross wind, so it really wasn’t too bad.
The guy from Yuma stopped at a gas station a mile or so before the drop down to Tropic. I’d never done that stretch, but it was a FAST 8% 2 mile+ descent! I didn’t quite break 50mph going down, but dropped Carlton. I slowed down near the bottom and Carlton wasn’t too far back. The road was pretty damp from a shower that had passed through and we did get sprinkled on a bit going into town. We stopped at the official checkpoint to get our receipts to prove we were there, but didn’t stay too long and left together.
That fast descent was now a hard climb! Carlton’s quite a bit lighter than I am, so he made pretty good time getting up that hill. At least he was nowhere in sight by the time I got back up to the top! But I did a pretty good job monitoring my effort and was satisfied that I didn’t over-do it. Just after making the turn toward Antimony, an antelope and I exchanged a long stare as I went by. That cross wind was now a really strong tail wind and I started making good time, riding over 30mph for quite a long distance. It still took a good 15-20 miles before I started to get glimpses of Carlton riding off in the distance. We drop down into a canyon before Antimony and I came pretty close to catching Carlton, but the wind shifted and we suddenly faced a strong headwind. I didn’t want to force it through that wind, so I slowed down and Carlton pulled away again.
Other than the wind, it was a nice ride through that canyon. Carlton was still at the country store in Antimony when I pulled in. I filled my bottles, had a quick snack then we headed out again, but didn’t stay together too long. Carlton was riding a bit harder than I wanted, so I let him go. Didn’t take too long before I lost sight of him again. The wind started shifting a bit as we road past some pretty big bluffs, then turned into a strong cross wind. With the turn towards Junction, it became that super nice tail wind again. Carlton was chatting with some local folks at the checkpoint gas station when I pulled in to fill my bottles again.
We commiserated a bit about the headwind we would face headed back to Panguitch, then headed out. We weren’t disappointed, that was one hard headwind (sustained at around 25 mph, directly in our face!). Carlton did a lot of the work getting us to Circleville, then we started trading pulls. There’s about a 10 mile section that goes through a valley and the wind seems to really increase through there. We had some super strong gusts. At one point, Carlton said he couldn’t keep the pace and I said “Good, neither can I!” We split up for a bit and rode at our own recovery paces, but never got too far apart. We’d alternate working together then riding at individual recovery pace. Near the end of that valley Carlton dropped way back, so I sat up and tried to recover some in that wind. Off in the distance we could see a pretty good rain cell that appeared directly in our path. Turns out Carlton slowed to eat some to regain some energy. I probably should have done the same.
It wasn’t long before he came by me, but I didn’t want to keep his pace and let him go. It was warming up quite a bit, so I took my arm warmer off and just plowed through that wind at a nice steady pace. About 5 miles from the finish I hit that rain cell. The temperature must have dropped a good 15-20 degrees in about 5 minutes. I quickly pulled over to get my arm warmers back on, then plodded through the rain to the finish. Surprisingly, Carlton had only gotten in a few minutes before me. We sat and chatted with Lonnie for a bit before heading off for showers and dinner. The last 35 miles or so were really windy, but overall it was a pretty fun ride (and a bit of time helps forget the pain of slogging through a strong headwind!) LOL
A few months ago I changed positions at my company. I now support the four corners region, which entails some travel. At the beginning of May I rode ok at Breathless Agony. Then I was in Denver, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas over a three week span. THAT is NOT a good plan for preparing for a 400k Brevet! I have a Calfee (www.calfeedesign.com) with couplers on order, so eventually I’ll be able to take a bike with me on my travels, but this month was a tough month for training! My brother was also in town the weekend before the ride and my whole family descended on us (good times, just no riding).
With the family in town, timing wasn’t quite right for driving to Las Vegas the week Tuesday before the ride so I took a flight. I got back Friday morning, but had a few conference calls and some last minute work items to get done and didn’t get out of Phoenix until late afternoon. I got to Hurricane a bit late, had a quick dinner and hit the sack.
The ride started at 4am AZ time. Lonnie Wolff, the Regional Brevet Administrator, told everyone it would be better to ride to the start at the “Over the Edge” bike shop because parking was limited. Luckily my hotel was less than a mile away. Still, I ran the timeline close and was the last one to arrive a few minutes before the start. Lonnie had a few comments and let us go right at the 5am (4am AZ) start.
The ride started with an immediate climb up the bluff next to Hurricane. I knew I hadn’t been riding much, so I wanted to keep my effort low. Unfortunately I forgot my heart rate monitor strap, but I had my powertap and could monitor watts. I figured if I kept my watts under 300 on climbs and 200-220 watts on the flats I’d do ok. It was dark at the start, so I wasn’t able to monitor my effort too closely. I probably worked a bit too hard because I stayed relatively close to Richard and Bryan. Once we hit the top, I set my effort at 200-220 watts. I think Bryan stayed with me for a bit, but pretty soon I was on my own to the first checkpoint stop at a gas station in Pipe Springs, AZ. I didn’t see Lonnie when I pulled in and went into the gas station to refill my bottles and get my brevet card initialed. Lonnie walked over while I was refilling my bottles and camelbak. Bryan and Richard arrived just as I was about to leave.
It was a quick ride into Fredonia, but faced a stiff wind when I turned toward Kanab. I immediately realized the 200-220 watts I had been maintaining was too much and backed it off to 180-200. There was a 2-3% climb that would become a theme for the rest of the ride. It seemed like every time I glanced down I was on a low grade tedious climb. It was slow going, but I was keeping my watts down. There was a pretty long fast descent before the next checkpoint and I saw Richard and Bryan a bit behind me before I made the drop. They arrived probably less than a minute after me at the next check. Bryan decided at that point that he had enough and took the bail-out turn to cut 150 miles off the ride by going through Zion National Park.
Richard and I continued, but Richard was going a bit harder than I wanted. I was in his draft, but was still using 250 watts! I told him I was watching my watts and was going to back off a bit to stay in the range I set for myself. He also slowed his pace, but after a while he slowly worked ahead. We were back on a pretty long climb and I was getting a strong urge to use a bathroom, not the quick kind. Luckily there was a rest area, so I pulled off for a quick break. The rest area had water, so I also washed my face and re-applied some sun screen. It was warming up a bit!
Richard was waiting for me at a gas station at Long Valley Junction at the top of the climb, but I didn’t notice as I went by. He surprised me when he went by me a short while later. I was still trying to be good about watching my watts and let him go ahead, but he waited for me again in Hatch. From there it was a slight descent pretty much all the way to Panguitch. Clouds had started to roll in and the temperature really dropped. With that slight descent, I was able to draft off of Richard without too much effort (80-160 watts). He pulled me all the way into Panguitch! We felt a few drops of rain just as we got into town. We stopped at the Conoco checkpoint for our receipts, then headed over to Hogi Yogi for lunch. With the lack of base miles, I was starting to suffer a bit, so I planned to eat a slow lunch and let it digest a bit before leaving.
Lonnie showed up while we were eating and we chatted a bit until he thought he saw another brevet rider go by and went to verify. Richard finished well before me and was ready to leave. I told him I needed a bit of time to rest and use the rest room. He waited with me for a while and we left together. Once again, Richard pulled me to the next turn on Utah Route 20 and the next set of climbs. Luckily all that drafting had let me recover quite a bit and my legs actually felt ok through the rollers before the main 8% climb. He was well off in the distance when I started up that hill! I stopped at the top to answer a nature call and to pull on my arm warmers, then went down the 8% descent. Unfortunately, there was another strong headwind on the descent. I made good time, just not as good as it would have been without that wind. From Route 20, we turned onto the I-15 freeway for a bit. We were finally homeward bound! I thought I could see a cyclist off in the distance, but just kept my head down and rode to the rest area on the freeway.
Richard said he had only arrived a few minutes ahead of me, so I made up some time on the descent. I took the lead out of the rest area for a while, then got back in Richard’s draft. He pulled me all the way to the next stop at the Parowan truck stop. I bought a soda and some more water and a taco bell bean burrito. Lonnie showed up again while I was eating. I was pretty tired at that point, but still felt like I’d be able to finish. My stomach wasn’t feeling 100%, so I took some Tums hoping that would do the trick. Richard and I headed out again and we passed Larry on the way back through Parowan. He wasn’t too far behind us. There were more low-grade 2-3% climbs along there. Each time we went up one I suffered. About 10 miles from the last stop that burrito decided it didn’t want to stay down. I was surprise how quick my stomach turned, but turn it did. Richard had ridden up a bit before he realized I stopped. I continued riding, but dry heaved a few times before riding up to where he stopped. He asked if I wanted to stop, but we were in the middle of nowhere and stopping wouldn’t have done any good.
I made it to the checkpoint in Cedar City, 200 miles into the ride, but my stomach was not doing good at all. I used the bathroom again and bought some pepto. I bought more water to fill my camelbak, but my stomach started acting up again and I had to sit for a bit. I was debating on the wisdom of continuing. Richard was a bit nervous about riding alone along the freeway stretches and I really didn’t want to leave him riding alone. Luckily Larry pulled in while I was recovering. That pretty much made my decision for me. Once my stomach started acting up I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy the last 50 miles. So I called Lonnie and asked for a ride back. Lonnie and I had a good chat on the way back. I had a really good early cycling season, but haven’t been able to continue a consistent training regimen in the last two months. I think I’ll get that consistency back when I get my Calfee and am able to take it on trips with me. But, with the exception of the 157 mile Cochise Classic in October, I’ve decided not to do any other longer distance rides this year. I’ll still do a few more centuries, including the Death Ride in July, but the Hoodoo 500 is out of my plans for now.
I prefer to do rides that I can finish in relative comfort. For now that seems to be century length rides! 🙂 I’ll get back into long distance rides once I figure out how to integrate travel into my training schedule.
What a busy couple of weeks! Sitting in the airport waiting for a flight to Denver as I start to write this. The week before Breathless Agony I was a “cabin parent” at Jake’s 5th grade science camp outside of Payson, AZ. Camp ended around 1:30pm on Friday. I drove home quickly, stopped by the school to drop off some people who car-pooled with me (and to give Annette a quick kiss in passing), then rushed home to grab my bike and a pre-packed bag of cycling clothes. I got to Redlands, CA at about 9:30pm. The drive wasn’t too bad.
I was up early and got to the start with plenty of time to get my registration packet and get ready. I wasn’t in a hurry and there isn’t a mass start for this ride, so I took my time before rolling over to the sign-out area. The ride starts with a very slight climb. I met another guy from AZ shortly after the start. He was working on getting a California “King of the Mountains” jersey (by completing 3 pretty difficult climbing centuries). A few miles into the ride I slowed to make a turn and noticed my front brake started rubbing. Weird. I tapped the brake lever a couple times hoping to loosen it as I went around the corner and my wheel just about seized up! I had to hop off and hold the front end up to get out of the road. My brake lever had come lose, slipped down and was crimping the cable. Crap. I wiggled it back up, pulled out my multi tool and found that the allen wrenches were not long enough to reach the bolt to tighen the brake. Dang. Alright, I’ll just keep any weight off of it and fix it at the first rest stop…
A few miles after that we hit the first descent. I tried to shift to my 52×12, but the chain wouldn’t go down. I glanced down and the chain was moving all over the place – wriggling back and forth like a rattlesnake! What the???? I shifted back up a couple gears and looked at the cassette. Before the ride I switched my Powertap from my Trek 5.9SL to my Trek 5200 (with a triple). The 5.9SL uses a 10 cog cassette, the 5200 uses a 9 cog cassette. I put quite a bit of power into a rear wheel and I tend to put gouges in the freewheel (where a cog will cut into the freewheel). So I had trouble getting the 10 cog cassette off and getting the 9 cog cassette on. I should have filed those ridges down, but I was in a hurry. So when I tighted the cassette, the top 3 cogs didn’t go on straight and I didn’t even notice. I didn’t have time for a test ride after switching cassettes, so I didn’t find the problem. This was not turning out to be a good ride!
We passed through Beaumont, so I hoped to find a bike shop that could reseat the cassette. In the mean time, I just couldn’t use my fastest gears. Good for practicing fast cadence! I rode with a couple guys to the start of the first climb and had to spin pretty fast on a couple descents to keep contact. When we turned onto the first major climb up Jack Rabbit Trail. The last time I rode this course, it had rained the night before and I had to dismount a couple times to get around some deep potholes. This time it was dry and I didn’t have any problems. I dropped the guys I was with near the bottom of the climb and just kept a steady tempo pace going up. Jack Rabbit trail is not a maintained road so there’s no traffic and great scenery!
I rode the rest of the way to Beaumont on my own. There was a bike shop, but it looked like it had recently closed. Crap. So I rode over to the first SAG stop, but there wasn’t any mechanical assistance there. Just about every ride in Arizona has bike shops that sponsor support tents along the way. I was disappointed to find this ride didn’t have any of that kind of support. But they did have the biggest fresh strawberries I’ve ever seen! Tasty! The next pass is incredibly scenic and goes through Oak Glen. I has some pretty long and steep grades, so you have plenty of time to enjoy the scenery! That climb is followed by an 18 mile descent! I wish I had put on my leg warmers because it had yet to warm up and that was one fast, cold descent!
The next two “passes” are really one big climb headed up to Onyx Summit with a stop in Angelus Oaks half way up. I was feeling the effects of, yes, starting a bit too hard (I know, I need to break that habit still), so it was slow going for me. I jumped behind a tandem and another bike for several miles, but dropped off and rode my own pace most of the way up. I stopped for a good 10-15 minutes at the Angelus Oaks stop to use the restroom and refuel with some more of those jumbo strawberries and some orange slices. Then it was a pretty slow ride for me to the top. The last couple miles just seemed to take forever, but I made it up without issue. They had a party at the top with the grim reaper greeting folks as they made the summit. I didn’t hang out too long because it actually got colder the higher I got. Someone said they had forecasted snow at the top. Luckily that didn’t happen! But my knees did start to ache a bit from the cold (really should have put on those leg warmers before the ride!).
Not having my full gear range meant I wasn’t able to hit my normal descending speeds, so it took me a bit longer to get down the 40 mile descent. I was pretty happy that it had warmed up by the time I got to the bottom. I checked in at the finish then headed over to an El Pollo Loco for lunch before heading back to Mesa to pack my bags for a business trip to Salt Lake City. Busy, busy! If you ever want to do a super challenging ride, this one should be near the top of your list! Great scenic climbs all along the course!
