Wheels North, Day One...overcooked

Santa Rosa To Winters. 60 miles. 3 climbs. On paper, not too bad.

HA.

Everyone was expecting a scorcher today, and we'd get it...eventually. Many were dressed lightly in expectation of rising mercury, but on the way to SR, the overcast and mist in Petaluma got said people, myself one, a bit nervous.
"Oh, it'll burn off" a common sentiment. Not to be. We'd have to ride out of it. Pulling into the lot to sub 60 degree temps and looking for coffee eventually found us our coffee plus warm breakfasty goodies and a restroom. We could have stayed there. But we are here for reason, so...
It was a good thing I was wearing street clothes, in direct defiance to Capt. Norris' orders to be "in chamois" and ready to roll at SR. All my warm stuff was in a truck somewhere else, but my long sleeved cotton would get the call up. Lucky.
A very short warm up, and we hit Spring Mtn. It hit back. Tough climb. About half way up it was time to loose the sweat soaked death fabric. I felt fresher instantly. In a parallel universe I'd have been on TV walking through a flowered meadow at that moment.
The descent was well worth the price of admission though. Excellent road with dappled shade, cambered turns, and twisty but not suicidally so. I got some good Flip Video footage. Then a not so quick lunch stop at Taylor's in St. Helena, but a grilled cheese in the middle of a ride is worth the time. I inadvertently caused an accident for the fixed gears when I mentioned the possibility of catching up with Greg and the guys who had left a lunch bit earlier. Randy had a good laugh inquiring whether I was that fast or just crazy. A moment later word came in of a little mishap with the fixies involving some pedals, axles, and disappearing spokes. So in the end, Randy stood corrected, admittedly humorously so.
The rest of the day consisted of me overcooking myself (try) to stay with Peter, Steve and Mojo. Bad idea. I was warned. Not so hard tomorrow.

ciao

Wheels North, Let the Madness Begin

Since PBP has waited this long to be summarized, and since my notes from it are buried, and since it's 5:10am and Warren and Amy will be picking me up in about half an hour to drop us off at WN World Headquarters for the drive to Santa Rosa, well...PBP can wait a while longer. Maybe if I turn out to have something worth sharing, enjoy it, let alone get access to a computer on this ride, I'll finish that scintillating story.
Actually, at 5am I'm just proud to have spelled scintillating right. It's almost a minor victory to not see that little red line pop up under a word.
Breakfast first. There is still a crap-ton of sticky rice and fruit left over from last night's pre-ride BBQ. When have I ever not made way too much of that? I figure that's about as different a breakfast as one could have compared to what Vic and Ray had for their day one repast. Steak and eggs maybe? Maybe they were such badasses they just slugged down a cup of scalding hot black coffee and hit the road. I suppose I'll find out since I'll be reading "Two Wheels North" as we ride. Well not AS we ride, I don't think the other guys are that slow. They'll probably kick my ass, uphill even, one gear be damned.
The DBC Team ought to be rolling into downtown Davis right now to set up the Fourth of July Criterium course. Oysh! Long day for them. Go Team! Someone told me that the category 4 race is pretty late in the day. I ruminated last night on the possibility of, after we ride into Winters today, continuing on to Davis and entering the race, just for shits and giggles. Oh, and for cramps and dry heaves too I suppose. Probably best to let that little daydream of bravado go, considering I wimped out on doing Leesville Gap Road Race yesterday. My excuse was that I was under prepared (packing for WN), but the real reason is likely that I was under prepared (actual training).
Time to get ready. Put this one in the bag. We're off!
Day one, Santa Rosa to Winters.

ciao!

Road to PBP/ 300 k brevet

The 300km Brevet:Where Pain Makes Gain

With a rather uneventful 200k in the bag, I figured an extra 100k (62 miles) would be a piece of cake. I'd done the double century a couple times and finished strongly, so no problem right?

Famous last words...



Another early morning start found a pretty large group starting off at a good clip, but keeping a good position in the pack allowed for little effort and the chance to pump PBP veterans for more info. The turn up to Putah Creek Road was a welcome change too, as I really hate the long straight slog of the Tremont Rd./Seivers Rd. combo. Ah but that's cycling in the valley for you. I guess I should have counted myself lucky we didn't have the ubiquitous stiff valley wind to go along with it.

Climbing Cardiac early in the ride was a nice warm up since the legs felt decent, and I'd climbed it so many times that I could have done it in my sleep. Come to think of it, maybe I was. Or maybe I was just being lulled into a semi-conscious state of oblivious self satisfaction so I wouldn't recognize the foreboding background music for what it was, and what it would bring.

Somewhere on Pope Valley Road I was feeling sluggish and wound up loosing the group I was with on the meager hills, rises really, that I can normally power over. It wasn't till a little while later, a little under 1/3 into the ride that I realized it was a little bit warmer than I thought and all the layers were constricting my legs. So I stopped and got down to just shorts on bottom. Nice! I felt better instantly. That would prove a valuable thing to learn for PBP.

Somewhere around there, or at the Pope Valley control(108km in), I hooked up with Lee Millon, who had been doing a lot of really quality miles and some racing and, as such, was pretty fit. The ominous background music was getting a little louder, but I was still not paying attention. We settled into a nice mellow pace until we noticed a guy up ahead and proceeded to prove Pavlov was right about cyclists too. Yeah, we kinda picked it up. You could say. We did eventually catch the rider, Ken I think, who I had chatted with earlier, but not without cost.

Cobb Mountain loomed ahead, and as the telltale music got louder, I finally had some idea of the beginning of things, though not really putting it together yet. I could simply tell that an effort was just put in. Now people had told me Cobb was steep, but, on the 200k I had done the steep side of George in my 39/21 and now had a 39/27, so I blithely and somewhat impetuously figured I was okay. Ha, ha.

We went up, and I blew up, to put it succinctly. It only took about 1 mile. It was warm, I was running out of water, and I just couldn't seem to turn the pedals. So I stopped. I took off my helmet to cool off a bit, which helped, but when I took off my sunglasses, it was like white out. I could barely see. It was like whiteout conditions. that's when the musis moved from the background into full Dolby SurroundSound(tm). So I finally realized I had allowed myself to bonk, but there was no turning back, because the closest control was just a few miles off. All uphill unfortunately. I actually got worried about not finishing and, if I couldn't finish a 300k, how could I ever do a 600k, let alone PBP itself.

A cooler head prevailed though, and I made a deal with myself that I could ride a mile and rest, ride and rest, for as long as it took to get up. I saw Lee on his way down and felt a tinge of competitive dissatisfaction but quickly quashed it, realizing that was what brought me to this lowly state of bonkage in the first place. I think my relief, heck, joy, at reaching the control was just shy of that experienced at the successful deployment of a stuck parachute. The second part of my deal with myself was to stay as long as it took to recover, no matter who I saw come and go. So I ate and drank and ate and rested and ate and stretched and ate and drank....then ate and drank some more. As I came back into myself I could see I was not the only one coming in a little worse for wear. I saw Steve and Peggy Rex come in and I could only imagine what that climb was like for a tandem!

I was feeling ready to go, and as luck would have it, so were Steve and Peggy. A second benefit of fully recovering was that I could thoroughly enjoy a fun descent. I felt pretty sluggish on the flats after the descent, but figured that was the full belly taking precedence over the legs and that once digested, all that fuel would be a welcome addition. It was. I finished the rest of the ride pretty happily. I don't remember my time, but it was well under the limit, and that's all that really matters.

So I wound up learning what would be one of the two most important lessons to take to PBP: when the going gets tough, the tough may get going, but the smart get something to eat and take a nap!

Up next, a tale of a soggy 400k.

seeyounexttime,
-Jim