Prattville 129

The Alabama Randonneurs had their 300K brevet yesterday, and it started and ended at Prattville High School (Go Lions!). Much of the route came from suggestions of Jeff Feet and myself, based on our many Saturday morning rides over the years. Organizer Steve Phillips tweaked things to get the control spacing right and conform to RUSA guidelines. The counter clockwise direction resulted from the lack of a decent shoulder on the northbound span of the bridge over the Alabama River. Clockwise would be a better direction for this ride. We had 4 out of area riders come over and Joe, Frank, Max, Ron and me from the local environs. Counting Steve (who did not ride due to recent surgery) there were (4) PBP finishers and (4) 1st time brevet riders. Frank has prior RUSA ride experience, up to 400K

We met in the dark at the high school and briefly shook hands. We spent more time checking out the other bikes.

Here are Maile & Gary from Wash DC area.

I packed it all, including the kitchen sink. Next time, I pack less. Here's the Saluki ready to go:

Joe got a call during the pre-ride briefing. His daughter went into labor with his 1st grand child. He headed back home to get Grandma and take her to the hospital for the happy event. I know Joe was looking forward to BOTH events, the baby and the brevet. I can understand why the brevet did not win out. Max and Ron were late arrivals. Max says that no matter how early he starts, he just can't seem to get his stuff together and get out of the house on time. He didn't get all his stuff together this time either. Water bottles were left at the house. He arranged with his wife Debbie to bring them to our 1st control, and he had his Camelbak pack which would be plenty until then. Ron pedaled up and signed in close to the start time, got his card and was off before the rest of us. We went by him a short time later, but that's typical. Ron rides at a very steady pace and tarries almost not at all at rest stops. We often leap frog each other on rides, as we ride more quickly, but stop longer to rest.

The ride to Hope Hull was very pleasant. The winds were not strong at 1st and were from the side. The Cat 5 climb up Wetumpka St got us warmed up (46F at the start) nicely, and there were only highway overpasses after that for quite a while. The early sun made crossing the Alabama River very pretty.

 

The leaves are starting to show nice color as you can see. We made good time to the 1st control. Everyone was able to get there under the time limit, including Max who picked up a safety pin and punctured his Gatorskin tire. He SAYS he yelled at us to stop, but neither Frank nor I heard him. We waited for him at the control and re connected. Here I am getting my card signed. "My name is Armstrong, Lance Armstrong.." She wasn't buying it though.

 

Here are some riders snacking before leaving.

 

I was the 1st to ditch my jacket. I was also the only one (I think) wearing wool. The clothing all worked out really well for me today. Up top was a short sleeve wool tee under a long sleeve wool jersey. Below were wicking briefs (non padded) an unpadded pair of wool shorts and a wooly warm unpadded tights. Cap was a Synaptic Cycles woolie. Gloves were wool blend Giros and thick wool socks inside (and here was a wow discovery for the day) Keen shoes (Kelona model, a street shoe) on Grip King platform pedals. The shoes are light weight, ergonomic with a big toe box and airspace for good circulation. No wet socks, hotspots, etc. Loved it. At the start, a Showers Pass yellow jacket was on top, but it went in the saddle bag at this 1st stop.

At Hope Hull, a few miles south of the control, we turned east, and into the wind. It blew harder than we were expecting. Some of the blasts coming off cleared farm fields were like climbing tough hills. Frank separated out ahead of Max and I, and eventually there was some space between me and Max as well. Both of them were were good riding company and it was just my weaker legs at work. Here you can see Max close by, and Frank accelerating away. Below that, a picture proving I was at least enjoying the ride. It also shows another great find of the day. For $6, I got a DOT spec reflective vest at the local industrial supply store. Light, comfy and VERY visible. They also had good over-glasses sunshade/safety glasses there.

 

We slogged into the wind for about 34 miles. There were some breaks when we ran north or south and only had it as a side wind. On one of these cross wind legs, we passed a huge arts and crafts show in the village of Pike Road.

Eventually, we reached our lunch stop at the John Hall Store in Cecil, 70 miles out. It was crowded inside as they run a smoker all morning in order to have BBQ to sell at lunch. 

The locals are mostly farmers and I was behind a father and son, wearing real spurs, who obviously did that kind of work for a living, and were not just still in Halloween costume.

Frank had a BBQ sandwich for lunch followed by a slice of pizza for dessert. He wonders why with this purple Under Armor shirt and his yellow Sam Allen belt on people were honking and yelling at him today.

 

I tanked up on Powerade Zero and we waited for Max. Seems that they forgot his order. Of course that was after he was sure he forgot his wallet, until Frank said "Look in your Camelbak. " Sure enough, there it was. He ate something, I don't remember what, got a refund for the unfilled order, got some fluids and we got a talk from Ride Organizer Steve that we were needing to be careful about time in controls. We were on time, but not allowing enough margin. That made me realize that I needed to let Frank and Max go on ahead of me. My total avg. pace was 10.2 mph (including stops) which is over the 9.5 mph min, but I knew with cold and hills ahead, I would probably slow down even more. My moving average was the same 13.4 mph I do on almost all my longer rides, but I needed the time off the saddle. It's just how my engine runs. Frank took off for Tallassee and I floated my plan to Max. He suggested we try for Tallassee too. We loaded up and moved on out as I did feel a little better after eating. It was into the wind again, but the wind seemed to be shifting. After 5 miles when we turned north, and INTO more wind, I told Max I was going to turn around and get a ride home. I was just going to be too slow and did not want to miss a cut off later in the evening.

I texted Sharon, and she came to get me at the store. It's a 30 minute drive from home and I was 20 mins away by bike so when I got back to the store I only waited 10 minutes for the car to show up. The 5 miles WITH the wind were sweet though. Sharon didn't mind coming to get me, which I very much appreciated.

So, I ended just under 80 miles at 13.4 moving and 10.2 total pace. 2,100' +/- of climb. Max finished his first Brevet, and I am very proud of him. He & Frank had just 20 minutes to spare, which tells me that I would have missed it for sure. Ron missed the cut off time at control #6, but decided to finish the ride anyway, and then pedal home. I'm proud of him too. Frank was expected to do fine, and he did. Way to go big guy. Congrats to Grandpa Joe and thanks to Steve for putting it together. I did not need the night stuff for the ride but the portable lithium recharger did work fine on the Garmin and also does cell phones. Well worth having and very light.

Tailwinds

I wonder if I can do this

The "this" is a 300 Km brevet next Saturday. This will be my 1st ever attempt at anything over a century, and I am both excited and experiencing a healthy dose of reservation. The keys will be pace, pace, pace. And, nutrition, hydration, and comfort. And a fully charged cell phone in case I need to call for a bail out. :)  We test rode the hilliest section of the route today as an out and back. That is, we ended up with about 4,235' of climb in just 48 miles. The 300 will have 6,900' total in 187 miles. I was slow, to be sure, but finished ahead of where I would need to on that section of the brevet. I also was not dead tired, or out of gas at the end. I could have just kept plodding along, which is fine by me.

The ride today saw 7 riders meet at Stuckey's, but 1 just pedaled up from Prattville to see us off, and then turned around and returned. 6 of us continued on. Ray also pedaled up from town (about 23 miles), did the ride, and pedaled back. Strong ride, pal. Here we are getting ready to go: Left to right, it's Frank, Max, Larry, Ron and Joel. Ray is trying get his frozen plumbing out of the bib shorts and use the stores non frozen plumbing. Yes, it was cold. My solution was wool boxers under wool shorts, under wooly warm wool tights. No freeze ups, if you get my drift..

 Here I am a little later. By 10:30, it warmed enough to ditch the jackets. Below is Max's very cool adaptation of a solar battery charger to run his Garmin. I'll be using either an Energi pak, or plug mine in when we stop to eat.

 Here is a typical view for most of the ride. Fall foliage starting to be very pretty and steep rollers. Most were 6% - 9% grades, a few were 10% - 13%. The ride had 3 cat 5 climbs.

 As we crossed the Coosa River, I caught the sunlight glinting off the water, which was rippled from the very brisk breeze we rode in today.

 Here is about as ramshackle a store as I've ridden by. The fuel pumps are long gone and the proprietor lives in a small trailer next to the store. They did have working plumbing (always a consideration for a group of 50+ year old riders) and Propel Zero, and a decent little grocery inside. This was in Kellys Crossroads, which is literally a description of the place. This is ALL there is to it.

 The country NE of the river is quite hilly and some of the rock was blasted away to make the road grades more manageable. It makes for a very scenic drive  or pedal.

We got back to the cars around noon, and headed on home. Frank has loaned me a higher power headlamp than the one I have. If the rando bug bites, I'll get my own.

We're talking about a pre-ride dinner on Friday. The couple coming down from DC says they won't arrive in time. They are stopping in Atlanta to do a 200K the day before. Oh geez. Real rando types, you know? Don't know about the guy coming in from SC. So we locals will go have a hearty meal somewhere, and encourage one another. The ride starts at 7 AM on Saturday with 3:00 AM the following morning as the limit.  LynneF, if you're reading, any advice/encouragement/offers to fly out and pull for me will be appreciated...

At least no snow is forecast...

Tailwinds!

Pintlala 75

I've been getting psyched up over the 300Km Prattville Brevet coming on 11/5. As a "where are my legs these days?" check, 4 of us rode 75 rolling miles yesterday morning. The idea was to stay at a steady pace and not go too fast. I was the slowest of the group and turned in a 13.5 avg which is faster than I need to be to finish on time. Counting breaks, I used 85% of the allowed time for this distance. Biggest issue was leg cramps for me on hills. At about mile 50, I found myself in too tall a gear for a 13% grade but hammered it anyway, which caused true pain in both quads. Then, there was that vibrating feeling in my lower legs that says, "you need to drink more!" I blame Joe of course. This steep hill was NOT on the route, but when he sailed past a turn, we had to go this way to get back to where we needed to be. Joe rode with a bent derailler hanger and only had this outer 2 or 3 cogs available. That seemed to make no difference to him. He had, but never used, his granny up front. Like me, he did the entire ride on the middle ring. His is a 36 and mine is a 42. You know, since I never use the 30 on this bike, I may as well put a 53/39 back on in place of the 52/42/30. Nahhh..

It was a beautiful day, sunny, cool, and light breeze. All of this conspired to keep my jersey dry, so I never felt that I was using much water. When I got home, the fluid tally was 78oz in 75 mi. I need 1.5 oz per mile in this kind of weather, so I was almost 1/3 under. Hence the issues 2/3 of the way out on the route!  This is not the first time I have failed to drink enough. I will have to chart it and make sure I drink certain quantities by certain mileages on any longer ride if I want to avoid cramps. It made me slow up the hills, but didn't do too much on the flats until the very end. I actually had to pull over and take a brief rest just a mile and half from the finish.

Max and I carpooled down, and we met Joe and Frank at the start. Ron pedaled from Prattville, but just to see us off before he turned around to pedal back. He still had a nice distance himself, about a metric I guess. It was about 51F and wool arm warmers and long finger wool blend gloves were appreciated. Once the Sun rose, temps began to climb, and at about mile 18 when we made our 1st store stop, the warmers came off and the gloves were swapped for short fingered ones. I didn't need a base layer under the Swobo jersey. Un-padded Joneswares shorts today too. They generally were fine, although the edges of the saddle center slot were annoying after 40 or 50 miles. For the long ride, a non slotted saddle will be used. No padding though.

It was a delightful morning for a ride. Recent rains have most growing things looking good. Either still green or starting to show Fall colors. Plenty of livestock out in the grazing fields and all the local canines came out to bark for us. None were a problem, but you never know. The route included some pretty stretches that we rarely get to ride on, as there is a section of about 30 miles with no store stops available.  We made one slight route deviation because Joe, fresh from his assault on the 12,000' of climb at 6 Gap, was floating way out ahead of us and sailed past a turn. We ended up back on the route, and the mileage ended up being about the same so all was good.  Made my annual mileage goal with this ride and there is a chance that some more miles will be added yet this year! This was also the 20th metric or longer outing for 2011. 4 more are needed to make goal. We climbed about 3,000' and except for the one steep up, it was all rollers. An endless series of rollers...

Grandson's birthday party here next Saturday. I am advised that I should plan on attending. Maybe an early Am ride to test the light kit out is in order....

No Rides

This past Saturday was SUPPOSED to be the 200K brevet up Chandler Mtn to Horse Pens 40, with Steve Phillips and the Alabama Randonneurs. THEY had a great ride.


Then I was reminded that I had previously committed to wrangle mountain bikes at the Coosa River Challenge the same day! This was my 3rd year helping at the event, where 250 - 300 lunatics do a trail run, mountain bike course and kayak to complete a very different sort of tri. There are "skills" along the way, like rappelling and  compass based land navigation along with some action through mud. It's sort of "Basic Training for Marines Meets Sports." Anyway, our 3 man squad (sometimes with much appreciated helpers, othertimes without) moved all the bikes to and from the cycling venue for that leg of the event. 6 UHaul van loads or maybe it was 6 1/2. I forget. We worked from 4:45 AM to about 3:00 PM. We rested while the bike race was in progress. Here's a video from last year's race to give a bit of the flavor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V5oV1BJKaA&feature=related  I had a great time doing this as it turned out. I enjoyed the company of my Van driver, Steve Sievers. A quiet, unassuming guy, this is the 3rd year we've worked together on the ride but the 1st we really spent any time talking. He always says he wishes he had time to ride more, etc etc. So after a while, I noticed a little tattoo over his ankle, a dot over an M. What's that? I asked. Oh that's from when I did an Ironman. The first one. (He's done it twice, both after he turned 50). You know, a full marathon run, a 112 mi cycle and a 2 1/2 mile swim. What everyone does....

So of course I mentioned RANDO to him. He was also open to the idea of a steel bike for long riding comfort! My kind of guy. Well I enjoyed other stuff we spoke of too. Like his son is a missionary in China, and he was interested in what reformed theology was all about. Then his mom shows up with PB&J sandwiches and a sweet elderly lady I know from church appears with a boatload of cookies! It was really over too soon, if you ask me.

Now with a month until the Alabama Randonneurs 300K brevet, I need to ride regularly. I'm planning on 75 miles or so on Saturday morning, and we'll see how that goes. I had been wanting to ride the Rivendell Road Standard for the long ride, but the painter (Airglow) is waaaayyyyy behind. I finally heard from him saying that he hopes to start my frame next week or so along with a Falcon, but the chances of getting it back and re building the bike in time are slim. I sent it off in mid June with the promise of a 6 - 7 week turn around.  I will probably ride the Saluki over the Rambouillet then instead of the Road. The fenders and fatter tires on the Hound Dog may come in handy. Not to mention that 26 little ring. Speed is not needed on a rando ride, just steady as she goes.

No ride this Sunday; it's the weekend I spend a little time visiting at a prison nearby. I dislike going intensely and I certainly would not go if I didn't know it was a command and not a suggestion (to remember those who are sick and in prison). Prison is a place you just don't want to be at. Which means that it is good for me to go, to have my comfort zone shaken up and so on.

Tailwinds..

Autumn Equinox

It's official. Fall is here. The fact that mornings are much darker than they were just a few weeks ago makes that point clearly. The Prattville rides ended for me a month ago, although a few others who have sufficient flexibility in their schedules are still getting in a ride here and there. Lately, I am thinking in terms of riding longer distances at slower paces. Two Saturdays past, Max and I added a 20 mile loop of town to a hilly 45 mile club ride to make it a metric or more. Then Sunday, without beginners along, Frank and I pushed the pace and distance on the Sunday ride instead of doing a relaxer.

In a couple of weeks (10/8), the Alabama Randonneurs will have a 200K ride from Birmingham up Chandler Mtn in Steele, and back. The climb is about 2 miles at 7% avg grade, iirc. I'm bring a triple with a 26 granny, that's for sure. It will be my longest ride yet, but I am motivated reading about others doing long distance with seemingly no real trouble - as long as pace, nutrition and hydration are carefully managed. If the 200K goes okay, then in November I plan on a 300K which starts right here in Prattville. I helped design the route, along with Jeff and Steve (who test rode it this past weekend).

As it happened, another friend, Bill, and I drove to Opeika this past Saturday and rode the Johnny Ray Century to benefit Parkinson's Disease care and cure research. A new ride for me, but Bill has ridden it before. Nice roads for the most part and nice people all through. Here are some pictures, all taken by Bill Felky the event photographer.

Before the ride, we ran into fellow Montgomery area riders Phil & Anita Jones. They have the right jerseys for a ride 20 miles from Jordan Hare Stadium. Then a picture of the coolest SAG wagon ever. Yes, the Boxster.

 Clockwise from the left: Double checking the route on the maps, Bill cruising along, an enjoyable not-quite-a-paceline.

 We had 1 recumbent and 1 trike in the field. Where's that trike rider's helmet?  The nest to last rest stop in Lafayette, Al at a fire station. One of the volunteers noticed the Rambouillet because he has a Riv custom. I invited him to try the Rando rides coming up. Also a few nice remarks about the wool jersey. It was very comfy all day. Warm enough early on and not too hot later.