Brief 200k ride report
phil morris
Prior to the ride, there was a lot of discussion around keeping reasonably warm and dry, types of materials, numbers of layers, etc. My solution for this ride was fairly simple ... and depended heavily upon knowing myself and that the key areas that are really sensitive to cold for me is fingers, toes and ears. So I started with an Under Armour long sleeve base layer, a short sleeved bike jersey and started with an Illuminite "rain" (not fully waterproof, so it does actually breath a little bit) jacket on top, with a pair of bike shorts underneath WindFront tights, with a pair of SmartWool socks and Adidas shoe covers which were pretty effective at keeping my feet warm and relatively dry (esp. since I remembered to put the top of the shoe covers *underneath* the bottom of the tights). For my hands, I decided to take a risk and try something new since my previous attempts had failed on longer rides causing me to have to stop for 10-15 minutes to put my
hands into my armpits to get feeling back into them, allowing me to safely brake again! This time I took my layered ski gloves and removed the inner section so that I was just using the shell, allowing a lot better mobility and control, while also being mostly wind and waterproof. For me, this solution worked out very well for the entire ride.
Other than warmth, my main goals for this ride were to a) Finish, b) Minimize time off of the bike, and c) Ride fairly hard without bonking, especially considering that I have only really started riding serious miles again in December due to the fact that I changed jobs in very late Sep where I'm not traveling 2-300,000 miles a year anymore, allowing me to get on the bike again, yeah!
Overall, the weather was pretty nice, although I did get caught in two brief and rather hard rains, one just outside of Pt Reyes Station on the way out to the lighthouse, and once more in the Iverness area riding back from the lighthouse. On the other hand, I've never been on a ride where the road all the way out to the lighthouse was so blissfully non-windy and absolutely gorgeous (echoing the oohing and aahing about the rainbows and views).
I felt quite good all the way through to Marshall, but my legs were really feeling the unaccustomed distance and hills on the last one-third of the ride. Some of the rollers that are normally barely noticed all of a sudden felt like climbing big mountains. I made sure to keep refueling and drinking, and it did get me through the difficulty, but I was certainly not fast.
I managed to keep my non-bike time down to 34 minutes, which was pretty good (I was hopefully for under 30, but at least I got quite close). My goal around not bonking was only partially realized. At Marshall my computer said that my on bike average was exactly 15.0 mph, but as I said the last 45+/- miles really slowed me down, so in that short stretch I was considerably slower ending up at 14.5mph, so I'd say that I did not quite manage my goal (although technically not a bonk, I was pretty much completely wiped out).
I did manage to see a few people I knew along the route: Waved at Mark H a couple of times since he was ahead of me and therefore coming back from the lighthouse and Marshall while I was still on the way out, as well as Nancy and Wyatt (who I must apologize to for calling him Will on the ride!).
I especially want to thank Rita for leading me through Sausalito so that I didn't have to keep referring to my cue sheet for all of those twists and turns.
-Phil
Rita Garcia
You are very welcome. I got caught in some rain around mile 110 and was good to have company the rest of the way.
This was my first ride in the rain and I'm glad I came out. I managed to stay warm and performed better than November's 200k ride. Then on Sunday I did a 10 mile run race and PR'ed by 10 mins, so I'm pretty happy with this weekend's outcome.
As always, thanks SFR for putting on a great ride.
Regards,
Rita
--- On Mon, 1/25/10, phil morris <morri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
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