Marin Mountains 200k Start Control report

[Rob Hawks]

This morning, SFR kicked off the start of the Adventure Series for 2021. Twenty Six riders lined up at the start control at East Beach and rolled out into the summer fog on their way to completing the first let of the Adventure Series. Among these riders, and including the trio that started the worker's ride earlier in the week, would be those that hope to earn the Roy Ross Adventure Series Award, an honor bestowed upon anyone that completes all four components of the adventure series in one calendar year. Unless your name was Roy Ross, there are very few out there who have ever accomplished the feat, but we are certainly hoping to add more names to that list this year.

Today's brevet also marked the return of at least a semblance of group starts (and the SFR Oath!). SFR had been staggering all starters on brevets, with groups no larger than five starting together. With the Marin Mountains event we let riders choose between solo starts and the group start, and today most riders wanted the group start. So far this year our brevet rosters are still quite small compared to past years so spreading out was not a problem.

Next Sunday, July 18th we'll have our third Populaire of the year. Registration will close on Thursday.

rob hawks

sfr rba

[Massimiliano Poletto]

Bonne route à tous!

Below, some photos from the course: the Bay from Mt Tam at sunrise, Bolinas Lagoon from the ridge at sunset, and an all-star team from a 2014 Marin Mountains permanent. For those who didn't know him, Roy is second from left.

max

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[Alex Applegate]

I got a suggestion to post this on this group, but here's my first ride report to go with my first official SFR 200km event. Perhaps I’ll learn to write less when there’s more to say.

Marin Mountains 2021
10 July, 7amIt was a hard ride. I don’t know what I thought would happen. I’ve ridden a 200km day before, but it was much cooler weather and considerably less elevation and steepness and rocky, rocky trails. I ate the greasiest sandwich of my life on that ride—a grilled cheese from Cowgirl Creamery.

It was a dynamic ride. This route was truly some of the best I’ve been on for varied terrain and views this close to home. Switching from pavement to kind fire road to pavement to mean fire road back to pavement then to singletrack then the most glorious no-brakes-for-miles paved descent, then big bad but SHADED Randall Trail and that sweet home-of-the-Ewoks Bolinas Ridge—just incredible. Then it was time for Ridgecrest. Which was hard. Harder than it seemed it should have been. Hot, yes, but something like a 450’ climb shouldn’t have seemed quite so brutal. I would soon find out why. Sort of. I’d done basically all of the work for the day! Hurray! I made it! Lol NOT. The twisting descent to Pantoll was about the end of me. Or at least my ride. Somehow it was THERE OF ALL PLACES where my body thought it was done being used and could just hang it up. After staving off light cramps since mile 56 and audibly swearing whilst climbing Mt. Vision, making it up Randall no prob, Bob (just pushed the bike when it was, you know, more than about a 15% grade), then whilst beginning the sweet cruise back to East Crissy Field AND ONLY THEN did I go into system shutdown mode, realizing my vision was getting weird around the edges and the connection of my hands to the hoods didn’t feel as continuous as my tires to the pavement, all finally recognizable as a faint sense that I might just faint. I parked the bike against a scrubby roadside tree on a not-too-spooky-narrow shoulder, grabbed my half-full water bottle and last of my dried fruit and gummies (I was in no condition to eat anything but the gummies) and laid my ass down on the ground. My hands were tingling like I’d never felt before and I was In no condition to do much more than mash maxx frucctose snaxx (Haribo sour watermelon rinds) and drink from the squeezy bottle. I knew I was close to Pantoll, though unsure exactly how close, and that I could get water and maybe medical assistance there if need be. Also it was a busy enough road that I gave many drivers a thumbs up and a smile to indicate I was fine enough. Ian and two other people I’d talked to whizzed by after a sec and I became aware of time again. I slowly stood up and tested my balance and composure. Not exactly great. Like C– or D+, but not totally absolutely flunking out. I figured I could try and get to Pantoll and could always bail from there. Anyway I got there, drank a bottle of water then another, ate a packet of almond butter, walked slowly around a bit, laid on the trash cans, laid on some rocks, swung my legs around a bit, washed the salt crust off of my face, and went back to my bicycle. It was time. The story from there isn’t too wild. Heck, that wasn’t even that wild once I knew it was going to be over. Probably most experienced randonneurs knew how it would end and that it would end and were just wondering if I’d DNF or not already. But it was a whole new experience for me, likely just one of maybe many to come in this rando world.

Anyway, made it back feeling strong (a huge downhill helps with that), and my shadow-of-cramps even went away! I had a bit of time to spare and felt so good to be crossing the bridge safe and sound, except of course the bridge is windy as heck and never fully safe and now also emits that crazy whining sound like a giant wind being blown across a thousand 3 ft by 1 inch metal clarinet reeds. But I made it back to that and was glad nonetheless. Also great to see Ian and the nice guy in the Seattle Randonneurs jersey who I talked with up at Bolinas Ridge and Randall. I appreciate the mix of solitary pursuit and group activity/communal effort/shared suffering that randonneuring offers.

And yes, it was a hot ride. I knew there was a heatwave, and would guess I drank like 15 22oz bottles, had like 6 nuun tabs, plus an 8 oz can of Blue Bottle cold brew (genuinely glad to see that for sale at Marin Cheese Co, water fountain shutdown and Nestle takeover aside) and a 16 oz iced coffee I made before leaving home. My shirt had a real Rorschach blot/topo map of dried sweat salt on it that was too crusty to imagine looking at from another human’s point of view. But enjoying the profound luxury of the Autlense veggie burrito and the hot shower I took when I got home, wringing the salt out of my hair, well, in addition to already being sore, I realized I was feeling proud. Also next time I won’t forget the hummus in the fridge.

My thanks to Rob and SFR for organizing!

Alex Applegate

Berkeley, CA

[Massimiliano Poletto]

👊🙌

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[Sourav Das]

>> Also great to see Ian and the nice guy in the Seattle Randonneurs jersey who I talked with up at Bolinas Ridge and Randall.

Thanks, and I agree that Ian is not a nice guy. As I was pondering over style selection the night before, I came across that jersey from my first 1200 that I had not worn in a while, and had a feeling this ride would be substantially epic to warrant donning that.

I rode past you on the descent to Pantoll but there was substantial traffic that I could not make a stop. You had a distant and a rather calm and surreal expression, with your head resting on your palm, munching out of your snack bag. Zero f*cks given, like nothing was wrong with the world.

The temp delta between Ridgecrest and the Pantoll descent (opposite sides of Mt Tam) was probably 30-40 F. It felt like entering an airconditioned room when it is hot outside. I suspect something flat and slightly elevated from the ground would have been inviting enough for me to strike a similar pose at that point.

Sourav

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[DBC RBA]

Alex, 

While this ride may not have been your first with SFR, it was a big challenge that you met head on & ended up out of the pain cave. Well done & welcome to the spirit of Rando! Challenge + tenacity can get the job done with rewards of accomplishment at the end.

Congratulations and thx for sharing!

Cheers, 

Deb

Sent from the Rivetress’ Phone

On Jul 15, 2021, at 1:15 PM, Massimiliano Poletto <max.p...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Dan]

Great writeup, Alex, and well done!

Indeed the temps were the toughest part for me. I recorded 111F on seven sisters, then down to 59F on the golden gate....that's a 52 degree swing in just a little over an hour!!

Oh, and shout out to Stephen Chan for spotting and picking up my phone out on Pine Mountain! It decided to hop out of my bag...and I didn't even notice it was gone until about 70 miles later on Bolinas ridge!!

Thanks as well to Rob for all the volunteer/coordination work!

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- Dan
510.378.0926