24 hours at Sebring - Ride report and videos from Larry

[LarryOz]

Hello all,
My journal/notes of my 24 hours at Sebring 2015 is finally done. Complete with pictures of the event.
You can download my pdf file below and read about my adventure.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uqs0u2r12vtvul9/2015-Sebring-24hour-journal-Oslund.pdf?dl=0

Videos of the race from my V - VIRB mounted on the front of the boom. Each on is about 53 minutes long. Part #1 is from the starting gun and covers the first 3 laps of the Sebring track in ever increasing light, then the start of the road course. I have put labels and comments inline for you to follow.
You will see Ben and Charlie along the way. It does get a little boring when its just me riding, especially in part 2,3 (You do get to see me take a spill at the turnaround in #3), and 4. Only way to sit through them is to watch them while riding your trainer indoors. Then it's just like you are riding! Pretty cool!

part 1: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cfkojslb7eeb2wt/2015-Sebring-part1-LarryOslund.mp4?dl=0
part 2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/845lvw6s5zr7bjv/2015-Sebring-part2-LarryOslund.mp4?dl=0
part 3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jyqef53v84vxco8/2015-Sebring-part3-LarryOslund.mp4?dl=0
part 4: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xgd29g8a7wi90rg/2015-Sebring-part4-LarryOslund.mp4?dl=0

(I think I have about 4 more to process. One shows me finishing up the Century and some good footage of complete loops of the short loop (11.7 mile loop). I will post the links when they are done.

Support video: Gary taped this. Very good watch. You will see all 5 V's at different stages, hand offs, Jim winning the Century - also interview of Jim at the end. 24 minutes long:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8wockba8whlf6cp/Sebring-2015-SupportViaGary.mp4?dl=0

Note on Dropbox videos: If you just click on the Dropbox link, you will get the first 15 minute clip of the video. If you want to watch the whole thing, you will need to either download it or have your own Dropbox area (It is free) that you can save it to.
I really hope you enjoy them all - and let me know if there are any problems accessing the files or videos.
Larry

 

[Wannabe]

Thank you Larry for this

Thank you Larry for this super effort! Heal fast and well my friend. Maybe one day we can smash some 2.9 gram Celluloid spheres back and forth.


Cheers to an Heroic effort/ accomplishment!

Sincerely,
David

 

[unc99]

Great read Larry. Thanks for

Great read Larry. Thanks for sharing that. Congratulations on a great first 24 hour race.

 

[Eric Winn]

Outstanding ride report Larry

Outstanding ride report Larry - brings back memories. You are much more aware of your time to distance status than I usually am.

I did my first century for my first Bike Sebring and had a very cheap, low power light clamped onto the Quest handlebars. When I did the Bike Sebring 24 hour last year I had a Magic Shine clone with a wide angle lens clamped to the chainstay brace just under the bottom bracket. This is a very, very bright light. At night I run it on low and with the wide angle lens replacing the stock lens I can see much better into the corners. I think Maria uses a similar light. Using this light I can easily see all of the track details I need to be able to ride at whatever speed I'm a physically capable of - e.g. the light was not the limiting. For example, I ran the corners very tight last year to within inches at times of the rumble strips but never touched them.

Did they set out the red tail lights in the middle of the lane all through the race track after it got dark? Last year I saw a lot of people relying on those lights tossed on the ground pretty regularly all the way around the track.

-Eric

 

[ratz]

Excellent report. Thanks for

Excellent report. Thanks for taking us all along for the ride. I bet a lot of future riders can learn from those details.

 

[BBL]

Nice Ride Larry

Congratulations and thank you for the report and video. It was an enjoyable Sunday morning read. I am amazed at how little light there was at the start and how closely packed the riders were. I don't know how you all managed to keep from crashing.

Based on your average power and speed at the mid point, I would say you were pretty aerodynamically efficient. Do you notice a big improvement by running the front wheel cover? I have noticed more and more Vs running both rear and front wheel covers. You must not have too much difficulty controlling the bike in cross winds. Is there a limit to how much cross wind you can tolerate?

 

[snilard]

(No subject)

 

[LarryOz]

sorry about this blockage - didn't know I had a 20G bndw limit

My account is suspended and I will try and get it unlocked - and will let the group know when available again.

 

[snilard]

Thanks Larry
Btw. I have

Thanks Larry

Btw. I have watched your ride on Strava and I am impressed. Vendetta is really fast bike and You are strong rider.

 

[LarryOz]

few answers:

Thanks matej!

Eric - your said:

"Did they set out the red tail lights in the middle of the lane all through the race track after it got dark? Last year I saw a lot of people relying on those lights tossed on the ground pretty regularly all the way around the track."

Yes, they had the little red lights in the middle of the track - but to me they where more of a distraction - especially as people road over them and they "moved"!


Buddy - you said:

Do you notice a big improvement by running the front wheel cover? I have noticed more and more Vs running both rear and front wheel covers. You must not have too much difficulty controlling the bike in cross winds. Is there a limit to how much cross wind you can tolerate?

I did lots of testing with wheels covers and solid disc wheels, as compared to many other rims. Huge advantage over just regular "Mavic Pro" rims for instance, but I did not see a whole lot of difference between say my 88mm rimmed CF wheels and the solid wheel, or FLO with wheel cover. I believe my testing was inconclusive however because of moderate to high winds when I was testing. Since the winds where not going to be "really strong" - under 20mph, I decided to "go with the convention" : that wheel covers and solid discs would be better than deep rims. Riding with them is also a learning process. When I was testing on a high school track and going about 30 mph around corner and then getting hit with 20mph headwind - I also went down. Also in the race, a couple of times I was a little scared: A log truck went by me in the opposite direction and it caught my attention rather quickly. The other time was going down a slight grade at 30+ mph when a crosswind gust hit me. Both where scary to me. For me - you have to be super diligent when riding with front and rear discs. Maybe OK for racing, but really hard to stay that attentive ofr hours at a time. A little stressful for just riding around - might take a little of the fun out of an afternoon ride!

 

[ratz]

Links with more Bandwidth

Here are some updated links for the Support Crew video that should help fix the bandwidth issue.
Larry's specifically requested that for now we not use you tube for them to keep them within
the community to some degree. My theory is he doesn't want to embarrass the DF rides with the snarky
comments in the videos.

Both links go to the same place; they just each have there own bandwidth quota. If you wan to watch the video Gary shot; pick either one. Bandwidth Limits reset daily.

Support crew video
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m5k030uiuhulinn/Sebring2015SupportFootage.mp4?dl=0

Alternative link Support Crew video
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zt3haua9euvituw/Sebring2015SupportFootage.mp4?dl=0

The ride videos will be added when they are ready.

 

[snilard]

I would like to ask. How did

I would like to ask. How did you powered your Garmin Edge 510 thru whole day? By some battery pack? What lights do you use?

 

[Rick Youngblood]

Nice report and outstanding

Nice report and outstanding job Larry, thanks for sharing!

 

[BentAero]

what am I doing wrong?

Bob,
Despite being logged in to drop box and having the video in my files, they both appear as preview's, and 'no preview available' when I try to view. I thought the whole point of drop box was that downloading wasn't needed?
What am I doing wrong?

 

[ratz]

The preview mode is something

The preview mode is something dropbox added awhile ago; the 15 min limit applies regardless of file size. Smells like rookie developer to me; as Limiting by time doesn't control wasted bandwidth, since they run on top of Amazon EC2 it definitely artificially cost control on there end. What's more

I did compress them with a 2 pass encode to get it down to 250 mb which means it will download for most people in 2-3 minutes and not be unreasonably large, they still look good on a big monitor. The accounts should have enough bandwidth quota to not have the daily limit get hit, and we have more accounts we can use if that happen.

 

[LarryOz]

how to power Garmin-phone-VIRB camera-lights

I powered my Garmin for the 24 hour by mounting a slick little battery I found:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IXGN5MS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I actually mounted 2 of them on either side of the water bottle cage just under the boom. They are each 6000 mamps, and each one will power my GARMIN 510 for way longer than 24 hours. I used a slightly different shape (still mounted to the boom in front) to power my light, which is a Cygolite 700 I think. It will last all night with one 6000 mamp battery. The VIRB camera is another story. It really sucks the power - takes about 1000 mamps per hour to run it. I had a 5000 mamp battery mounted next to it on the boom too (Yeah - I had some extra battery weight didn't i! haha), and between the internal VIRB battery and my external 5000mamp, I got about 7 hours of video. I do have a 20K mamp brick, but it is pretty large and would have to mount it under the seat or something and then route USB cables to capture all 24 hours of video. It would have been really neat to have had some video of the middle of the night, especially my final crash. Oh, well - maybe next time I will rig something better up.

 

[Wannabe]

I just put that battery in my

I just put that battery in my prime account basket... great idea! tanka!

 

[Rick Youngblood]

Nice little battery Larry!

Nice little battery Larry!

 

[snilard]

Bob, can you, please, mirror

Bob, can you, please, mirror Larrys report in pdf?

 

[LarryOz]

I think this is it matij

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q42lkujqvnepgqz/2015-Sebring-24hour-journal-Oslund.pdf?dl=0
.....
I'm sure Bob will correct me if I am wrong!
........
Thanks again Bob for compressing, and posting, and hosting the video links!