Yesterday I rode the first Brevet of my official PBP qualifying series – the
New England Randonneurs 200K from Concord, MA to Mt. Wachusett, Okham, Purgatory Chasm and back. The weather was good for riding. – 42 to start and high of 50, cloudy but mostly dry with light winds.
Boy was it tough. Usualy I have 1 moment in any brevet when I wonder, “what am I doing this for” and think “I don’t think I want to do more of this.” And this ride had two or three. This was a hilly ride, 8,500 feet of vertical total. I’ve done the climb up to Mt. Wachusett twice before but never on the recumbent. When I hit the steep long sections – 5-7% for a quarter mile, I was grinding in my lowest gear with my heart at the red line and could barely keep the bike upright. The muscle action on the Cruzbike was giving me cramps in places I’ve never gotten cramps before. Then there’s a kicker at the base of the last climb of about 9-10% and I couldn’t get traction at all. I walked the steepest section and then got back on the bike and tried to serpentine it… I hit the sand at one edge of the road and put my foot down and jammed on the brakes and literally slid backwards downhill for 5-10 feet. It was pretty dispiriting.
Then, in the middle section of the ride, I was still having trouble with the hills but I kept having mechanicals. I mistakenly shifted into the big/big and maxed out the chain, grinding the bike to a halt and losing the wheel of the group I’d been riding with. Then I kept dropping the chain off the biggest cog and realized I had to avoid it for the remainder of the ride. The last straw was when the hose from my camelback got caught in my rear wheel. No crash, but snapped it off but was able to find it on the shoulder… which was a relief relative to riding the last 50 miles with no hydration options. Oh, and this was on a long climb that I walked most of after throwing my chain and then being unable to restart going uphill at 7%.
But, thinking like a Randonneur, overall, it was a good ride. I finished in a decent time 9:30 vs. 8:30 for my 200k last year which was a lot flatter (3,500 ft). My hydration and nutrition plan worked pretty well (but I need more salt relative to carbs). I learned a lot about my Cruzbike setup and have a list of things to fix:
- I need a longer chain to prevent cross-chaining/dropping issues
- I should look into a gearing solution – larger cog or smaller little ring
- My jury-rigged hose fastening solution for camelback in the fastback double century is clever but not foolproof.
The harder thing to work on (isn’t it always the way) will be the rider. I wish I had trained more strength and hills rather than endurance over the winter. When I finished the flatter 200K last June, it was the mid-point of a 400k and I felt like I could have done the return. Yesterday I finished with decent energy, but can’t imagine doing it twice. Usually I go too hard on the way out and pay for it, but on this ride, I didn’t go too hard on the flats and it’s hard for me to conceive of doing the hills any slower unless I walk… which I may have to do. My next ride is the New Jersey Four State 400K in two weeks which has “only” 12,500 feet of climbing. So only 50% more. That’s what I’m going to focus on – 25% less climbing per mile!
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