July 30th, 2006
My Saturday really started with preparations on Friday for my 300K (190 miles) ride I’d been planning for some time! This ride is part of a series in the Boston Brevet Series which I participated in a couple of months ago with a 200K ride. This series is a qualifying group of rides for the upcoming Boston-Montreal-Boston (750 miles) ride and the Race Across America (RAAM).
After work on Friday I ate dinner at 5pm and hit the sack at 6pm in order to get some sort of sleep before the 12:45am alarm sounded! On the road at 1:50am I drove up to Bedford, Massachusetts about 1.5 hrs away for the 4:00am start. There were 12 other nuts…ah, I mean riders..who also showed up with lights and bikes. We started as a group in the black of night but as the sun came up around 5:15am I found myself with 2 other guys who had experience with long distance riding, reading cue sheets, and knew most parts of this course. We rode together for the entire event and were very compatible riders.
I had never ridden more than 130 miles in one day so I had no idea what I was in for after that mileage and the temperatures were well into the 90’s by late morning so hydration was key! To my surprise I felt great for the entire ride without any cramps or fatigue but by around the 180 mile mark my crotch wanted OFF of the saddle!
Checkpoints were at 43,88, and 145 mile marks and were perfectly serviced by the organizers with water, gatorade, fruit, chips, sandwiches, cookies, sodas, sunblock, bandaids, Tums. About the only thing missing was Bag Balm for my butt! Just before the 88 mile checkpoint Team Arc-En-Ciel came to the rescue by towing the 3 of us for about 10 minutes so we could rest some behind their draft- it was like the cavalry coming over the hill on route 49. The 190 mile ride had over 10,000 feet of climbing as we made our way from central Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and back to Massachusetts.
Feeling good after the ride I decided to join the team ride this morning for a hard 68 miles with lots of paceline speed work. Again to my surprise, I was able to hang in there so this weekend gave me some confidence that maybe my training plan is on target…but then again, there’s a HUGE difference between a 250 mile weekend and 2900 miles cross country!
Posted in Trip Preparation | No Comments »
July 22nd, 2006
The training seems to be on target as of this post on July 21, 2006. I just completed a good mileage week by riding 438 miles in 6 out of the 7 day week. Some of the miles happened by meeting one of my cycling employees (Cindy) who rides 32 miles each way to work. Cindy and I would leave our respective houses at 5:30am and meet along her route to work and then we would get to work at 7:30am with the 32 miles apiece. After work I would ride towards her house and then split off to ride home, thereby giving me a total day of about 70-80 miles. So, the daily total miles were: 80,105,70,70,off,38,75.
Rain: I really dislike rain in general but I can’t believe we won’t get wet on the trip so one of last week’s rides was in the rain and today’s ride was also wet. Not a real problem when the temperature is warm.
This week is an “easy week” and then I’ll ramp up again next Saturday morning at 4am with an organized 300K ride (190 miles) by the Boston Brevet Series. I’ve never ridden over 130 miles at a time but Lon and Susan (PACTour) recommend a 200 mile ride at some point before the trip.
Well, that’s it for now- probably more wet riding tomorrow!
Ken
Posted in Trip Preparation | Comments Off
July 13th, 2006
Well, here we go…the planning stages are well underway for my upcoming PACTour cycling trip across the good ol’ USA! I turned 50 years old last November and as a challenge for my first half a life I’ve decided to take a cycling trip which runs from San Diego, California to Savannah, Georgia. Here are the stats:
- Total Mileage: 2,913 miles
- Average daily mileage: 112 miles/day
- Total Climbing: 87,160
- Average daily climbing: 3,500 feet/day
There is lots to do with the preparation for this trip- first of all there is the training…MILES, MILES, MILES! This department is going very well with back to back 100+ mile day weekends and an upcoming 190 mile ride on July 29th.
The second part of prep is equipment and that’s the part I’ve just started. Looks like I’ll ride the Colnago CT-1 which is a combination of titanium and carbon material. This bike’s claim to fame is that it was a Team Navigator bike ridden by professional cyclist Ciaran Power. I’ve painted the bike in our team colors and it looks really cool.
Well, that’s it for now- more to come.
Remember the mantra, “Eat before you’re hungry; drink before you’re thirsty!”
Ken
Posted in Trip Preparation | Comments Off
