24 Hour National Cycling Challenge

We did this endurance ride for the 1st time in 2010. The Challenge is a very well run ride for the ultra distance cyclist. It has been in existence for like 30 years. The volunteers who help put this on are all very nice and enthusiastic. Their website has an interesting history of the event. http://www.n24hc.org/. This year's event was on Sat/Sun June 17/18.

As the name implies it is a 24 hour cycling marathon, made up of 3 loops that all start at Thornapple Middle School in Middleville, MI, about 20 miles southeast of Grand Rapids:
Loop 1 - 121.3 miles - you must average 12.5 mph or else you don't advance to Loop 2.
Loop 2 -   23.7 miles - theoretically you also must accumulatively average 12.5 mph or else you don't    advance to Loop 3 for the rest of the race. For the strong riders, they will ride Loop 2 several times before it closes at 9 pm.
Loop 3 - 7.5 miles - There is no time pressure on this loop. You ride this as many times as you want up to 8 am on Sunday morning.
All three loops have checkpoints that you must ride to in order to get your mileage documented.

In 2010, Ron, Lige and I all completed Loop 1. I only made it 8 miles into Loop 2 before severe leg cramps made me park the bike and head back to the hotel in Grand Rapids. Lige was severely exhausted after Loop 1 and never made it to the 2nd loop. The temps were in the mid 90's all day, it was realy windy and of course a lot of rolling hills. Considering the conditions I was fairly pleased with my total miles. Ron rode thru the evening and early into the morning before retiring after riding 205.8 miles. To give you some additional perspective, the winner of this event in 2010 rode 494.8 miles !!!! After last year's event all 3 of us decided we were coming back and improve on our total mileage in 2011.

2011 Summary Totals from my Garmin:
Distance:   222.23 mi
Time:      20:19:03 h:m:s
Elevation Gain:  5,643 ft
Avg Speed: 10.9 mph
- Actually at 24 hours this works out to 9.26 mph.
Avg HR:125 bpm
Avg Bike Cadence:85 rpm
Calories:7,647 C

Official results:
221.2 total miles.
58th overall out of 91 recorded distances.
161st out of 289, including tandems and recumbent rider entries.
21st out of 36 in my age group-50-54.

The official results are posted on their website noted above.

The overall winner was John Schlitter, a recumbent rider from Florida with 487.6 miles. The first time in history a recumbent rider won it. This guy passed me so many times on the night loop. He was incredible. I only got to see his face a couple of times, but I'm guessing he was in his late 50's. He was like a machine!. Last year's champion, Chris Ragsdale(M30-34) from Seattle ended up 4th overall with a mere 427.6 miles. This guy is also a machine but during one of the later night loops I saw him drafting behind the winner and figured he was starting to tire out.

This is a very well organized and in some ways a "fun" event. The routes are on very low travelled roads for the most part with Loop 3 having County Sheriff's and large lights in each corner and busy intersections. Our son Kenny provided sag support service throughout the ride for the 3 of us. Thanks Kenny.

I would say this year's 24 Hour Challenge was my biggest accomplishment on a bike for the following reasons:
-222 miles broke my old single ride record of 170 miles (I think this was on my 1st RAIN ride where there was a detour after Greenfield a few years ago that added 5 miles to the ride).
-I've never ridden any significant distance in the dark before, let alone 82.5 miles.

Within our ride group, there was a lot of chat about cramping and nutrition at this event and other long distance events. As most of you know I have had a history of severe cramp attacks. It ruined last year's 24 Hour Challenge for me at mile 130. But this year, cramping was not a big problem.
I think the big difference for me was my pre-ride hydration plan - For 3 days prior to the ride, I drank no soda pop or alcoholic beverages and I drank more water than usual. During the ride, I used a 72 oz hydration pack with NUUN electrolyte tablets and ended up drinking 3 of those thru Loops 1 and 2. In addition I had two 22 oz Camelback Podium ICE bottles filled with ice water. I used those to cool off my head and neck and for when I got tired of drinking NUUN water. With out a doubt these new Podium ICE water bottles are the best ones on the market. On a hot day, if you fill the bottle full of ice and then water, you will still have ice in that bottle 3-4 hours later!!! If you are like me, I can't stand warm water on a long hot bike ride.
 
On the food front, I followed some of Dr. Mark's advice by munching on some protein filled beef jerky throughout the ride and taking an ice cold swig of chocolate milk as needed at the sag stops(see picture of the finished bottle just before my last night loop). I also ate copious amounts of fruit - apples and oranges in particular, but also some bananas throughout the ride. On the night loops it was all apples and oranges and just ice water. The other key diet item for me, especially at night were Cliff Shots. I would chomp off 2 sections of the Black Cherry w/ Caffeine shots after each loop. In between Loop 2 and starting the night loop, Kenny grilled up some tasty hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner. MMMMMMM!

For me, there are 2 key pieces of data that I use to monitor my performance and health while riding -
1. My heart rate. During the day, I make sure to not go over 150 unless climbing a long steep hill. And over the long haul, I want to stay at or below 140. During the night riding my heart rate never got over 125.
2. My cadence. With my bad knee, high RPM's is the only way I can survive riding these long distances. I try to ride at 90 RPM's at all times outside of the hills. If I start seeing myself dropping to 75-80 RPM's, I will shift down regardless how I'm feeling.

My only disappointment was that this old Boy Scout made a wrong turn (again aka 3S3M in 2010) and it caused Lige and I to go WAY OFF course, miss the 2nd checkpoint and to run out of water. I was really mad and disappointed at myself over that boneheaded move. I felt like I had let Lige and myself down, as well as Ron and Kenny. Lige and I ended up riding 56 miles from the 1st checkpoint before hooking up with Kenny. I had stopped at a farmhouse and asked a little old lady for some water which she gladly obliged. This kept Lige and I going until Kenny found us. When we finally hooked up, I had steam coming out of my ears and was on the verge of throwing in the towel, assuming we would be DQ'd and not able to continue. Fortunately, Lige and Kenny's calmer heads intervened. We rested some, ate some real food, filled up our empty water and NUUN containers and proceeded on to checkpoint 3 where we arrived ahead of Ron who had been ahead of us before I made the wrong turn. We had a little fun at the stop asking Ron what took him so long to get here. We told him that we had blown past him but he didn't hear us. After 10 or so minutes, the 3 of us couldn't hold back laughter anymore and proceeded to tell Ron our story. It was a much needed light-hearted moment. Sorry Ron.

We rode on to the end of Loop 1 arriving about 4:45. I talked to the race director about continuing, and the good news is that we were allowed to continue riding loops 2 and 3. Our Garmin's were used to document our actual miles for Loop 1 which totaled 116 miles. As a result we were only 5 miles off the total mileage for Loop 1 when we finished it. Loop 2 was fairly uneventful which was a good thing for me. I took a very long rest afterwards and didn't start my first night loop until 9:30.

It took about 5 laps of the night loop before I really started enjoying it. As Ron described it last year, it is very surreal seeing all those headlights and blinking red tail-lights going down the road. My energy picked up after my last nap which I woke up from at 3:15 am. I completed 5 of my 11 laps from 3:15-7:00. Go figure.

Some final observations:


-Sunrise was awesome! You get so used to the darkness and then suddenly riding north I looked to the east and saw a feint tint of orange on the horizon. By the time I made it to the last road into town going south, I started hearing the birds chirping. I've heard that many times before on campouts and the occasional early bike ride start but this time it kind of energized me for some reason.

-At the start of every night loop we rode by a small horse farm. I think they stayed up all night. Quite often I did my horse impersonation as I went by to break the monotony. They were not impressed.

-The next lap after seeing the sun starting to rise while riding on the last road, I started seeing what appeared to be several small birds flying away that were on the road. After about 10 of these birds took off in front of me, I looked closer and they appeared to be bats. Very cool.

-On my 11th and final lap, I brought my camera with me and took some pictures along the course. I've attached them here along with several others Kenny and I took during the day.

PS.

I found out that there was a crash near the start of Loop 1. It happened as the pack was heading east into the town of Middleville. I found a blog posting that described it: "The 29th edition of the national 24 hour challenge began at 8 am saturday in Middleville, Michigan. Over 300 riders including 12 recumbent riders and 1 handcycler, Bill Schwartz. John Schlitter and Kent Polk of team bacchetta led the peloton into the 1st loop of 121.3 miles. As they approached the center of Middlleville the police who were doing traffic control let a car into the intersection. John was ahead of Kent so they both braked, the peleton closed the gap without slowing, not sure what happened but Kent was hit,went down and was run over by at least two other riders. His carbon aero suffered a broken fork and he had scrapes and strains. Kent was out of the race which ment he could crew for John who went 487.4 miles, set a new recumbent record and for the 1st time in the history of the event a bent rider was 1st overall. John's win on a difficult course against many of the best distance riders in the midwest including several RAAM competitors was very impressive. Bill Schwartz, the handcyclist , was also most impressive in that he used his arms to go over 250 miles."

Here are some pictures from this year's event.

Left-Right - Ron, Lige and Tom

At the Start of the race. Approximately 300 riders started. 289 riders recorded official mileage. 208 recorded mileage in excess of 200 miles.

Above: Night riding. Loop 3 Checkpoint, Yours truly and The dedicated volunteers manning the night loop checkpoint. They kept things light-hearted, sometimes by telling jokes or just being goofy. It takes a lot for someone to volunteer and man a checkpoint like this from midnight to 8 am!!!!

MMMM Chocolate Milk! Sustanance

A rider on a double decker Bike?

Small Horse Farm we pedaled by early into the night loop route.

Middleville Water Tower.

Close Up of the souped up double decker bicycle. Someone told me that the person who rode this always rides it on his last lap.

Kenny, our dedicated ride support staff sound asleep in the tent around 6:00 am Sunday morning. Thanks Kenny for sharing this event with me on Fathers' Day. I had a great time. Love Dad

Coach Hep Cancer Challenge-Bloomington, IN

Everyone predicted heavy rain for the start of the Coach Hep Challenge that started on the northside of IU's football stadium this past Saturday, May 14th, 2011. Ron and I got up bright and early and drove down for the ride anyway. As we were driving on SR 67, south of Mooresville we were first greeted by a large coyote in the median eating some venison for breakfast. Then a few mile down the road we started seeing large breaks in the clouds that eventually gave way to clear skies and temps in the 60's. Initially we had planned on doing the 100k route but changed our minds and did the 50k route because we felt that the rain gods might change their mind and provide a good soaking later in the day.


This was the first time I rode this event. I knew it was going to be hilly but I was most excited to ride on some of the old day 2 course of the Hilly Hundred going back to the 1980's. Unfortunately they made a course change and we ended up doing an out and back loop north of Bloomington thru Morgan Monroe State forest. This loop was part of the originally planned route and it included climbing Beanblossom which is still part of the day 2 HH route. Years ago, that hill used to just kill me, just like Mt. Tabor, but for the last 4 or 5 years I have "learned" how to climb it and now it's one of my all-time favorite climbs.

There was no mass start for the bike ride, so Ron and I picked up our bag of "swag" ( A new term I learned last fall at the Div III Cross Country Nationals. It stands for the goodies all the participants get at a large athletic event). It included a nice t-shirt, a couple of Cook Medical Group lanyards, and some Coach Hep red shoe strings along with a variety of coupons for local businesses. The snacks provided were great. All you can take of Clif Bars, Kashi Bars, Bananas, pastries and bagels. I love Clif Bars on my bike rides so I grabbed a few more than I really needed for the ride since they were "free".

The 30 mile ride went pretty fast considering the hills and beautiful scenary, especially around Griffey Lake. My Garmin measured about 31 miles, with approx. 1700 feet of climbing and an overall average of 13.5 mph. Ron and I stopped quite often to enjoy the scenary and/or to empty the bladder. The steepest hill was at the beginning/ending of the ride. I measure a 23% grade on a portion of that 1/2 mile climb. There were a lot of walkers on that hill but thanks to my 34/32 gear ratio, I slowly made it up without any problem.

Later in the day my hamstrings were a bit sore from all the intense climbing but honestly, after only riding in flat Hendricks County for the past 2 months, my legs needed a good wake-up call.

Riding on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées

My wife and I met up with our son in London who just finished a semester abroad in England on April 20th. Unlike last year's big vacation to Spain where we visited our other son who was studying in Madrid and where I did an all day tour along the Costa Brava from Gerona with Jaume from bikecat.com, this year's trip had no plans to ride a bike. We were visiting England and France and although it was tempting to try and fit in a real one day ride, I decided it wasn't practical with everything else on our itinerary. Without going into all the details of our 15 day trip, we did spend 4 nights at a very nice apartment in Paris, south of the Invalides. Once we got there, I remembered those wonderful bike rental stations they installed a couple years ago in Paris - Velib - http://en.velib.paris.fr/ . So I got the bug to rent one for a few hours and go for a ride.

My son and I got up early on May 1st and rented a couple of these beater bikes with a front basket, 3 speed internal gears and big gnarly tires and fenders. Our goal was to ride up to the Champs-Elysees and ride it from the Place de_la_Concorde on the east side to the Arc_de_Triomphe on the west side. As we were cresting the bridge over the Seine River, we started hearing what sounded like a bunch of turbo prop jet engines to our right adjacent to the entrance of the Louvre Museum park. We had no idea what it could be this early in the morning with very little traffic on the street. Then as we made it over the bridge, we saw to our rigt, over 100 new and vintage red and silver Ferrari's all revving their engines. It was a sight to behold. Just after we rode past them and turned left onto the Champs-Elyseees, all of these Ferrari's started to pull out. I got onto to the wide sidewalk but my son was still on the street as these high performance cars started flying by. My guess is that he ended up in 100's of photos that were being taken of these beautiful cars flying by.

What a thrill it was to ride on the finishing stretch on the final stage of the Tour_de_France. I had not ridden on a street bike like this in years. It was obvious that these rental bikes take a beating but it was still a lot of fun riding it. We ended up riding about 15 miles that morning. So now I have ridden my bike in 3 countries - USA, Spain and France.

Here is a nice view of that most historical street in Paris.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Champs-Elysées,_vue_de_la_Concorde_à_l'Etoile.jpg

One other bike-related note from our vacation to England and France. While waiting for the Eurostar at St. Pancras station in London, I wandered into a bookstore and came upon a most wonderful book that any distance cyclist would enjoy reading. The title of the book is "The Man Who Cycled the World", by Mark Beaumont of Scotland. In February 2008 he took over 60 days off the world record for circumnavigating the world. It is quite a read.

My next big ride is the Coach Hep Challenge in Bloomington, IN, this Saturday, May 14th. 65 miles of Morgan/Monroe and Brown county hills. Yee Ha !!!

Update on 06/16/2011:


Here is a picture of the Ferrari Meeting in Paris. It is dated from 2009, but it is almost exactly the way it looked when Kenny and I rode by back on May 1st. And they are parked in the exact same spot!!!!



http://www.flickr.com/photos/arka002/4008750437

I found a YouTube Video that has Kenny in it at the end. You really can appreciate the noise these cars create when so many drive by you. Right at the end, you will see Kenny ride by on his bike. You can faintly here him responding to me telling him to jump a curb!!!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRC8qMcsc8M

200K Brevet Springfield, Ohio 03/26/2011 Ride Report

This past Saturday, I attempted my 3rd 200k Brevet. My 1st attempt was 3 years ago in Kentucky. I DNF'd after 100k. Two reasons I didn't finish: a) I significantly underestimated the amount of hill climbing  and was not in good enough shape. I'm a pretty big guy who loves to climb hills. But gravity worked against me when I came upon the Enchanted Forest and started climbing Oregon Road. b) Due to some bad luck, I ended up leaving the start without my good riding friend Ron Erdely and ended up riding alone all the way to the turnaround at the 2nd control. It was the hardest and lonliest ride of my life. My 2nd 200k was in Edwardsville, IL 2 years ago and I did finish that one. A very flat ride but a bit windy. Enough rambling about the past, so here is my ride report:

Lige Hensley joined me on this early season ride. This was our first one with the Ohio Randon's. Bob, you did a great job and designed a very good route. At the 7:30 am start we had clear, sunny skies and it was a "balmy" 22 degrees according to my Garmin ! Lige said it best. It was very COLD and Windy. I've ridden in harsher wind but not for that long at this temperature. Brrrrrrrrr.

To be honest, at the beginning of the ride, I really didn't think I would even finish this Brevet. I had maybe 250 road miles in so far in 2011 with the longest one being 54 miles. I had not ridden any real hills. For those who have ridden with me over the years, I sweat a lot on bike rides regardless of the temperature. My biggest concern was not the strength of my legs but rather would I be able to effectively control my body temperature on this cold and windy day?

I adjusted my Garmin Edge data screens so I couldn't see my current speed. I felt that focusing just on average speed, total distance, my heart rate and cadence would keep me focused on the long term goal of finishing before dark.

Just before the start at the Days Inn:


By the first control in Urbana, I was feeling really good and felt pretty confidant about making it the whole way as long as we didn't push the average speed.

There were some tricky parts on the route and it was critical to pay close attention to the cue sheet and most importantly ride with some of the more experienced Ohio randonneurs. On a couple of occasions, we missed a turn but corrected ourselves fairly quickly.

We rode on some really nice roads, especially the paved trails. Indiana is so far behind in trail development. I hate to say it but we need to ride more in Ohio. Compared to central Indiana, the terrain here has much more variety and overall safer roads to ride on,  especially those well maintained trails.

At every checkpoint, riders huddled inside trying to warm up.  Hot chocolate at some Speedway gas stations, really warmed me up at the control stops. 

Lige and I getting ready to go back in the cold:




Our bikes laying in wait while we warmed up in the Speedway:


Lige's Slushy:


We rode the last 25 or so miles with George from Michigan.  He was going for PBP and must have been 10 times stronger than both of us.  But being the first long ride of the year for most of us he was pretty beat too.  But, chatting helps the miles go faster which we were all thankful for. 

At mile 116 we hit a hill VERY similar to Oregon Road in Kentucky.  Pretty steep, same sort of surroundings and kinda long.  I measured 14% but it felt a lot steeper than that after 10 hours in the cold. Overall the hills on this route were not too difficult. I didn't have any problem with any climb until that last one as we climbed out of the "Enchanted Forest". I actually started cramping pretty bad about 1/3 way up and I stopped to get off the bike for a short bit. After walking less than 100 feet I jumped back on the bike and finished the climb. George and Lige soft pedaled until I got caught up with them and from there we just grinded it out into that cold headwind.

The route was like a huge figure-8.  The last checkpoint was a familiar Speedway station in a town called Wilberforce and we were about 18 miles from the finish.  The clock showed about 5pm and it wasn’t getting any warmer. 

As we rolled out of the area, we heard the all too familiar sound of dogs giving chase.  I saw the mommy dog and about 6 puppies, all in full sprint.  After 110 miles in the cold and wind, the last thing I needed was a dog induced sprint.  But, these dogs had nothing on us.  There was no way they could ever catch me as I was already in the big ring and hammering at 12 mph.  Had I not been, it probably wouldn’t have mattered as we were being pursued by a family of wiener dogs.  It was a sight and sound to behold.

It was a long slog back to Springfield.  At mile 127 we made a left hander toward town and had a tail wind for the first time in probably 6 hours.  It’s quite amazing how fast 15 mph feels after struggling to do 11 mph for such a long time.

Right after we got into the Days Inn to turn in our cards, I texted Rick, Ron and Mark. All three responded essentially with the same words - "Awesome", "Great Job" and "Butler just won in overtime!" I would say they had their priorities in place. 
 
Considering the lack of road miles, I was very pleased with the result: Ave speed 11.2 miles - 129 miles.

I am also very thankful that my wife came with me to Springfield. She was ready if needed to pick me up off the side of the road. Fortunately that wasn't necessary.

On Sunday, we drove down to Cincinnati and we had a wonderful visit with my brother  Bill. I just fixed up a hybrid bike for him last fall and hopefully this spring and summer we will get together to ride some of the wonderful hills around Cincinnati. We visited Montgomery Bike Shop. A very cool store and it was open on Sunday!

Bringing back old Memories from the 70's

On Saturday, I rode about 30 miles with two of my old racing buddies - Bruce G. and Tom(Turkey) C. and and Jeff, another strong rider that is a friend of Turkey, in South Bend. Bruce, Turkey and I used to work together at Rickeys Bike Shop in Mishawaka back in the mid to late 70's. We were part of a small group of local riders, including my brother John who formed the Team MBA bike racing team. I was never a very good racer but that experience was very memorable, fun and very formative for me. Bruce continues to race very competively in the Masters class and was on the US Para-olympic team for a couple of years, competing in the Netherlands. Turkey has "retired" from racing but is still a strong rider.

This ride was a lot of fun, and pretty darn fast. For the warm up portion, I think they found the steepest hills in the area to remind me of my cycling roots. I like hills but a little longer warm up on the flats would have made these a bit more enjoyable. The ride started at Clay High School, north of the ND campus and proceed northeast into Michigan, west around Barren Lake, thru Niles then back to the high school.

I was warned that there would be a sprint to the Niles, MI city limits sign but they didn't tell me which one and it had been 30 plus years since I had ridden the roads we were on. I figured it out though when Bruce did a loud "grunt" and started the lead out about 1/2 mile away from one I sort of remembered on the east side of Niles. With about 300-400 meters to the sign we were at 30 mph and my heart rate was in the mid 170's. The other 3 kept getting faster and faster and I had to back off before I popped a gasket. I ended up about 50-75 meters behind them. Hard sprints like this were kind of my specialty back in the 70's but three knee surgeries on my right knee over the years has left that joint with no cartilage between the bones.

As we were getting near the finish of the ride where my car was parked, Bruce started speeding up again, so I figured it was time for another sprint to the Clay High School sign. At about 100 meters out I went wide to the left and took off but they never reacted and in fact pulled up and soft pedaled the rest of the way. They got a good laugh out of it.

Overall average was about 18 mph, due to the early hills and riding thru the middle of Niles. I am sure this training ride for the 3 of them was only at medium to easy pace but it was on the upper end of my physical abilities.

Bruce and Turkey brought up some really funny stories from back in the day.  We talked about our current lives as well. It was nice catching up with them again after all these years and hopefully there will be more rides together in the future.

3 State 3 Mountain, May 1, 2010

This was my 2nd attempt at completing this ride. In 2009, Ron and I turned around after the first mountain pass called Suck Creek,due to severe weather. It was raining hard, lightening and thundering and watching the number of riders going down the 1st mountain while climbing up it along with the stories of riders sliding off their bikes due to the volume of water going over the road on the other side convinced us to turn around and go back to the hotel.

The forecast this year was looking bad all week and didn't really change when we got to Chattanooga. 40-60% chance of thunderstorms, heavy rain and temps in the 80's. Nashville, a scant 120 miles to the West, ended up with something like 14" of rain during the ride (yes, that's a fourteen). But, while the skies looked threatening a few times, we didn't get a drop of rain. I suppose the hillbilly God's were making up for the past 2 years when there was copious amounts of rain for everyone. We guessed that it would rain by 3pm so we'd need to finish before then to stay dry. While this turned out to be a non-factor, it was a good motivator. Descending Lookout Mountain in the rain is just plain crazy and not something I wanted to do.

I was in much better shape this year for this very hilly ride. I made it up Suck Creek right behind Lige with no problems. The descent was a lot of fun and reminded me of the twisting downhills along the Costa Brava back in March. We hit a bit of wind along the large reservoir but the clouds helped keep the temps down along the the ride before we got to Sand Mountain. The road leading up to Sand Mountain is appropriately called the "Goat Road". It was very bumpy and with lots of road kill on the roads.

Sand Mountain was a tough climb. I never walked any of it but I did stop twice to catch my breath. Mark S. caught up with me about half way up and he proceeded to pass me. There were several steep switchbacks but I finally made it to the top and continued riding towards the sag stop. The views at the top were breath-taking and I eventually caught up with Ron and we stopped to take a few pictures. At the rest stop, I was feeling very fatigued and took a longer break than Ron so I was on my own at this point. Unfortunately, I did not review my route map and proceeded to go the wrong direction from the stop. I ended up riding about 3 miles over several smaller hills before realizing I needed to turn around. As a result I ended up adding 6 miles to my ride before turning on the correct road.

A lady on a trike rode up next to me and told me I was in last place. I proceeded to tell her why and decided that I was not going to stay in that spot by the finish. I ended up riding over 30 miles non-stop and passsed a bunch of riders along the way before I got to the sag stop below Burkhalter Rd. Mark had warned me about a steep little climb before the sag stop and when I got to it, I just hunkered down and slowly got to the top of it. There was a very strong and fit looking rider about 50 yards ahead of me at the bottom of this climb and somehow, I actually passed him on this climb. It had to be pretty demoralizing for him to see this big goliath of a rider cruising by up that hill.
Unfortunately, because of the pace and length of riding before stopping, I started to develop some severe hamstring and calf cramps by the time I got to the sag stop. I tried to stretch them out and rested a bit but they wouldn't stop so I asked if a sag driver could take me to the finish. There was another lady biker who was feeling pretty sick who also hitched a ride. We drove up Burkhalter Gap Rd and saw Ron and Mark climbing the mountain. At the top I changed my mind and decided to ride the rest of the route. You can imagine the surprise in their eyes to see me already at the top. I took a lot of grief by hitching a truck ride to the top but my legs would never have survived that climb.
Ron and I rode together for most of the way into Chattanooga. I ended up with like 103 total miles due to my error at the sag stop after Sand Mountain. The ride down Lookout Mountain was exciting but unfortunately I had to take it slower than I wanted to because it started drizzling along the way.
All in all, this was a great ride with scenic views, lots of climbing and many friendly riders along the way. And most importantly, I was not last !!!

Brown County State Park Ride - April 9th, 2010

Ron, Lige and I made a trip to BCSP on Saturday looking to have some self-inflicted pain in preparation for 3 State 3 Mountain. The weather was ideal, started off cool and warmed up nicely with clear and sunny skies. It was a tight fit getting us into Ron's Honda Element, but it all worked. It was a punishment-fest climbing and we did 2 laps, but we all did well. I was feeling particularly strong that day and was able to make it up a steep climb and go around the turn without stopping for the first time ever. Lige was his typical conisistent, competent self and looks ready to go. Ron got ahead of us at the end of the 1st lap and a different direction. At the top of the hill, Lige and I turned and added some extra milage. Lige and I ended up with 38 miles and 3,000 feet of climbing. One of the downhills, I hit just over 40 mph.Overall, a great day: near perfect weather, we all felt good about our performance.

PS. Here is a video I took on the last downhill. I had my camera dangling from my wrist, so be careful it might get a little dizzy on the way down.