Cascades Prelude

As of mid-May, I had officially abandoned the idea of doing the Cascades.  In fact, I actually wrote the ride to cancel on June 12.  Kathy was in horrible pain from multiple surgeries for the cancer, I was fighting with insurance companies, we had to switch oncologists, etc.  Riding was the last thing on my mind.  I did the fleche in May and the 400K in early June thinking they might be my only rides.

Then on June 15, we got some good news.  The CT Scan came back pretty clean, we resolved all the hospital and insurance issues and the chemo didn't have nearly as many side effects as we thought it would.  So on June 16, I wrote and got my spot back.  You can't just let cancer rule your life.  Plenty of friends stepped up to let me go to the ride.  But I hadn't done nearly as much training as I had planned.  I hadn't micro-tuned my bike, seen my chiro, and all the things I typically do before a ride.

I will start right now by saying that I didn't finish the Cascades.  I stopped at Quincy (mile 436) with severe hamstring pain (that turned out to be a partial rupture of the muscle).  But that doesn't really bother me that much.  The two days I had were a fabulous experience and I really saw all the benefits that experience brings on this sport.  I have said it many times: I don't ride for the miles or medals, I ride to meet really cool people and see cool sites.  And boy, did this ride have awsome people!  I have this feeling that over the coming years, I will certainly see them again.  By 2012,  I will be more than ready to try again for the great sights as well.

There is a point in every brevet when you have to ask yourself: am I in pain or am I injuring myself?  This is a subtle and difficult judgement call to make.  I have been battling since December with knee issues.  That and about 4 other single issues all came together in exactly the right way to screw me up.

1. My crash in February - turns out it likely caused an undiagnosed injury to my hip that causes a rotational problem and makes a good seat post heigh hard to find.  That caused my body to recruit muscles that I don't ususally stress when riding.
2. My trainer totally overshot my final prep workout 4 days before the ride.  I started after just getting over severe muscle soreness.  I was already maxed on Advil before the ride started.
3. The cancer schedule made all my periodization plans impossible and I started in good shape, but not peak.  I had to skip my April 600k which I had felt was a crucial step.
4. Due to #2, I had to ride more conservatively than I had planned early in the ride and I got dropped from the main pack of riders at least 30 miles before I should have been.  I made up the time, but worked harder than I should have.

The following posts will detail my adventures in the Cascades.  Keep in mind that I consider this ride to be a huge success.  By stopping, I likely saved at least some of the rest of my summer rides.

Great Lakes 400K (with a Possible Twist)

I really thought I had seen everything when I signed up for the Great Lakes Randonneurs 400K on June 5.
I was wrong!

It started in Delevan, Wisconsin on a grey day with a perfect temperature of about 65 degrees.  I hadn't ridden with this group before and was by myself so I figured I would ride the whole thing alone.  The chance of rain that day had dropped to "30% starting after 2:00 pm".  There were 28 riders at the start, which is quite a lot for a 400k so early.

Surprisingly, most of the group stayed together for the first 45 miles.  I met up with an actuary named Kurt and an English professor, Bill.  Bill had the horror of discovering at the first control that he had neglected to mount his rack bag at the start.  We scared up extra tire levers, tubes and an inflator/CO2 for him, but he now had no rain gear.  I had a slow leak that I wound up fixing about 5 miles after the control, but that was my only issue.  Kurt and I wound up losing Bill about 15 miles from Darlington, the second control.  The wind picked up a little - with more to come later.

Kurt and I pulled into Darlington at 90 miles a bit before noon.  We made it a quick break and got back on the bike quickly.  The next stop was an informational control, the name of a campground, about 20 miles away.  Just outside Darlington, I stopped to put on a rain jacket as a way of keeping it from raining.  It briefly rained, then stopped.  Saved, I thought.

About half an hour later, we looked behind us to see one of the meanest thunderclouds I have ever seen.  Good thing that is to the south, we thought and we are going north.  Turned out we were actually going northeast and about 10 minutes later, I heard a loud rushing which turned out to be buckets of rain hitting the ground.  It came from behind us and we were drenched in about 30 seconds.  No problem, we thought, rain this hard is just an isolated thing, it never goes on for long.

About 45 minutes later, the rain was still pouring and we got to the campground, the Four Season Resort, which may have been the most decrepit looking trailer park I've ever seen.  Not wanting to take out the cards in the rain, we resolved to remember the name by its more illustrious namesake.  The rain continued, but the wind wasn't bad.  I marveled at one point as we climbed up a short, steep hill that little waves were coming down the hill on the road.  Finally, it slowed and stopped for awhile.  The terrain had, by this point, turned decidedly hillier.

We rolled into Mineral Point at around 2:00 pm and found someone hovering over an IPhone with a weather map.  "Looks like the worst is behind us" then added "I think that big yellow/red blob is going to miss us".  I loaned someone a spoke wrench and Kurt had a hot dog.  We only had 10 miles to Dodgeville, so we rung out our clothes and continued on.  The next 10 miles had the kind of huge rollers I don't normally see in Minnesota.  Straight up and straight down and quite steep along Survey Road.  I finally ditched my rain coat.  Kurt hadn't put his on yet, prefering to ride in the rain; it had been a warm rain.

At Dodgeville, which was 200K, we had bananas and called spouses.  It was about 5:00 pm.  "The rain is passed", we said, "we should be in around 1:00 am". .....

About 300 yards passed the city limits, the wind suddenly whipped up and a light rain showed up.   This time, Kurt and I both put our jackets on.  Just in time, the rain came back in force, this time with a hard gusting wind from the north as we headed east.  The cross wind was so powerful, I had some trouble controlling the bike on descents and the rain stung it was so hard.  The lightning and thunder started too.  Just more giant rollers and virtually no trees.  An occaisional deserted looking farmhouse.  I kept my head down and we struggled to maintain about 10 mph.

Then I heard it, a wind like no other wind I have ever heard.  Not whistling or gusting or howling.  It sounded like the low rumble of a train.  I asked Kurt, "What's that, I haven't heard anything like that".  At this point, we couldn't see a thing and were having to ride our brakes down the rollers so that we could check for flash flooding at the bottom before climbing out.  Really, I thought, the chances that a tornado would hit us here vs. 1 mile down the road are the same so we may as well keep going until we see something.  Finally the sound stopped.  For the record, there were no touchdowns, but there were funnel clouds in the storm, one of which made it on TV.  How's that for rando adventure?

We fought and clawed our way through the hilliest part of the course to Mt Horab.  30 miles at about 9 miles an hour with the occasional major climb, usually into the wind.  I distinctly remember looking at my computer to see myself climbing at 3 mph.  At least it was warm.  We both remarked how glad we were were to not be alone in such weather.

Finally, we rolled into the Kwik Trip at Mt Horab.  Jim, the RBA, was there with a van loading bikes.  He was making multiple trips.  There were some very weary looking guys there.  One couple ran off to Walgreens to find clothes.  Kurt and I vowed to continue, surely the worst was past.  I asked the guy with the IPhone, conveniantly there, when the storm was ending and he quipped "10 minutes from now".   "Yeah sure", I retorted.  Then I looked at the horizon.  It was about 8:00 pm.  Sure enough, a golden line had appeared on the horizon.  It was a sunset.

Kurt and I spent extra time wrapping our bodies with garbage bags to keep warm during the night since it was going to be a long time before we dried.  We promised to pick up another rider at the Culver's down the street whose buddy was dropping and and who did not want to ride alone at night.  At Culver's, we actually picked up two people and then two more when the Walgreens couple road up sporting cheap fleece and panty hose.  "This stuff is great - I'm so glad I shaved my legs this morning," said the guy, whose name was Chad.  He and his wife, Nancy, were triathletes, but this was their first 400k.  Off we went to Oregon.

At this point, it got dark and the stars came out.  I love night riding and this was some of the best I have ever seen.  The lightning from the storm contrasted with the stars: magical.  I loaned a tire boot to Nancy at one point.  There are always more flats after the rain.  I did much of the navigation and helped us avoid a few unwanted miles.  Thank goodness for a lifelong obsesssion with maps and charts.

At Oregon, we fueled up and I made the mistake of eating peanut butter cups.  They sat in my stomach like unexploded grenades.  My knee also was getting tired, I injured it last February and have fought patellar tendonitis ever since.  Finally, we made it into the last control at about 1:30, Fort Atkinson.

What I remember the most about Fort (as the locals call it) was passing at least 4 motels and wishing this was a 600k so that I could stop.  We were all getting very tired and still had 30 miles to go.  The hills weren't bad but spirits were a little down.  "I look like ass," declared Nancy.  That got me laughing and I finally shook off the feeling of weariness.  Humor always does that for me on a brevet.

The last 30 miles were pretty heads down.  At some point, we lost Ken and Nancy to another flat but Kurt and I road into the Super 8 at almost exactly 4:00 am at about 18 mph (where we got that energy, I'll never know) along with 2 others.  Ken and Nancy showed up about 15 minutes later.

I drove back to Jefferson, where IronK was visiting family, for a quick nap and 2 breakfasts.   We stuck around in Madison for another day before heading back to the Twin Cities.

Regrettably, I have no photos from this ride.  But it was truly epic.  I exchanged email addresses with Kurt and hope we ride together again someday.  On this ride, it made all the difference.  I am often asked how you keep going when the weather is bad or something else goes wrong on a ride like this.  Honestly, if bad things happen, good things do too; you sometimes have to just get through the rough patch to really appreciate those stars or that beautiful moon.

First Fleche Team: Barnum Bombers do 400K in MN

The blog has been late these last few weeks and with everything going on it's a miracle I get to write at all.  But time to fill in the spots.

After thinking for awhile that brevets would be few and far between and cancelling the Cascades (due to them coinciding with the start of IronK's chemo), I still had the spring fleche to do.  Ahi, Paul, Rick and I had been planning it for months and since it was a week after the first major surgery, the timing worked out.

A fleche (which is French for arrow) is a ride of 24 hours duration//minimum 360 km, usually in  straight line, to a pre-set destination, in this case RBA Mike Aeling's house in Winona, MN.  It is ridden as a team with 3-5 members and at least 3 must finish together.  No stop can be more than 2 hours and the team must be at least 30 km from the end at 22 hours.

So began the adventures of the Barnum Bombers.  Somehow, we managed to design a route with 40 extra kilometers so we had a 400k.  There were 3 other teams as well, but as it turned out, ours was the longest route.  We decided at the time that our strategy would be "no heroics" and that speed would not be an issue.  We decided on a slower, steady pace with shorter, less frequent stops.  So early in the season, we all felt like this would be a better approach. 

So on May 15th at 9:00 am, Ahi's girlfriend, Laurie, dropped the 4 of us off in Barnum, MN.  After a quick gear check, we road down Main Street to find the Willard Munger Trail which would lead us 37 miles to Hinckley.  Unfortunately, even with 4 maps and a GPS, we got lost in the first mile and had to back track.  How embarrassing!  We looked all over and finally found it by tracking down Highway 61 (which it parallels).  The Munger is a really nice, paved trail and though it is next to a major state highway, it still has plenty of lakes, forest and wildlife to make it a really nice ride.  It was actually markedly earlier in the season up in Barnum then in the Twin Cities with the trees only just budding.  We trucked along at about 17-18 mph, switching back and forth on the front.  A small south wind was blowing that would wind up blowing all day, not strong, but noticeable.

At Hinckley, we paused to grab a snack and were quickly off to Pine City.  For this section, we wound around some country roads to avoid a bridge that was out and headed south on MN 61 to Pine City.  By this time, it was about 12:30 and we stopped at A&W Root Beer for burgers and a soda.  This was only about 50 miles in and at 4 hours, we were comfortable with our time. 

The next few hours were pretty uneventful as we pedaled south.  Ahi had a brief bonk, corrected  by Clif Shots and gummy bears.  We exited 61 for the road to Sunrise, MN, home of Richard Widmark (famous film noir actor).  By this time, it was closing on 5:00 pm and we passed the century mark.  The next major stop, Stillwater, came at about 7:00 pm.  Just outside the town, a mother wood duck and her babies crossed teh road right in front of us - there's something you don't see every day.  In Stillwater,  we paused again to pick up snacks.  At this point, we started getting slightly worried about time, we had about a 2 hour cushion.

An hour later in Afton, we stopped for a burgers at the Catfish Saloon.  A big sign said "Welcome BIkers", but they didn't exactly have us in mind.  At this point, it began to get dark and all the reflective gear went on.  This also marked the beginning of the hilly section of the course.

The next hour and a half to Hastings was interesting.  It started with just hills, but as we turned onto Highway 10, just outside of town, we rode thorugh some of the dirtiest pavement ever ridden by road bikes.  It also turned out to be full of glass (which would haunt us some hours later).  The trip across the Hastings bridge over the Mississippi, was, what Paul called "possibly the stupidest thing I have ever done on a bike".  It turned out that this weekend was the fishing opener and heavy traffic, semis, no bike lane and a really old bridge contributed to a real nail biter of a crossing.  We were all relieved to still be alive at the end.

The next section was amoung my favorites.   After a few dark miles outside Hastings, we turned onto a dirt road for several miles and peddled our way through a really nice forest.  The overhanging trees and a crescent moon made it really something that a werewolf movie could be set in.  After this section, we headed to the Cannon Valley trail for another forest tunnel to Red Wing.  At this point, it was about midnight and we actually passed another rider on the trail.  Hard to say who was more surprised to see others in the middle of the night.  At this point, Rick and I screwed up and accidentally dropped Ahi and Paul, who had a flat.  By the time we realized our error, we decided to simply wait.  We were on the verge of going back when lights appeared.  They had fixed the flat, but couldn't find the cause.  We headed on to Perkins in Red Wing.  By this time, it was about 40 degrees and we were all cold and hungry.

I think the staff at Perkins really felt sorry for us.  We must have looked a little rough around the edges.  Unfortunately, no soup, but I had some pancakes and something else that I don't remember.  Someone actually sat outside and guarded our bikes (how nice).  There were quite a few teenagers around having unmentionable teenage problems - I am really glad to be a crazy bicyclist hanging out in the dead of night at Perkins instead of being a teenager hanging out in the dead of night at Perkins. 

As we got ready to leave, we discovered to our great chagrin that Paul's tire was flat again.  We pulled it off and took it inside Perkins where it was much easier and warmer to change.  I found the tiny piece of glass.  Rejoicing, we got ready to leave, only to discover that Ahi's tire was also flat.  So back into Perkins for another tire change (they must have been really happy to see us go).  It was an hour and a half total at the stop, including tires.

The next 3 1/2 hours were great.  At first, we were worried that we were behind.  We still had about 50 miles to Alma, our 22 hour control and a few big climbs on Lake Pepin.  But we were nearly the only ones on Highway 35!  An amazing time to be riding on an otherwise busy road.  The sun started coming up just outside Alma - really beautiful to look up the river and see the peach sky.

We got to Alma around 5:30 am, half an hour before the Pier 4 Cafe opened.  We opted to pass the time at the Kwik Trip across the street where we lounged comfortably in the freezer section.  I can say that after riding all night that almost anywhere feels really nice.   At 6, we moved to the Cafe to discover that decorations had not changed since about 1940, complete with bare wooden benches.  I had oatmeal and a nap sitting up on the bench.  The greatest 15 minutes I have ever slept.  We had about 27 miles to go.

At almost exactly 7:00AM we rolled out and finally made our way on the home stretch to Winona.  At this point, we spread out a bit with Paul out front, then me a few yards back and Rick and Ahi aways farther.  We all met up at the Winona bridge and rode the last 3-4 miles together arriving at almost exactly 9:00 AM.  Right on time.

I have to say that this was one of my favorite rides.  We had a great time and I would do it again in a heartbeat (though I might opt to shave a few km off and have a sleep stop).  It's really an accomplishment to ride for 24 hours and one that I am very pleased to add to my belt.  I can't think of better companions - I hope to ride with all of them again in the future.  

New Reasons to Ride

The last 2 weeks have been a blur.  IronK was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma just 8 days ago.  Tombstone 600K and the first Minnesota Brevet in Rochester are off the table for me.

I have always ridden my bike to clear my head and help my own health.  Now besides those reasons, I might have new ones.  IronK still wants me to ride the Cascades, if possible.  But we are heading into surgery next week on her glutes and on her left lung.  Radiation and chemotherapy will be following.  It's an aggressive cancer and since she is in such fabulous health otherwise, the oncologists are being super aggressive with treatment.

We are already talking that a tandem might be in the sooner future now.  Since we are both convinced that exercise is vital in the conquest of cancer, it may just be time to make a tandem the way to give us together time and exercise time without madating any specific level of work on her part.

All my other friends are also adamant that I need to stay on my bike to take care of myself as I take care of her in the coming months.  Big battle.  But the victory should be sweet!

Road Pixie builds some wheels

Last year, Shredder won a wheel building class at the LBS during a presentation by Calvin Jones of Park Tool.  Unfortunately, Shredder has built wheels for years so he gave me the class as a gift.  With the Cascades coming up, understanding the mechanics of wheel building seems like a really good idea.  I can always use a new set of wheels, these I figured I would be able to fix (having built them).

The first part of the adventure was picking hubs, spokes, and rims.  That turned out to be a big sized adventure.  It turns out some hubs cost as much as $400!  I opted for the lightest, best hubs that I could find on bargain basement sale.  One of them, I got all the way from England (of course, it was made in Colorado, but I would have paid much more money if it hadn't visited England first - thank the internet). 

I wound up with all DT Swiss.  Many said I should get touring rims, but looking at the specs I realized that they were too much for me.   Sure they were strong and could ride tires that were 38mm, but I never ride tires like that and I weigh nothing compared with a big guy.  In addition, a small 25mm tire on a 19mm channel would be very hard to change and that I did care about.  So I went with a lighter racing rim.  The spokes were dictated by the rims.

So here were the materials:

• DT Swiss 340 rear hub and 240 front hub (couldn't find the 340 front anywhere)
• DT Swiss RR465 rims
• DT Swiss Revolution Spokes

 Wheel building is much more complex than one would imagine.  Lacing the spokes tied my brain in an occasional knot.  I used a 3 cross pattern with 32 spokes per wheel.  That took most of the first class.  I set the initial tension and packed it in for the night.

The second half of the class was about truing, rounding and balancing.  I have to say that I can see how this gets easier the more you do it.  The truing isn't nearly as hard as the rounding.  It also turns out that spokes get twisted when you tighten so you bend the wheel on your knee (a lot) to release them.

Balancing means getting all the spokes to have about the same tension.  This used to be a fine art, but Park Tool now has a tensionometer that measures it exactly and has a convenient spreedsheet to average everything and tell you exactly which spokes to tighten.  Takes all the mystery out of the process.  I now own one.  The final step is spoke freeze on the spokes so that they don't loosen over time.  But you have to oil the threads to use it otherwise, it freezes them completely and they can never be turned (sounds important).

Shredder showed up for the last class and helped me out by changing my rear derailleur and cassette.  What a guy!  I owe him big time.  I still have the rounding to go on the last wheel and the final touches.  Hopefully, this will get done in time for this weekend's ride.

Wind Gods are fickle: Back to the Sakatah Hills Permanent

It appears that the weather gods have taken a big leap forward here in Minnesota and it's suddenly spring.  Road Pixie is more used to snow than shorts, but found herself riding at 12:30 am on March 31 in short sleeves and shorts.  Thus it must be time to find out what the actual pavement looks like on the Sakatah Hills Permanent.

Road Pixie had some company this time in the form of Ahi, who is also currently planning to do the Cascades.  So we set out from the Kwik Trip figuring out at the start that we were riding on Easter Sunday and some things might not be open.  Nonetheless, a start is a start.  Rob saw us off.  I got to wear about 3 layers less, just a long sleeved jersey and my favorite jacket and tights.  Temperatures started in the mid 50's going up to about 65 during the day.  For Minnesota in early April, it's a shocker - I'm still looking for snow by default.

However, warm weather in April also means big winds.  These days wind is my friend, it's the only way to simulate one of the big climbs out west that go on for 30 miles.  But it does beat you up more than a nice ride up a mountain pass does.  Starting this ride was like riding into a wind tunnel, winds from the south-southwest at about 12 mph.  They eventually became westerly (just in time for the turn onto the trail of course) at Faribault.

The trip to Fairbault was a long fight against that wind.  Without the snow and with the longer daylight, it was a far cry from the frigid sunrise the last time I did this permanent.  Though it's definitely easier to ride at 50 than 15, there wasn't nearly such a sublime feeling to the ride out.  In fact, I found myself more focused on beating against the wind than watching what was going past.  Ahi and I both fought the wind alone on this segment instead of pairing up.  We must both have been in a masochistic mood.

Finally at Faribault, we opted for the sure-fire open Kwik Trip instead of the maybe open Hyvee grocery store as a control.  Turned out the Hyvee was open but better safe than sorry.  A quick 15 minutes, some peanut butter cups and V8 later and we were back on the road.  This was where I started feeling the effects of my first mistake of the day, taking Sustained Energy.

I had a massive failing with Sustained Energy last year on my 600K after slipping into hyponatremia and nearly collapsing at mile 300.  Though I am sure it is a great product, it really does require that you take Enduralytes with it and I hate pills.  So I switched last summer to Infinite Nutrition, a custom sports drink that you can program your electrolyte needs into.  That has worked much better, but I was out and thought "gee, I'll use the rest of this stuff in the cupboard".  Not a good idea, maybe it's the soy, maybe it's the taste but the product makes me drink less and get less.  By the time we were halfway across the trail, I was having serious cramps in my quads.  We paused to raise my seat, it was still to low, my other mistake.  Those two errors made what should have been a really great ride into an okay one.  Live and learn.

In any case, the trail was amazingly rough too.  BigG says the trail association just got some money from the Feds and I hope they spend part of it on fixing cracks!  With the big headwind, Ahi and I spent the whole time taking a break and riding at about 13 miles an hour.  The tree buds were just coming out and there were a fair amount of birds, but mainly the trail had the real sense of "hey, it's winter, where the heck is my snow?".

This time we did NOT miss the turn to Casey's in Madison Lake.  After some mishaps with spilling the Sustained Energy, we got off in about 25 minutes.  After 62 miles of massive headwinds, we felt like a little extra rest.  North we went on Highway 26, at last a crosswind.

That segment I rode in front.  Then we turned east onto MN99, my least favorite part the last time.  This time, we had a serious break from the wind.  The next 15 miles features a 20 mph tailwind!  The first 5 miles were actually northeast and I think we were in shock, because we only sped up to about 18.  At Le Center, Ahi was having some issues and needed to stop.  He said he would catch up so I went on alone.  At this point, the tailwind became dead one and I found myself clocking in at about 25 mph without working really hard.  So I put the gas on and picked up to about 30 mph.  What a blast!  Reminded me of the end of my last 300K in Arizona.

Sadly, all things must end and so did the tailwind.  I turned north to Lonsdale and still kept a good pace to the control.  I lingered there thinking Ahi must be behind me.  It was just about 3:00 when I got there.  Alas, he wasn't there and I left after 20 minutes with a liter of Powerade and the realization that I was dehydrated.  At this point, I'd worked my butt off for 100 miles and felt like soft-pedaling anyways so for the next 10 miles or so, that's what I did.  I kept looking behind me, but no Ahi.  Hmmm, perhaps I shouldn't have left him after all.  But I finally decided to get on with things.  The 4 mile stretch on Scott Cty 8 is not fun even with a little tailwind. The buzz strip just makes for too tiny a surface.  But when I got to Lakeville and only 10 miles to go, I picked up some speed again only to lose it by failing to make every light in Lakeville.  No Christmas lights or shoppers this time and I could actually see since it was about 4:20.  I got back to the Kwick Trip at about 5:05.  Total time 10:09 with my GPS reporting 9:02 minutes of riding time.  Amazing how much time even quick controls stops soak up the time.  One of the best features of my GPS is that it records how much time I spend at controls and how much they cost the bottom line in terms of overall miles per hour.  It's a great training tool.

Ahi made it in about 10-15 minutes after me. I think I had just finished my chocolate milk when he pulled up.  He'd been chasing me for miles, but had a great time on 99 (that tailwind was spectacular).  I went home amazed at how much salt had accumulated on my skin.  The long sleeved jersey really kept it in place instead of letting it blow away in the wind.  No wonder I had so many cramps.  I took a bunch of Endurolytes and some Advil.  Nice piece of fish for dinner.  Another ride complete.

Next big ride is the Tombstone 600K.  I will see Rob there, but only at the start.  He's one of those riders that I say hi to at the start and don't see again unless it's an out and back, then he passes me as I am still headed out.  Only 10,000 feet of climbing, but Arizona has the same wind gods - let's hope they are in a good mood.

Fountain Hills and Hot Tamales: 200K in North Phoenix

Having successfully completed the Saguaro National Park 300K brevet on Saturday, I decided to maximize my riding for the month by doing a permanent as well. Originally, the plan was to do it on Sunday, but Dad's birthday was Saturday and we had the party on Sunday. Dad trumps riding sometimes.

I picked out Mike Sturgill's North Phoenix and Fountain Hills 200K as a good follow up ride to the 300K. It was listed as "flatish" and for the most part it was. This being my off-season, I didn't want to overdo it and my chest was hurting due to bruised ribs and boughts of coughing after the dust on the 300K. It turned out to be a great choice.

I met Mike at the community college/park and ride near the start. Mike is one of those guys that I admire and potentially say hi to at the beginning of a brevet. His plan is to do the Cascades without needing to turn his lights on. I, on the other hand, will likely be recharging mine each night. Perhaps in a few years, my thighs will achieve epic status, but not right now.

In any case, after a few last instructions, I set out. The first few miles were along the streets of North Phoenix and I couldn't make a light to save my life. I hadn't really ever ridden in the area, so this was actually a good thing. Sometimes in urban riding, I fixate so much on the road and traffic, that I never bother to actually look at the scenery. Traffic lights give me an opportunity to do just that. I finally came to a bike path through a really beautiful park just along the highway. By this time, it was around 8:00 and though the sun was up and the cars were moving, it was still really quite scenic with many cactus and a few flowers starting to emerge. I then made my way to the canals where, for about 10 miles, I was treated to an amazing array of birds. There were some parrotish looking birds with bright green feathers and purple acccents, some plover-style birds and some others that looked a little like a long legged woodpecker. Not something I expected.

I passed a big amusement park in the Arabian style that made me think of rides when I was a little kid. The canals in Phoenix make for great riding with tunnels under most of the streets. It had rained very hard 2 nights before and there were some lingering puddles to splash through which was also fun. I finally turned onto 51st street and began the trek to more rural areas. There were some very nice neighborhoods in the next few miles; Phoenix definitely favors stucco over brick. I pulled into the first control at about 9:15 (32 miles) and bought some water.

The next section, Lake Pleasent Road and New River Road, were the most rural part of the ride. For miles, I really didn't see much in the way of buildings, just green desert. Yes, the desert is currently green. Every few years, Arizona gets lots of water, probably the result of El Nino. This year is turning out to be quite the wet one and I expect that there will be many flowers in the coming month or two. I dawdled a bit on this part just because the sun was out and I really was enjoying the scenery. I pulled into the RoadRunner Cafe just after noon, bought a coke at the bar and took off quickly.

The next few miles were a bit hillier than the previous ones. I passed through the town of New River and wound around quite a bit before hitting 74 and cruising for about 10 miles. At this point, I entered back into Scottsdale and turned onto Dynamite Road and beginning the ascent of 9 mile hill (okay the 5 mile side of it). Being from Minnesota, I don't get to do sustained climbs of more than a mile or two very often. This one was maybe 5%, but went on for about 5 miles before the Shell Station (control #4).   At the Shell Station, I pondered food options, by this time it was about 1:30.  Another cyclist showed up whom I had seen ascending the hill came in and said hello.  Seeing my indecision, he piped up, "hey, you should try these" and pointed to some refrigerated hot tamales.  "Wash it down with some of this Cactus - it's a great pick up".  I must have been really low on blood sugar, because I agreed that this was a good idea.  So much for trying something new - I took one bite, realized it was a bad idea and went back for a heath bar instead.  The Cactus stuff was okay, but I have to say that water is even better.
 
Shortly afterwards, I was climbing the final steps to the descent of 9 mile hill.  There was a spectacular view of the Rio Verde valley with a snow capped mountain in the distance.  It was about 75 degrees, perfect riding weather.  I had fun on that descent and was sad to see it go as I turned onto Forest Road.  The next 10 miles were uneventful as I wound my way through Scottsdale.  I hit the final Control at about 3:30 and headed up Palisades hill.  At this point, things got interesting.  I turned onto Shea Blvd for a 2 mile descent, but rush hour had apparently started because traffic was pretty thick.  It's one thing to scream down a hill at 35 mph, it's quite another to do it with a bunch of cars going 50.  Needless to say, I was happy to turn off.
 
As I completed the last 10 miles, I was amazed at the traffic.  At the time, I kept thinking it must be rush hour.  Only later did I find out that a major accident on the 101 had detoured almost all the traffic off the freeway onto my route.  Mayo Blvd, normally deserted, was packed with cars.  I did enjoy riding around the remnants of the Phoenix Open.  Had I been there the previous day, it would certainly have been difficult to get around the people.  As it was, there were just cleanup crews and a few detours for cars remaining.  The traffic on Union Hills was also heavy and I was happy to finally see the Circle K at the finish.  A total of 10:20 with 1:45 non-moving (the traffic lights were at least half an hour).  Not my fastest, but considering the circumstances, a fine ride.
 
I won't get back for Susan's 400K in March, but I have to say that I have a good feeling about the Tombstone 600K in April.