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Dancing up the hills
Apr. 26th, 2015 01:00 pmThat 300k was kind of "oof." I drove out to Nebraska City at 4:30 am yesterday, through heavy rain - remnants of a thunderstorm. The rain continued through the early legs of the ride, soaking us through and making me incredibly glad I'd remembered to pack along my wool long-sleeve shirt. I found myself wondering, which is worse: riding in cold rain, or in heavy wind. Both together can be ugly.
Towards the beginning, I found myself out in front, so I paused at the top of one of the hills to take a photo of the riders coming up behind me:
We spent a healthy bit of time camped out in convenience stores, like so:
This was a coffee-and-donuts stop.
Eight of us showed up for the 300k, twice as many as for the 200k, and it was a good bunch of riders. People were pretty relaxed and happy to hang out at the controls for a bit, and things were fairly freeform in terms of riding alone or with other riders. I drafted behind the guy on the left a fair amount on the way out. Riding behind tall people is great:
The RBA, pictured in the middle, rides a fixed-gear bicycle, and charged ahead through the hills on the way back, finishing about five minutes ahead of me. I rode with the other two guys a fair amount on the return ride as well. They were great and totally laid-back, swapping stories and pointing out that there was no need to hurry, we had plenty of time to finish. It was interesting to hear how their experiences with riding in Texas compared to mine (universal disgust for chip-and-seal roads). There was a 10-mile stretch along this 300k that featured scraped pavement, reminiscent of the chipseal, but altogether it was not nearly so bad - just had to be survived.
We paused for a kolache snack break in Wilber, NE, on the return route. I can't seem to escape the Czech influence in the US!
But I will freely admit that kolaches taste amazing in the middle of a brevet.
There were lots of interesting little sights along the route, like these "Hay Minions" (still haven't seen the cartoon these are from):
It was also funny to notice a tallbike parked out in front of someone's house, in the middle of the Nebraska countryside:
Parts of the return ride started to feel brutal. I waited slightly too long before eating lunch, so then I ate too much and it took a long time to digest. Not good when one needs extra energy when the weather cools down and headwinds need to be faced. Most of us stopped at a non-control convenience store in Sterling, about 50 miles from the end, for a snack break. Food there was better from my perspective than food at any of the convenience store controls. I downed a tray full of deep-fried cauliflower, and a tray full of mini cheese sticks. I resisted the urge to buy anything off of their liquor shelf. Only middling options at best, anyway.
The total amount of climbing on this ride was approximately the same as the amount of climbing on the 200k, which put it lower than what I can expect for Paris-Brest-Paris (30,000 feet of climbing over 1200 km, so, there should have been around 7500 feet of climbing instead of just 6000). I think there was more wind, though. The last 15 miles or so were tough, featuring some sizeable hill-lumps plus headwinds, which meant it wasn't possible to build up momentum on the downhills to charge up the uphills. As on the 200k, I made myself get up out of the saddle on many of the hills for ~10-20 pedal strokes, telling myself I was dancing with Froinlavin up the hills, to distract myself from the fatigue and discomfort. Hills just have to be taken one at a time, and helped to ride them in the dark so I didn't have to see how many more loomed on the horizon. I am grateful, though, that Nebraska highways have mileage markers, because the markers give me a way to tick off the distance as I ride along in the dark. Texas farm roads don't have mileage markers.
I need to keep working on standing to climb up the hills. It seems to put too much pressure on my knees, and contributed to my problems with the 2011 PBP. I am more of a "masher" than a spinner, so I tend to shift into a harder gear so I can keep smooth pedal strokes going when I stand and climb. I probably have atrocious posture or something. Hard to say. I am especially wondering whether there are activities other than rollerblading that I could do to help strengthen leg stabilizing muscles, because I suspect that would make the biggest difference. Maybe running stadium stairs. Time to pack in the running shoes with work gear.
Towards the beginning, I found myself out in front, so I paused at the top of one of the hills to take a photo of the riders coming up behind me:
We spent a healthy bit of time camped out in convenience stores, like so:
This was a coffee-and-donuts stop.
Eight of us showed up for the 300k, twice as many as for the 200k, and it was a good bunch of riders. People were pretty relaxed and happy to hang out at the controls for a bit, and things were fairly freeform in terms of riding alone or with other riders. I drafted behind the guy on the left a fair amount on the way out. Riding behind tall people is great:
The RBA, pictured in the middle, rides a fixed-gear bicycle, and charged ahead through the hills on the way back, finishing about five minutes ahead of me. I rode with the other two guys a fair amount on the return ride as well. They were great and totally laid-back, swapping stories and pointing out that there was no need to hurry, we had plenty of time to finish. It was interesting to hear how their experiences with riding in Texas compared to mine (universal disgust for chip-and-seal roads). There was a 10-mile stretch along this 300k that featured scraped pavement, reminiscent of the chipseal, but altogether it was not nearly so bad - just had to be survived.
We paused for a kolache snack break in Wilber, NE, on the return route. I can't seem to escape the Czech influence in the US!
But I will freely admit that kolaches taste amazing in the middle of a brevet.
There were lots of interesting little sights along the route, like these "Hay Minions" (still haven't seen the cartoon these are from):
It was also funny to notice a tallbike parked out in front of someone's house, in the middle of the Nebraska countryside:
Parts of the return ride started to feel brutal. I waited slightly too long before eating lunch, so then I ate too much and it took a long time to digest. Not good when one needs extra energy when the weather cools down and headwinds need to be faced. Most of us stopped at a non-control convenience store in Sterling, about 50 miles from the end, for a snack break. Food there was better from my perspective than food at any of the convenience store controls. I downed a tray full of deep-fried cauliflower, and a tray full of mini cheese sticks. I resisted the urge to buy anything off of their liquor shelf. Only middling options at best, anyway.
The total amount of climbing on this ride was approximately the same as the amount of climbing on the 200k, which put it lower than what I can expect for Paris-Brest-Paris (30,000 feet of climbing over 1200 km, so, there should have been around 7500 feet of climbing instead of just 6000). I think there was more wind, though. The last 15 miles or so were tough, featuring some sizeable hill-lumps plus headwinds, which meant it wasn't possible to build up momentum on the downhills to charge up the uphills. As on the 200k, I made myself get up out of the saddle on many of the hills for ~10-20 pedal strokes, telling myself I was dancing with Froinlavin up the hills, to distract myself from the fatigue and discomfort. Hills just have to be taken one at a time, and helped to ride them in the dark so I didn't have to see how many more loomed on the horizon. I am grateful, though, that Nebraska highways have mileage markers, because the markers give me a way to tick off the distance as I ride along in the dark. Texas farm roads don't have mileage markers.
I need to keep working on standing to climb up the hills. It seems to put too much pressure on my knees, and contributed to my problems with the 2011 PBP. I am more of a "masher" than a spinner, so I tend to shift into a harder gear so I can keep smooth pedal strokes going when I stand and climb. I probably have atrocious posture or something. Hard to say. I am especially wondering whether there are activities other than rollerblading that I could do to help strengthen leg stabilizing muscles, because I suspect that would make the biggest difference. Maybe running stadium stairs. Time to pack in the running shoes with work gear.
