Before getting to the mileage totals: This morning I rode up to the Diablo junction with Cycling Boss From Work.. he chatted the whole the ride up while I huffed and puffed a bit. Obviously he was going much much slower than his usual pace, but I managed to beat my own personal best time to the junction by 1 minute. Probably helps quite a bit to ride with someone faster, so I have to push myself a bit. He thinks if I train right, I can do all 5 Death Ride passes next year. We'll see.
This month I started supplementing my regular weekend rides with two evening rides a week, so I was able to increase my mileage and my total elevation gain. This is only the second time I've logged more than 500 miles in a month, and the last time was due primarily to logging 250 miles on my California coast tour.
I also think the extra climbing is starting to pay off; I'm feeling more comfortable and confident on my regular climbs up into the Oakland hills and up Diablo. I'm feeling pretty good about being able to do my 3 Death Ride passes in July.
Total mileage: 503
Total time in the saddle: 46.9 hours
Total climbing: 31,430 feet
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Grizzly Peak-Pinehurst-Chabot ride (52 miles)
This ride is very similar to the Grizzly Peak Pinehurst loop, except instead of returning to Rockridge after the major climb up Pinehurst, you take a left on Skyline and cruise over to Redwood which takes you through Redwood Regional Park (natch) and on into Chabot Regional Park. After a quick lunch stop at Luccas Italian Deli in Castro Valley, the route continues on alongside Lake Chabot and drops down to San Leandro BART.
We’ve had some unseasonably cool weather the past few days, and the morning started off overcast and chilly. The weather report predicted clearing by noon, so I only took minimal cold weather gear.. jacket, full fingered gloves, and my headband. By the time I got over the Oakland Hills to meet kc at Orinda BART, I couldn’t feel my toes at all. In fact the weather never really warmed up or cleared until after I returned home. Annoying.
After riding up Diablo twice on Sunday, my legs definitely felt sluggish on the first climb up Old Tunnel. At one point I actually dismounted to make sure there wasn’t something dragging against my back wheel. Nope, that was just me going really slow. But once I warmed up I felt fine, and the rest of the hills were very manageable.
I felt a little bad because I had told kc that there were basically two climbs on this ride: Pinehurst (my steep nemesis climb) and a more gradual climb up Redwood. But at a couple of other points on the ride, kc asked me, “Is this one of the two climbs?” and I realized that a couple of these gradual rises that I don’t really count as “climbs” per se still count for something to a recreational cyclist. So I may need to provide more full disclosure on my ride routes. On the other hand I think if I sent him the elevation profile for a route beforehand, he’d take one look at all those little hills and never ride with me again.
Total Distance: 52 miles
Elevation gain: 4200 feet
Time in the Saddle: 5 hours 13 minutes
We’ve had some unseasonably cool weather the past few days, and the morning started off overcast and chilly. The weather report predicted clearing by noon, so I only took minimal cold weather gear.. jacket, full fingered gloves, and my headband. By the time I got over the Oakland Hills to meet kc at Orinda BART, I couldn’t feel my toes at all. In fact the weather never really warmed up or cleared until after I returned home. Annoying.
After riding up Diablo twice on Sunday, my legs definitely felt sluggish on the first climb up Old Tunnel. At one point I actually dismounted to make sure there wasn’t something dragging against my back wheel. Nope, that was just me going really slow. But once I warmed up I felt fine, and the rest of the hills were very manageable.
I felt a little bad because I had told kc that there were basically two climbs on this ride: Pinehurst (my steep nemesis climb) and a more gradual climb up Redwood. But at a couple of other points on the ride, kc asked me, “Is this one of the two climbs?” and I realized that a couple of these gradual rises that I don’t really count as “climbs” per se still count for something to a recreational cyclist. So I may need to provide more full disclosure on my ride routes. On the other hand I think if I sent him the elevation profile for a route beforehand, he’d take one look at all those little hills and never ride with me again.
Total Distance: 52 miles
Elevation gain: 4200 feet
Time in the Saddle: 5 hours 13 minutes
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Diablo ranger station x2 (about 40 miles)
I had originally planned to go camping this weekend, but the trip ended up getting canceled due to forest fires and rain. I know it seems strange to have both of those things at once, but there you go. Oh well, more time for cycling.
This Sunday’s ride was a double trip up to the Mt Diablo ranger station: from Walnut Creek I climbed up North Gate road, descended South Gate, and then climbed back up South Gate to the station. Although the total mileage and elevation gain was about the same as just going once up to the summit, psychologically it was important for my Death Ride training to be able to climb up a mountain twice. Actually I really need to be able to climb up Diablo 3 times so that I’m totally prepared to do 3 passes on the Death Ride, but 2 is a good start.
I had my best ride up North Gate yet. It took me about the same time as usual, but I felt more relaxed than ever, comfortable in the pace I set. Usually I stop for a breather after the first steep section (a little over a third of the way up) and then again before the switchbacks, but today I cruised straight through. I hadn’t gone up South Gate since the early spring, and I was surprised how much easier it seemed compared to North Gate.
As far as Death Ride prep goes, the two climbs today measured:
7.8 miles, 2000 feet (North Gate)
6.8 miles, 1630 feet (South Gate)
The three passes I want to complete in July are:
Front side of Monitor: 13.3 miles, 2700 feet
Front side of Ebbetts: 10.4 miles, 2700 feet
Back side of Ebbetts: 4.8 miles, 1500 feet
So, what I really need to do is go up North Gate to Juniper (10 miles, 2700 feet), come back down, do that same climb again, come back down, and then go up South Gate to the ranger station. That will be fun.
Animules: Along the side of the road on North Gate I saw what I think was a young coyote.
Total Distance: 38 miles
Elevation gain: 4000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours
This Sunday’s ride was a double trip up to the Mt Diablo ranger station: from Walnut Creek I climbed up North Gate road, descended South Gate, and then climbed back up South Gate to the station. Although the total mileage and elevation gain was about the same as just going once up to the summit, psychologically it was important for my Death Ride training to be able to climb up a mountain twice. Actually I really need to be able to climb up Diablo 3 times so that I’m totally prepared to do 3 passes on the Death Ride, but 2 is a good start.
I had my best ride up North Gate yet. It took me about the same time as usual, but I felt more relaxed than ever, comfortable in the pace I set. Usually I stop for a breather after the first steep section (a little over a third of the way up) and then again before the switchbacks, but today I cruised straight through. I hadn’t gone up South Gate since the early spring, and I was surprised how much easier it seemed compared to North Gate.
As far as Death Ride prep goes, the two climbs today measured:
7.8 miles, 2000 feet (North Gate)
6.8 miles, 1630 feet (South Gate)
The three passes I want to complete in July are:
Front side of Monitor: 13.3 miles, 2700 feet
Front side of Ebbetts: 10.4 miles, 2700 feet
Back side of Ebbetts: 4.8 miles, 1500 feet
So, what I really need to do is go up North Gate to Juniper (10 miles, 2700 feet), come back down, do that same climb again, come back down, and then go up South Gate to the ranger station. That will be fun.
Animules: Along the side of the road on North Gate I saw what I think was a young coyote.
Total Distance: 38 miles
Elevation gain: 4000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Mt Tam Loop (42 miles)
This weekend I doubled up and went riding on both Saturday and Sunday, and finally managed to conquer my remaining mountain summit in the bay area: Mt Tam. But first, on Saturday, I joined Cycling Boss from Work and his buddies for the tail end of their ride, which took us along Skyline to Redwood, and up the southern portion of Pinehurst. From there they continued on to Moraga and Lafayette, while I climbed up the north part of Pinehurst Road to drop back down to Oakland. This was my first time riding with these guys, and I was a little apprehensive since they are all pretty hard core, CBW in particular. This is the guy who rides up Diablo multiple times in a single outing, does double centuries, does the *extra* bonus pass in the Death Ride, etc. Obviously I couldn’t keep up with him, but in general I held my own with the other guys. Anyway, the Saturday ride ended up being 30 miles with 3000 feet of climbing.
For my Sunday ride I decided to finally try for the summit of Mt Tamalpais. My four readers will recall that there are three main peaks in the bay area: Mt Diablo in the east bay, Mt Hamilton in the south bay, and Mt Tam in Marin. One of my cycling goals this year was to get to the summit of all three. I did Hamilton in the fall, and have made it up Diablo several times this winter and spring. Last summer, I inadvertently rode up to the ranger’s station of Tam while doing the Stinson Beach-Muir Woods loop, but that was my last attempt.
Of the three peaks, Mt Hamilton is the highest, at about 4200 feet, but arguably the easiest because it’s a very long, gentle grade for almost the entire climb. Diablo’s summit is at about 3800 feet, and I think conventional wisdom is that it’s the tougher climb compared to Mt Tam, with its highest points at about 2600 feet. However, I personally think Mt Tam is a bit more challenging because there are more steep sections of climbing, and both north and south approaches to the summit road are unevenly graded, so it’s hard for me to find a good climbing rhythm. So from a pure climbing perspective, I still prefer my own mountain here in the east bay, but Tam and the surrounding alpine woods win out in the scenery category.
For this ride I followed the Velogirls routesheet, but instead of riding across the Golden Gate bridge I started in Sausalito to make this a 40+ mile loop rather than a 60+ mile loop. From Sausalito, the route follows the Nicasio route for the first ten miles, up the hill to Corte Madera, then through some really charming towns in Marin (downtown Larkspur, Ross, San Anselmo, and Fairfax). In Fairfax, all the cyclists stop at a local coffee shop called the Fairfax Coffee Roastery. I had a good espresso, but they had some random live music (at 9:30 am??) and the guy kept messing up the lyrics to all the songs. And they weren’t new songs, they were all Elton John and James Taylor songs. Everybody knows the lyrics to those old songs, except this guy playing guitar at the Fairfax Coffee Roastery. Go figure.
From Fairfax, instead of heading up Sir Francis Drake towards Nicasio, you head south on Bolinas, basically approaching Mt Tam from the north side. I did prefer this approach to the southern route (Panoramic Highway) because there was very little car traffic. In fact, for most of this stretch I heard nothing but birds and crickets in the forest. I think most of the people heading up to the Mt Tam trails or over to the coast take Panoramic Highway rather than the longer, meandering Fairfax-Bolinas route, so you can feel like you’re miles away from civilization on this road. The other nice thing about the road is that it passes by Alpine Lake and the Alpine Dam Bridge, so the scenery is very nice… lots of pine trees surrounding the lake. It’s reminiscent of some of the smaller alpine lakes in the Sierras, near Lake Tahoe, just without the nice clear water. Still, very pretty.
From the Alpine Lake dam up to the ridge at (aptly named) Ridgecrest Road is a gain of about 900 feet in about 2.5 miles, with some pretty steep sections and many switchbacks. I found this part of the ride pretty challenging, but at least it was almost entirely shaded by the surrounding forest. It would be a killer climb if totally exposed.
Once I got up to Ridgecrest, I started hitting lots of trailhead parking lots but absolutely no water fountains. I remembered that I experienced this on my Muir Woods ride too; with all the hiking trails in the Mt Tam area (in the Mt Tam watershed no less!), you’d think they’d have more drinking fountains, but you’d be wrong. As a result, by the time I got to the turnoff to start ascending the summit, I had drained my two water bottles and had no fluids left. One guy helpfully suggested that there were drinking fountains at the visitor center up at the summit (great!) but another cyclist came to my rescue and gave me some of his water. My savior! He noted that it had some sports mix in it, so I would feel like “Lance Armstrong” going up the hill.
So, up I went. According to this new mapping shareware I downloaded, the first section of the summit climb covers 519 feet in 1.4 miles, for a 7% grade. I didn’t find this section that difficult at all (must have been the “sports mix”!). What’s interesting about Mt Tam is that it really has a couple of peaks: the west peak and the east peak. They’re both about 2600 feet, but there’s a dip in between them, so it’s like a false summit with a kick. But I finally did make it to the east peak, where I drank about 40 oz of water and a root beer. That tasted mighty good. They have a nice little visitor center with picnic tables, snack bar, trails, and various lookout points.
The worst thing about the multiple peak situation is that you have to climb back up on your descent from the summit. It’s cruel and painful, with one section of 6.3% grade and another at 7.8%. But after that, it was literally all downhill to Sausalito.
Total Distance: 42 miles
Animules: a jack rabbit up near the summit
Elevation gain: 4000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours 23 minutes (wow, that’s pretty slow)
For my Sunday ride I decided to finally try for the summit of Mt Tamalpais. My four readers will recall that there are three main peaks in the bay area: Mt Diablo in the east bay, Mt Hamilton in the south bay, and Mt Tam in Marin. One of my cycling goals this year was to get to the summit of all three. I did Hamilton in the fall, and have made it up Diablo several times this winter and spring. Last summer, I inadvertently rode up to the ranger’s station of Tam while doing the Stinson Beach-Muir Woods loop, but that was my last attempt.
Of the three peaks, Mt Hamilton is the highest, at about 4200 feet, but arguably the easiest because it’s a very long, gentle grade for almost the entire climb. Diablo’s summit is at about 3800 feet, and I think conventional wisdom is that it’s the tougher climb compared to Mt Tam, with its highest points at about 2600 feet. However, I personally think Mt Tam is a bit more challenging because there are more steep sections of climbing, and both north and south approaches to the summit road are unevenly graded, so it’s hard for me to find a good climbing rhythm. So from a pure climbing perspective, I still prefer my own mountain here in the east bay, but Tam and the surrounding alpine woods win out in the scenery category.
For this ride I followed the Velogirls routesheet, but instead of riding across the Golden Gate bridge I started in Sausalito to make this a 40+ mile loop rather than a 60+ mile loop. From Sausalito, the route follows the Nicasio route for the first ten miles, up the hill to Corte Madera, then through some really charming towns in Marin (downtown Larkspur, Ross, San Anselmo, and Fairfax). In Fairfax, all the cyclists stop at a local coffee shop called the Fairfax Coffee Roastery. I had a good espresso, but they had some random live music (at 9:30 am??) and the guy kept messing up the lyrics to all the songs. And they weren’t new songs, they were all Elton John and James Taylor songs. Everybody knows the lyrics to those old songs, except this guy playing guitar at the Fairfax Coffee Roastery. Go figure.
From Fairfax, instead of heading up Sir Francis Drake towards Nicasio, you head south on Bolinas, basically approaching Mt Tam from the north side. I did prefer this approach to the southern route (Panoramic Highway) because there was very little car traffic. In fact, for most of this stretch I heard nothing but birds and crickets in the forest. I think most of the people heading up to the Mt Tam trails or over to the coast take Panoramic Highway rather than the longer, meandering Fairfax-Bolinas route, so you can feel like you’re miles away from civilization on this road. The other nice thing about the road is that it passes by Alpine Lake and the Alpine Dam Bridge, so the scenery is very nice… lots of pine trees surrounding the lake. It’s reminiscent of some of the smaller alpine lakes in the Sierras, near Lake Tahoe, just without the nice clear water. Still, very pretty.From the Alpine Lake dam up to the ridge at (aptly named) Ridgecrest Road is a gain of about 900 feet in about 2.5 miles, with some pretty steep sections and many switchbacks. I found this part of the ride pretty challenging, but at least it was almost entirely shaded by the surrounding forest. It would be a killer climb if totally exposed.
Once I got up to Ridgecrest, I started hitting lots of trailhead parking lots but absolutely no water fountains. I remembered that I experienced this on my Muir Woods ride too; with all the hiking trails in the Mt Tam area (in the Mt Tam watershed no less!), you’d think they’d have more drinking fountains, but you’d be wrong. As a result, by the time I got to the turnoff to start ascending the summit, I had drained my two water bottles and had no fluids left. One guy helpfully suggested that there were drinking fountains at the visitor center up at the summit (great!) but another cyclist came to my rescue and gave me some of his water. My savior! He noted that it had some sports mix in it, so I would feel like “Lance Armstrong” going up the hill.
So, up I went. According to this new mapping shareware I downloaded, the first section of the summit climb covers 519 feet in 1.4 miles, for a 7% grade. I didn’t find this section that difficult at all (must have been the “sports mix”!). What’s interesting about Mt Tam is that it really has a couple of peaks: the west peak and the east peak. They’re both about 2600 feet, but there’s a dip in between them, so it’s like a false summit with a kick. But I finally did make it to the east peak, where I drank about 40 oz of water and a root beer. That tasted mighty good. They have a nice little visitor center with picnic tables, snack bar, trails, and various lookout points. The worst thing about the multiple peak situation is that you have to climb back up on your descent from the summit. It’s cruel and painful, with one section of 6.3% grade and another at 7.8%. But after that, it was literally all downhill to Sausalito.
Total Distance: 42 miles
Animules: a jack rabbit up near the summit
Elevation gain: 4000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 4 hours 23 minutes (wow, that’s pretty slow)
Sunday, May 4, 2008
April mileage stats
Last month I speculated that I would easily log 400 miles in April. In fact I logged 465 miles, 38.3 hours, and over 23,000 feet of climbing. Not bad for mid-spring. May should be a 500+ mile month, when I'll be in full Death Ride training. Should be fun!
Wine Country Century (100 miles)
This Saturday was the Santa Rosa Wine Country Century, a really gorgeous ride that manages to capture most of the flavors of Sonoma wine country.. quaint towns, vineyards, rolling hills, redwood forests, the Russian river valley, etc. This is the second year in a row I’ve tackled the century route (I did the metric a few years back) and it remains one of my favorite rides. This year I definitely felt stronger than last year, when I felt so relieved when I crossed the finish line that I actually had tears in my eyes. It’s a relatively flat ride for a century, about 3500 feet of climbing, but it’s still challenging enough to feel like a real accomplishment. Next year I’d really like to do the double metric route, their 120 mile option that mostly follows the century route but includes a loop out to the coast at Bodega bay.
I traveled up to Santa Rosa on Friday night and stayed at the Fountaingrove Inn, just 2 miles south of the ride start. Parking at the ride start is a bit of a pain, so it’s nice to be able to ride there directly from the hotel. Side note: this was my first stay at the Fountaingrove Inn, and I was quite pleased. It’s a nice low-key upscale hotel, and the room was really well insulated. Even though I was right next to the lobby, I didn’t hear a thing all night and was able to get a great night’s sleep.
Saturday morning I left the hotel just after 6:30 and was at the official route start by 6:45. The first 20 miles of the route are really flat and easy, and really the only part of the ride where I’m able to take advantage of the pseudo-peleton effect. That is, I can tag along with big groups of riders and go at a very comfortable 20 mph pace before the first climb of the day. While riding with one group I chatted with a guy from Alameda who was doing the Wine Country Century 100 mile route and then, the following day, doing the Grizzly Peak century back in Berkeley. That’s what we call hard core.
The first hill of the day was on Graton Road, a nice steady, easy climb. After Graton there’s a quick decent through forested river valley to the first rest stop in Monte Rio, at mile 26. I had wanted to be at Monte Rio by 9:15, but I actually pulled in at 8:37! So I really managed to cover a bit of ground that first leg.
The Wine Country Century has some of the best rest stops, with lots of great food, both hot and cold. Something that they had this year that I thought was brilliant were banana slices with a spoonful of peanut butter and an M&M on top. Simple, but really, really good. Everyone was crowding around this guy constructing the PB&Bs, and he couldn’t make them fast enough.
The next segment of the ride, from Monte Rio to the Wohler Bridge rest stop (mile 48.5), passes through the Russian river community of Guerneville and then snakes through back roads to head back towards Santa Rosa. For the most part this is rolling terrain, although there are two short steep climbs here. The worst is on Green Valley Road, where I managed to get three quarters up by zig-zagging across the road. When that became impossible (too many cyclists, a car or two), I had to stop and walk the bike the rest of the way. I had to do this last year, too, but at least this year I got much farther up before having to go into my lowest gear. Progress! I was talking to a guy at the top of the hill, and he thought the grade was 14-17%, maybe even 20%. So, I’m not surprised I’ve had to hoof it up that hill; it’s definitely outside of my comfort zone.
I arrived at the Wohler Bridge rest stop at 10:50, having left the first rest stop at 8:50. I covered 22.5 miles in 2 hours, definitely slower than the first segment of the ride, but still a decent pace. I left the rest stop at 11:10, and began heading north through classic wine country terrain: lots of rolling hills, past vineyards, along very poorly paved country roads. Last year this section of the ride killed me, mostly because of steady headwinds. This year there was a very light tailwind, so it was smooth sailing all the way into the lunch stop at Warm Springs Dam at Lake Sonoma (mile 70). At the lunch stop the ride organizers build delicious made-to-order sandwiches; I had turkey with avocado on a whole wheat roll. Perfect! I couldn’t believe how great I felt at the lunch stop, and briefly wondered why I hadn’t tried for the double metric route after all.
Naturally once I hit the road again after lunch, I returned to reality and realized that fatigue was starting to set in. Those light tailwinds while heading north became somewhat strong headwinds traveling south for the final 30 miles. In addition, my Terry saddle really started to bother me quite a bit after mile 75 or so. I struggled a little for the final leg, and was quite happy to pass the cowbells at the finish line at 3:50pm. I did feel much stronger than last year, but also glad that I had not done part of the longer 120 mile route.
I do think that if I had not had the saddle pain on the final leg, I would have felt much better those last 30 miles. I’m going to take the brooks saddle from my other bike and try it out on the dolce, to see how it feels on some long rides coming up. Hopefully that will do the trick.
Event begin and end: 6:47am – 3:53pm
Total Distance: 100 miles
Elevation gain: 3500 feet
Time in the Saddle: 7 hours 46 minutes
I traveled up to Santa Rosa on Friday night and stayed at the Fountaingrove Inn, just 2 miles south of the ride start. Parking at the ride start is a bit of a pain, so it’s nice to be able to ride there directly from the hotel. Side note: this was my first stay at the Fountaingrove Inn, and I was quite pleased. It’s a nice low-key upscale hotel, and the room was really well insulated. Even though I was right next to the lobby, I didn’t hear a thing all night and was able to get a great night’s sleep.
Saturday morning I left the hotel just after 6:30 and was at the official route start by 6:45. The first 20 miles of the route are really flat and easy, and really the only part of the ride where I’m able to take advantage of the pseudo-peleton effect. That is, I can tag along with big groups of riders and go at a very comfortable 20 mph pace before the first climb of the day. While riding with one group I chatted with a guy from Alameda who was doing the Wine Country Century 100 mile route and then, the following day, doing the Grizzly Peak century back in Berkeley. That’s what we call hard core.
The first hill of the day was on Graton Road, a nice steady, easy climb. After Graton there’s a quick decent through forested river valley to the first rest stop in Monte Rio, at mile 26. I had wanted to be at Monte Rio by 9:15, but I actually pulled in at 8:37! So I really managed to cover a bit of ground that first leg.
The Wine Country Century has some of the best rest stops, with lots of great food, both hot and cold. Something that they had this year that I thought was brilliant were banana slices with a spoonful of peanut butter and an M&M on top. Simple, but really, really good. Everyone was crowding around this guy constructing the PB&Bs, and he couldn’t make them fast enough.
The next segment of the ride, from Monte Rio to the Wohler Bridge rest stop (mile 48.5), passes through the Russian river community of Guerneville and then snakes through back roads to head back towards Santa Rosa. For the most part this is rolling terrain, although there are two short steep climbs here. The worst is on Green Valley Road, where I managed to get three quarters up by zig-zagging across the road. When that became impossible (too many cyclists, a car or two), I had to stop and walk the bike the rest of the way. I had to do this last year, too, but at least this year I got much farther up before having to go into my lowest gear. Progress! I was talking to a guy at the top of the hill, and he thought the grade was 14-17%, maybe even 20%. So, I’m not surprised I’ve had to hoof it up that hill; it’s definitely outside of my comfort zone.
I arrived at the Wohler Bridge rest stop at 10:50, having left the first rest stop at 8:50. I covered 22.5 miles in 2 hours, definitely slower than the first segment of the ride, but still a decent pace. I left the rest stop at 11:10, and began heading north through classic wine country terrain: lots of rolling hills, past vineyards, along very poorly paved country roads. Last year this section of the ride killed me, mostly because of steady headwinds. This year there was a very light tailwind, so it was smooth sailing all the way into the lunch stop at Warm Springs Dam at Lake Sonoma (mile 70). At the lunch stop the ride organizers build delicious made-to-order sandwiches; I had turkey with avocado on a whole wheat roll. Perfect! I couldn’t believe how great I felt at the lunch stop, and briefly wondered why I hadn’t tried for the double metric route after all.
Naturally once I hit the road again after lunch, I returned to reality and realized that fatigue was starting to set in. Those light tailwinds while heading north became somewhat strong headwinds traveling south for the final 30 miles. In addition, my Terry saddle really started to bother me quite a bit after mile 75 or so. I struggled a little for the final leg, and was quite happy to pass the cowbells at the finish line at 3:50pm. I did feel much stronger than last year, but also glad that I had not done part of the longer 120 mile route.
I do think that if I had not had the saddle pain on the final leg, I would have felt much better those last 30 miles. I’m going to take the brooks saddle from my other bike and try it out on the dolce, to see how it feels on some long rides coming up. Hopefully that will do the trick.
Event begin and end: 6:47am – 3:53pm
Total Distance: 100 miles
Elevation gain: 3500 feet
Time in the Saddle: 7 hours 46 minutes
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