A recipe for disaster
Northern Delight Century Ride Disaster Recipe
100 miles on a bike
Hills
106 degrees Farenheit
1 long sleeve shirt
2 new clipless pedals
My recipe for disaster this morning as I tackeled the Northern Delight Century Ride today in northwestern Missouri. 100 miles on the bike shouldn't have been much of a problem except.....
Hills: To many to count. Every ride should have a hill or two simply to mix up the terrain. This was all hills. It went pretty much like this: Pedal-downshift-pedal-downshift-pedal-downshift-crap, I can't downshift and more-mash-mash-mash-upshift-pedal-upshift-pedal-upshift-pedal-coast (repeat ~597 times).
Seriously, there was not a level section on the course. It sucked. Big time.
But hills alone would have been fine.
106 degrees Farenheight: It was 78 when we started the ride at 6:20 AM. By 9:00, my bike thermometer was already pushing 90. It hit 100 for the first time at a SAG station about 50 miles into the ride. It stayed above 100 for the remainder of the ride, peaking out at 112, but averaged 106 while the bike was moving for the last 1/2 of the ride. Really, it was that hot if not hotter.
Even with the heat and hills, I had plenty of energy and wasn't overheating as the ride went on.
1 long sleeve shirt: I got an e-mail from Koach Karl Friday night telling me to wear a long-sleeve dry fit shirt for the ride because it would be cooler than wearing a tank top. And while I openly questioned the logic (which makes sense), I did wear the long sleeve shirt for the ride. Everyone in my training group did. But no one else.
And while I have nothing to compare it to, I will say that the long sleeve shirt did its job and kept me cool.
2 Clipless Pedals: Attention all new riders, clipless pedals are great. They really make riding easier b/c they use different muscle groups to pull up the pedal.
They're great.
And once you get used to using those muscles, I am sure they do wonderful things.
ButI had only done one test ride w/ the new pedals prior to the century ride. Probably not the smartest thing to do.
Especially since I was riding in 100+ degree weather
On hills.
My inner thigh muscles started cramping 68 miles into the ride. I made it about 5 more miles in agonizing pain before stopping on the side of the road. While stopped, a SAG vehicle drove by.
So I contemplated getting in. If I chose to ride on and continued having problems, what would I do, call 911.
"Help me. I am about to die of heat stroke" "where are you, sir" "I am not quite sure my exact location, but if you start searching all the roads in a triangle from Liberty to St Joseph to the Iowa border, you should find me."
I got into the SAG vehicle.
But before I did, I rode 73 miles in miserable heat on hills in just under 5 hours.
This may be the worst-named ride in the country. Absolutely nothing delightful about it.
100 miles on a bike
Hills
106 degrees Farenheit
1 long sleeve shirt
2 new clipless pedals
My recipe for disaster this morning as I tackeled the Northern Delight Century Ride today in northwestern Missouri. 100 miles on the bike shouldn't have been much of a problem except.....
Hills: To many to count. Every ride should have a hill or two simply to mix up the terrain. This was all hills. It went pretty much like this: Pedal-downshift-pedal-downshift-pedal-downshift-crap, I can't downshift and more-mash-mash-mash-upshift-pedal-upshift-pedal-upshift-pedal-coast (repeat ~597 times).
Seriously, there was not a level section on the course. It sucked. Big time.
But hills alone would have been fine.
106 degrees Farenheight: It was 78 when we started the ride at 6:20 AM. By 9:00, my bike thermometer was already pushing 90. It hit 100 for the first time at a SAG station about 50 miles into the ride. It stayed above 100 for the remainder of the ride, peaking out at 112, but averaged 106 while the bike was moving for the last 1/2 of the ride. Really, it was that hot if not hotter.
Even with the heat and hills, I had plenty of energy and wasn't overheating as the ride went on.
1 long sleeve shirt: I got an e-mail from Koach Karl Friday night telling me to wear a long-sleeve dry fit shirt for the ride because it would be cooler than wearing a tank top. And while I openly questioned the logic (which makes sense), I did wear the long sleeve shirt for the ride. Everyone in my training group did. But no one else.
And while I have nothing to compare it to, I will say that the long sleeve shirt did its job and kept me cool.
2 Clipless Pedals: Attention all new riders, clipless pedals are great. They really make riding easier b/c they use different muscle groups to pull up the pedal.
They're great.
And once you get used to using those muscles, I am sure they do wonderful things.
ButI had only done one test ride w/ the new pedals prior to the century ride. Probably not the smartest thing to do.
Especially since I was riding in 100+ degree weather
On hills.
My inner thigh muscles started cramping 68 miles into the ride. I made it about 5 more miles in agonizing pain before stopping on the side of the road. While stopped, a SAG vehicle drove by.
So I contemplated getting in. If I chose to ride on and continued having problems, what would I do, call 911.
"Help me. I am about to die of heat stroke" "where are you, sir" "I am not quite sure my exact location, but if you start searching all the roads in a triangle from Liberty to St Joseph to the Iowa border, you should find me."
I got into the SAG vehicle.
But before I did, I rode 73 miles in miserable heat on hills in just under 5 hours.
This may be the worst-named ride in the country. Absolutely nothing delightful about it.
posted by Kevin at 6:16 PM
4 Comments:
Hey, great job! Seriously, with the heat and other factors, I wouldn't have even tried. And MacGuyer is another category by himself.
Nothing delightful about that heat, but nicely done. I certainly couldn't go that distance on a bike under those conditions, that's for sure!!
.... still laughin....
BAH!! suckerrrrrr!!
:)
It was brutal out there.
Great job!
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