My First Century
Photo by Mike.
Photo by Jon.
Yesterday I rode and finished the PCH Randonneurs 200K (125 mile) Brevet, both my first brevet and first century ride. Before that I'd never gone more than 60 miles in one day, and that was city miles with a lot of stops and a meal and beers in between.
On the whole I had lots of fun. We enjoyed blue skies and sun and beach sea spray. I took turns drafting with Jon, a local rider whom I know through many mutual friends. Jon rides to work every day from Silver Lake to Beverly Hills, sometimes on a track bike, so he's a strong rider. He had never ridden a century before either, but he handled it very well.
A brevet is not a race but you do have to finish in an alloted time. For a 200K it's 13.5 hours total, including stops, pretty generous for this course since it only had 1,800 feet of climbing. I started late at around 7:15 a.m. and finished at 6:23 p.m., pretty slow but not dead effing last. I felt fine until about 110 miles in, where I hit that wall when everything starts to hurt. Emily greeted me at the end with a hug and a cup of hot tea.
According to the computer I averaged 14.4 miles per hour over 126.1 miles. I stayed on the saddle for 8 hours and 45 minutes. Max speed was 33.5 miles per hour. We weighed ourselves at the beginning and end and recorded how much we drank to help one of the volunteer's kids with a science experiment. I weighed 171 pounds in the morning and 165 in the end, which means I didn't hydrate and eat enough. It makes sense, since before yesterday I had never even take a drink from a water bottle while on the saddle!
Part of the fun of brevets is the diversity of bikes. Since the forecast was sunny, most people chose to take their fast bikes. I saw all kinds of carbon bikes and at least two titanium Litespeeds, one sporting the only tubular tires I saw all day. Supposedly there was a fixed-gear bike, but this rider was probably super fast and I didn't see the person due to my late start. There were several recumbents too. Few people rode more traditional randonneur setups. One fellow brought out a beautiful orange Rivendell Rambouillet, complete with dynamo lighting. Another man, who has done five 1200Ks including the recent Paris-Brest-Paris, pushed a green Waterford tourer decorated with red garland. As I expected it was the rider and not the bike that mattered, since heavier steel bikes were among the first and last to finish.
Jon had a more classic rando setup — a rack-and-fendered lugged steel Bridgestone RB-2, complete with front and rear saddlebags and a good helping of food and water. I rode my Trek 720 loaded tourer with racks, fenders, and one pannier with energy bars and an extra bottle of Gatorade. I'm pretty sure that I had the heaviest bike there. Jon and I may have over-packed a bit and our equipment choices must have seemed quaint to some of the other riders. A woman on a new Orbea did call us "true randonneurs" for being ready for any weather and carrying so much stuff. I was one of the few people not wearing bike shorts and the only one using toe clips. The night before I even got extra spokes even though Jim at Orange 20 said it was highly unlikely that I'd break a spoke on an unloaded 200K ride.
When you ride this far you realize the demands of long-distance cycling are far different. My toes got really cold, so I might try a second pair of socks or shoe covers. Bicycle Fixation wool knickers were great and kept me warm throughout. My REI synthetic base layer and Portland Cyclewear wool jersey held up nicely too, as did my ancient XLarge windbreaker. The bike performed flawlessly as well, though I might change to cork bar tape.
posted on 1/13/2008 5:12:57 PM | permalink | replies (1)