2009 AIDS Ride for Life Ride Report

What follows will be a loose account of biking 100 miles around Cayuga Lake, and the feelings before and after

Friday: Prep

I took Friday off from work, because in the past it's been too hectic to go to work, only to have to rush home after registration and have no time to do things like clean my bike, pack everything and hit the hay. This year I decided that the stress from the last year was too much, so I took the day off instead.

Great idea! Kelly is still recovering from Bronchitis, and she was up for a good portion of the night before coughing, so I let her sleep in a bit before waking her up. I probably should have sent he boss an email letting her know that she still wasn't feeling up to snuff but, c'est la vie. I wake her up, and I drive her over to work, and for lunch at CTB before heading home to clean the bikes and get in a quick 1.5 mile ride before packing and heading down to registration.

This was by far the easiest and best registration we've had yet! This year rather than have everyone sit through safety lectures/videos we did it online before hand in the form of a YouTube video that we had to watch in advance followed by an online quiz. So when we got there to check in, all we had to do was tell them who we were and since we had completed the fundraising before the ride check-in, all we had to do was pick up our packets which had our bib numbers (mine was #1, Kelly was #2)! SO much better! In and out in short order (stopped to say hi to our friends), and headed back to the car to drive to dinner.

Dinner: Sushi, extra fried rice, tea and soda. Probably should have skipped the soda, but I wanted something cold and bubbly too. After eating, we drove home to make sure that all of our intended ride clothes still fit as we expected and call our parents, then off to try to get some sleep (both of us didn't really sleep well and fell asleep around midnight...which is better than last year for me when I just didn't sleep at all. Listening to the rain and Kelly had a massive asthma attack. Things were not looking good for her ride day, and she vowed to just go as far as she could.

Ride Day

Woke up at quarter to 5, fed cats, got dressed and ate. Coffee. Pack up car, and head on down to Stewart Park all within an hour of waking up. While we went to sleep listening to the rain, the sky was just cloudy and there was a little spitting on us as we were driving down. I had been fretting that were were running late (call time was 6:00, and I don't think we got there until 6:10), but there was still plenty of parking. Unloaded the car and went over to the rider check in. Then milled about for a while, bumping into friends and such. Soon it was go time for 360+ riders!

The First Hill, 5 miles

Kelly said that she wanted to ride with me, since normally she's about 5mph or so faster than me when I've got panniers and she's on her Terry, and this year she has bronchitis. We quickly got separated in the first roll-outs and I started up East Shore DR with her more or less in my sights ahead of me...which turned out to not be her after-all, as I worked on the first mile or so to catch someone who wasn't my wife. Oh well, I'll see her at the first rest stop, just do my own ride.

Last year the first hill was akin to a little slice of hell for me, since my lowest gain ratio was 3.0 last year. This year, in my middle ring I had 2.0 as my gain ratio. Huge difference that makes (basically speaking, my lowest gear then was more than twice as low coming in at 1.4)! So I could spin pretty easily up East Shore (and eventually Hill 2, but we'll get to that in a minute).

So Hill 1 was not nearly the suffer fest I had last year, and I didn't even tap the lowest of my low gears, just the middle chain ring and my "granny gear". Spun up at about 9 mph, and hit the top and started pushing around 14 mph gaining ground up toward Rouge's Harbour.

At about 1 mile or so from Rouge's Harbour I finally find Kelly, though she was standing on the side of the road, trying not to pass out. She had been wearing her rain coat up the hill, and she took the hill at ~ 12.5 mph, so she was pretty over-heated all things considered. I stood with her for a few minutes, waving off the first couple of motorcycle SAG vehicles that came by, but she said "I think I need a ride", so I flagged the next one for a car. She seemed like she was feeling a little better by the time the car got there, but neither of us wanted to take any chances, since she had said that she felt a pop in her chest followed by "warm feelings" all over her chest, and wanted to pass out. So she got SAG'ed to the first rest stop, and she asked me not to come with her. So once I saw that they were securing her bike, etc. I gave her a kiss, and pushed off again.

The first hill really ends at Rouge's Harbor, where we come to the first traffic light on the route, exchanging Rt-34 for Rt-34B and loosing all 200+ feet that we climbed to get here. Fun downhill, as long as you don't get stuck behind too many riders who are either riding their brakes or who's bikes just cannot go all that fast down the hill. It's here that I get my first top speed of the day at about 35 mph, which I won't break for about another 75 miles.

"Ludloville", or Hill 2, 3 miles

There are really only 5 significant hills on the Ride For Life, and this one is usually the worst for folks who haven't been training either hard enough or long enough. It starts from Lansing Middle School, and gains about 400 feet from the bottom of a gully out. It was on this route last year that a fellow rider lost his life (turned out to be a heart defect which was an unknown time-bomb). In my opinion though, this is not the hardest hill. The hardest hill is the one leading from Taughannock Falls to The Glenwood Pines Restaurant, it's shorter by about a mile and a half, and not even as steep, gaining only about 150 or so feet, but you've gone some 94 miles at this point (if you've elected to do the century ride). It's usually here where you'll see people really hurting...but I wasn't there, yet.

After the fun of the down-hill, we slowly start gaining altitude, and most people will find someone to either glom onto their tire, and/or just keep pushing & spinning up the hill. I found that if I dropped into my lowest chain ring in the front — The LHT has a Mountain Bike Triple on the front, being 26-36-48 — and moved into about the middle of my cassette, I could keep up about a 8-9 mph speed until it actually started getting on the steep side about a mile up the road. As we gain height, I'd drop down one gear in the rear moving from 26x20 at the bottom of the hill up my cassette. Passing where the rider went down last year I continued to spin, rather comfortably actually, up the hill. I maxed out on 26x34 near the top of the steepest point and had passed at least 15-20 riders, mostly kids and a few folks with bikes that they bought at Dick's, Target or some other box store. Once it leveled out, I returned to 26x20ish until I was moving at about 14mph and then swapped into my middle and outer rings to my cruising speed.

The "flats" after Ludloville, 10 miles

Seeing as how this isn't a race, I don't mind stopping to help out riders who flatted. One middle-aged chap I encountered after only a few miles past Ludloville was trying to fit his new tube around his wheel without any air in it. This is really the hard way, so I stopped to help out. A SAG wagon pulled up behind us after a couple of minutes, and I discovered that it was one of the founders of the Ride, who couldn't bike any more for medical reasons. After he told me "I've got this, you can keep going if you like", and I looked at the fellow who flatted, he said, "Go ahead, and thanks!", so I pushed back out towards the first rest stop at King Ferry.

One of the funny things I find is that spending a day on a bike, the time between points isn't particularly memorable. While I'm conscious of the fact that I'm moving along at a good clip (usually about 15 mph on average flats without rolling hills), I always seem to forget that it takes about another hour and a quarter to get between Hill 2 and the rest stop. Luckily, this time goes by pretty quickly, and before I really know it, I'm at King Ferry winery, looking for Kelly.

One thing worth noting is that it's not really flat between Ludloville and King Ferry. It very stedaly continues to go up, but in the form of what cyclists usually refer to as "Rolling Hills"...except that usually implies that there's a down on the other side. These just keep going up.

King Ferry to "Onion Rings", 15 miles

She greets me with a smile, and a wave. I don't know if she knows how much that smile meant to me, since I was pretty worried that she'd be done with the ride after how she was feeling when I kissed her goodbye. She said she was feeling better, and asked how I was doing. My lower back was starting to bother me, but it wasn't too bad, and I had only drank about 2/3 of my front water bottle on the way (the weather was chilly, grey and misting for most of those first 17 miles). I wasn't really hungry but forced myself to eat a half of a mini bagel and a piece of banana, while I refilled my bottle. Since I hadn't really had too much to drink, I didn't need the bathroom. Also, looking at a line 20-30 people deep made me decide that when she asked "are you ready to go?" I said yes. I decided to throw on my fleece vest because my core was pretty cold at this point, and we pushed off towards Union Springs, or as we prefer to call it "Onion Rings", about 15 miles down the road.

Kelly's normally quite a bit faster than I am, as I said before, but because of the Bronchitis and her earlier episode, neither of us wanted her to push too hard. So we set out from King Ferry at about 12-13 mph. I had been averaging about that anyway because of the hills, and the company through this part was more than welcome. One of the things that usually winds up happening is because Kelly's faster than me we don't do a whole lot of "riding together", rather we'll be on the road at the same times, but she'll wind up meeting me wherever we're going to (when I ride the Surly...on my Fuji XC bike that I've basically turned into a road bike we're closer to the same speed, but she's got less body weight than I do and her bike is lighter than mine, with better hubs, by quite a bit). This time though we were able to do the ride actually together, riding side by side for almost the whole 15 miles to Onion Rings.

One of our friends from last year (who works for STAP) came up behind us along the route and road with us for a few miles or so. He's a racer, so at some point he decided to move along, and left us shortly before the short climb before Wells College. After that fun down hill, and the not so fun navigating Aurora's early morning traffic/parked cars, we were back into the rollers which make up the East side of Cayuga Lake. We passed him again when a chunk of glass ripped his tire, but he told us to keep going, so we did (Todd's good, he helped us a lot on previous training rides so we figured he'd be good, and he was). The rollers rolled right on by, and we found ourselves at Union Springs after about an hour and a half, or so...I don't really remember what time it was when we got there. I swapped out my fleece for my rain coat, since I was getting cold and the fleece doesn't do crap against the wind.

Union Springs to Verdi Signs, 13.5 miles

At Onion Rings, we took a little more time, bathrooming and filing my water bottle, eating a little pb&j action and chit-chatting with the folks who were there. Todd pulled in a few minutes after we did, and went over to the bike techs to see about another tire. We pulled out after spending ~ 20 minutes or so at the rest stop (as opposed to the 10 minutes I spent at King Ferry) and we were on our way again, riding together. Todd met up with us about 5 miles down the road or so, and road with us for a while again keeping us laughing and joking for the whole 5 miles or so he rode with us.

Kelly hit a rather large rock, and wound up with a "snake bite" flat on her rear tire, so we stopped to change it out. Her hands were bothering her, so she asked me to pull the tire off for her (I was happy to oblige, otherwise I'd just be standing there). Todd continued to joke around, and we got her tire all situated and pumped up to 110 psi, and were able to keep on going. Todd left us shortly after that to go catch some of the fast folks who passed us, and Kelly and I were left to our own devices at that point.

We arrived at the 5&20 junction where folks who weren't going to do the century make a left and head to lunch. Since we thought we were doing okay on time, we pushed on to Verdi Signs. It was here that Kelly began feeling a bit faster...or at least was able to go way faster than me.

I think I was halfway to a bonk, since I was getting a headache and was feeling hot and couldn't really go very fast. My hip flexers were starting to bother me, and my back hadn't gotten any worse (but wasn't really any better). Another problem was starting to rear it's head: crotchal numbness. My saddle was supposed to prevent this, but I think the problem was that my shorts actually had too much padding to prevent this. One of the funny things about bike shorts is that too much padding can be just as problematic as not enough. Too much and the shorts will push back against the areas that they're not really padding with just enough force to cause numbness rather than preventing it. Also, my sit bones were starting to get a little sore, but we had done almost 45 miles at this point, so that wasn't unexpected.

Drank about half a bottle of sports drink, ate some orange pieces, pretzels, and a granola bar. Slathered my forehead in Arnica cream, which I think helped my headache, as well as stripping off my coat and arm warmers. I applied some arnica gel to my left knee, which had started to hurt when we pulled in, and we pushed off after about 15 minutes or so towards lunch and Seneca Falls.

Lunch, 12 miles

Montezuma marsh is one of the most beautiful parts of the whole ride. It's a shame that so many people don't think they can do it, but it's here where Hill #3 is...but it's not too bad, since there's a short down stroke before the end of it (it's more of a 3a and 3b), and most don't think they can do the whole 100 miles. We passed a few folks who we had been leapfrogging all day, and arrived at lunch quite tired and in some pain.

I was hurting pretty good at this point, and both of us were doubting our ability to finish the ride, never mind in time. We took about half an hour at the lunch stop, eating Turkey sandwiches, some wonderful minestrone soup, and roast beast for me. We looked at our time consumption, and decided that we'd spend a little less time at the next couple of rest stops, and ride until "they tell us we're out of time and pick us up".

Thee Amish Market, 16 miles

Grinding Hell. That's what I remember about this part of the ride. Kelly was getting stomach cramps almost the whole time, and my hip flexors were defiantly telling me that they weren't happy with this pedaling thing. Kelly found some relief by hopping off the bike occasionally to stretch and walk a few yards before hopping back on the bike. I didn't really get any relief, but we just kept right on going. We weren't making particularly good time, but by the time we arrived we had gone through about 75 miles (for me. She missed about 10 by getting SAGed), and both of us needed a little relief of one kind or another.

Thee Amish Market was one hopping place! While there weren't too many riders there, they had rolled out a bolt of red felt and were blasting show tunes (they also had what they called "VIP bike parking" where they took our bikes from us when we arrived). Refilled my water bottles, emptied by bladder and we looked at how far we had to go and how much time we had left. 25 miles to go, and only 2 hours to do it in. It was cutting it close, but we decided to push off and see how'd we do.

Bellweather Hard Cider, 13 miles

Between TAS and Bellweather lies two hills which really make up one really annoying hill. For the most part, Kelly was off like a bat out of hell...she must have been feeling a bit better. I was hurting units, but I was in a mindset of "Okay, it hurts pretty bad, but I don't think it'll get any worse. Kelly, who's sick is way ahead of me, so maybe I should try to catch up.". At this point, I entered into time trial mode, and tried to step on it a little, rocking a bit more speed. But not for long, as we approached the pain, I mean pair of hills that are right next to Cayuga Ridge winery. After some 85 miles, they hurt quite a bit.

Kelly and I worked up the hills, and finally wound our way to the last rest stop. I see Kelly not to far away, look back over he shoulder (presumably, looking for me) she raises 1 finger, to signify one mile. I think to myself, I can do one more mile. We arrive to the last rest stop at about 4:00. We had only 1 hour to go 12 miles, with that last real climb only 4 miles from the end. We rested, refueled, and attempted our best to refresh as much as possible before the last push.

Cass Park, 13 miles

Kelly was gone like a bullet. I think I saw her maybe twice, both in the first few miles. Once again, I tried to just power through the pain and make it in the 45 minutes that I had...mathematically I averaged ~ 17.5 mph (Kelly apparently hit about 19mph for her time). I also hit my max top speed of 38 mph coming down that hill. Pain is really all I remember, other than hitting that last hill with everything left in my tank...just hard enough to make it to the top as best as possible. Man that hurt, but I also remember saying to myself that it was going to be a "suffer-fest", and just saying it out-loud made it hurt less, blissfully. Then passing the Pines, I thought "3 more miles, just go. You usually do this in <15 minutes and you have little time. Just go. So I went. I crossed the line with about 2 minutes to spare before the 5PM cut-off.

Victory Ride to Dinner, 4 miles

"This was the most pleasant 8.7mph I've gone all day," says Russ as we're moseying along with the police escort. We arrive to cheers, and food-a-plenty. The food is tasty, but I remember little of its flavor (hunger is the best sauce, for sure). We remembered to pack clothes in the car to change into and that was a brilliant idea. We went home to hungry kitties, and glorious showers, followed by a late-night Wendy's run. I think we were both out cold when our heads hit pillows at 10:00.

Things to remember for next year

• Fatty shorts have too much padding for 100 mile rides, crotchal numbness is not comfortable 1 day later
• Carry less stuff. You didn't need virtually 3/4ths of what you packed, though the ability to carry both of your rain coats was very helpful
• Different bag? Maybe something from Carradice, Rivendell, or Minnehaha, and no rack?
• Need faster tires. Have no idea what to do about that though...
• Get a bike fitting