Not Even My Wife Reads This

This one is no fun to write because it's the first time I've failed to finish an organized ride.

Friday night, I did some last-minute work on my bike (which I should have done days before so I'd have time to make sure it was right). Finished about 9. Got to bed around 10. Fell asleep around 11. Alarm was supposed to go off at 2. It didn't (I set it to PM instead of AM), but I woke up anyway around 2:05. So I didn't get nearly enough sleep before the ride. The forecast was for 90 degrees and a 40% chance of thunderstorms Saturday, 82 degrees and a 50% of storms Sunday. So I brought my raincoat and my Camelbak.

I drove to Warrenton, arriving about 30 minutes before the start. Tech inspection and registration went perfectly, thanks to the volunteers and the nice facilities at the Hampton Inn. (They gave us the Continental breakfast room in the lobby, so we had light to work with, plus some food.)

Over 40 riders turned up, a great turnout for such a long ride. We rolled off at 4 a.m. I resolved to not chase the fast group, and ended up in a slower group of about 11 riders. Then fairly early in the ride we reached a group navigation crisis. The cue sheet said to bear left. There was a left turn there. The signage was ambiguous. About seven people decided to turn left, and four of us decided to go straight. I think everyone still thinks they went the correct way and the other people got it wrong. The two routes converged so we'll never really know, but our group rode an extra mile.

I was riding with Stan and Nick and George W. Nick was on a mission. He had expected times for every control and was trying hard to stay on schedule. I figured Nick was pretty sure to finish so my goal was to stay with him and I'd finish too. George fell off the back of our little group, and we were three. A couple miles later we caught up with Larry, who'd been in the group of seven. Which told us for sure that we'd been the ones who'd taken the longer way. We were four again. The sun came up, I made myself eat and drink, and eventually we reached the first control at mile 52 in Wolftown.

I bought a couple of bottles of Gatorade at the control, refilled my bottle with one and drank the other. While I was drinking, Nick and Stan left. (Like I said, Nick was on a schedule.) I eventually finished my drank then decided to chase them down. (Probably a dumb idea.) I rode off at a pretty good clip and caught them around mile 61. George M. caught us a couple of miles later, and we were four again. George was faster than the others, and I decided to follow his pace rather than hanging back (you can always fall back to a group if you want, but it's harder to catch up to one), so I rode with George to the information control at mile 78. A bunch of other riders were there already so we were briefly in a group of about 8. But eventually George and I rode off the front of that group too. It was starting to get hot and I was worried about whether I had enough liquid, so I stopped at a store at mile 84 and let George go.

I wasted a lot of time at that store, and Stan and Nick and Michael caught me, so I was in another group of four. We continued into the heat. Michael fell off the back and I rode with Stan and Nick for quite a while, to the Ashleys Market control at mile 103 and beyond. Then I made a bad wrong turn. On a long easy climb, Nick was pulling ahead and Stan was falling behind. I decided to chase Nick (easy to fall back, hard to chase forward) but I missed the downhill turn onto Old Roberts Mountain Lane. Badly. After a bonus mile of climbing, Nick was gone. I rode for a while by myself, and eventually caught up to Stan and Michael, both of whom were going slowly. I said hello then continued past them, knowing I needed to go faster than that, but the heat got to me and I needed to take a bathroom break at the next store at mile 120. I dawdled there for too long and Stan caught up and said Michael was going to abandon there. So we waited for Michael to arrive and we made sure he was okay and had a ride before continuing. And then I rode with Stan for the rest of the day.

Stan told me that he hadn't missed a turn all year, so we immediately missed the next turn and did a couple more bonus miles. The next 50 miles or so were kind of a blur of endless rollers. We were both hot and tired but we eventually caught up with Al, who didn't look so good and immediately made a wrong turn at a T intersection. I yelled at him to get him back on course, and he confirmed to us that he was going to abandon. So we rode with him to a grocery store in Palmyra, and wasted a lot of time there before continuing. Michael eventually came out to give him a ride back to Warrenton; it was 90 miles and he didn't have the energy to make it. So Stan and I set off again. We reached the Louisa control at mile 182 at sundown. We ate in a little Italian restaurant that had pretty good food, but it took a while to eat it, and it was fully dark when we left. Then Stan had some lighting problems that took some time to resolve.

The last 70 miles or so were kind of a blur. Stan was really tired and also short of water. I had plenty, but it's not easy to dump water from a Camelbak to a bottle. The convenience stores were all closed so we only had vending machines, which were all sold out of water so he had to settle for soda. I had pain in my hands and left foot and saddle area. Some pain is normal on a long ride, but this was far more than normal. I think I had sweated a whole lot during the hot part of the day, and my own acidic sweat was attacking my skin.

We dragged into Warrenton about 4 a.m. To have a good chance of finishing we really needed to start riding again almost immediately. I asked for a 5 a.m. wake-up call, showered, and went to sleep. Seconds later the wake-up call arrived. My hands and saddle area still hurt, so I decided to go back to bed. I think it was the right choice; it would have been a really painful last 200 km. Better to try for the 600 again on a cooler day.

Anyway, what I learned from this one is that my sweat is evil and can eat my skin. So I'll be bringing extra gloves and socks and shorts on any future long, hot brevets. But I did manage to drink enough to avoid dehydrating in the heat. And I ate enough to avoid bonking. And I didn't fall asleep on the bike, despite not getting enough sleep the night before.

And I did quite a bit wrong. I repeated the mistake of working on the bike right before the brevet. (It had been popping out of the easiest gear. I fixed that, but in the process loosened the front derailleur's low limit screw too much, so it could drop the chain to the inside on a hard downshift. I think that happened four times on the ride.) I stopped too long at the controls. I made a couple of large navigation errors.

Oh well, maybe I'll do the ROMA 600 in September.