Not Even My Wife Reads This

It's called the Mother of All 300ks because it's 300 km long (actually more like 309 km, but who's counting?) and really hilly.  And it's called contrary because we're riding it backwards from the way it was originally ridden.

The start was at 5 a.m., in Middletown Virginia, which is about 70 minutes from my house.  So I had to leave around 3:30, which meant I had to get up by 3, after about 4.5 hours of sleep.

The forecast was for about 40 at the start, over 60 in the afternoon.  So I wore my summer shoes with two pairs of socks, a short-sleeve wool jersey and a thermal jersey, my best cycling shorts with thermal tights, lobster claw gloves, and a warm balaclava.  I had a cycling cap, rain jacket, sunglasses, and lighter gloves in my bag.  The weather forecasters got it wrong; it stayed in the 40s all day, with a bit of rain and a lot of fog.  Should have worn my winter boots, or at least brought shoe covers.  But other than my toes I wasn't too cold; never needed to put on the rain jacket.  Also never needed the sunglasses.

I brought 2 28-ounce bottles of Gatorade, 4 Gu packets, and 4 Clif bars.  I had a bowl of cereal before I left the house, and then a big bagel at the start, so I figured I'd be okay until the sun came up.

Since an awful 8-flat century last year, I always carry 3 tubes and a spare tire on long rides.  A few days before the ride I put a 25 mm Gatorskin tire on the front of my bike, to match the one I put on the back a couple of weeks earlier.  I figured this would decrease my chance of a flat, and make rough roads more comfortable, compared with the 23 mm Krylion Carbon that was there before.  I also adjusted my front derailleur screws to avoid dropping my chain, like I did too many times on my last brevet.

There were about 40 riders at the start.  I managed to stick with the fast group, about 17 riders, for a while.  Probably not a great idea to burn energy riding at 20 mph, but I was fresh and the early hills were just gentle rollers.  One rider in the group hit a deer and was slightly banged up; after that I tried to give myself a bit more space, but stayed close enough that I didn't have to navigate for myself in the dark.  Trusting the herd to navigate was a mistake because we all missed a turn and did a bonus half-mile.  Then we had an information control at mile 17 before crossing a big highway at a traffic light, which bunched everyone together again until the second control in Siler at mile 34.

After that control the route got hillier and the faster riders flew off the front and I ended up riding by myself at a slower speed.  There wasn't a control with food until mile 60, so I ended up eating a Gu and a Clif bar and making myself drink more Gatorade than I really wanted.  And then the mile 60 control didn't have any food that looked good, so I just bought some Gatorade there to refill the bottle I'd drunk, and ate another Gu and another Clif Bar.  I left the control a bit behind three other riders, and immediately missed a turn because I was following them rather than watching the cue sheet.  Eventually they stopped to see if I knew where I was going, and I didn't but was sure we'd gone way more than 0.1 mile, and turned back around to find the turn right after the control.  Another 2 bonus miles.

The Slanesville control was a good one: general store plus convenience store plus restaurant with bathroom.  I'd only eaten about 1200 calories to go 82 miles, not nearly enough, so I had a slice of pizza (would have had two, but there were only two left and another hungry rider was standing right next to me) and a bag of Doritos and more Gatorade.  Still not enough, but I didn't want to gorge myself and cause stomach problems, so I resolved to eat more often and kept going.  I also bought some AAA batteries because one of my taillights was looking a bit dim.  (I never put new batteries in both of them at once, because I don't want them failing together.)  I caught up with Paul and Carol and rode behind them for a bit, but then they had to stop and I kept going alone again.

There were some more rollers, then a couple of miles on the shoulder of US 50, then a whole lot of empty rolling roads with bad pavement.  I gradually slowed down, probably due to not having eaten enough, and five or six riders passed me.  I was riding alone when I approached a turn that the cue sheet said would have loose dogs, and sure enough two dogs came running out into the road to meet me.  But it was a little dog and a medium-sized dog, both looking more playful than vicious, so not too bad.  But just to be safe, I whipped around the corner fast, not quite as fast as I wanted because a slow-moving pickup truck was blocking the road, but fast enough to avoid running into the pooches.  And continued down horrible roads at low speed.  I wasn't sure how much of the slowness was due to the road and the hills, and how much was due to not eating enough, but nobody else caught me from behind.

When I reached Lost River at mile 138 I was certain I was bonking, and the Lost River Grill had a menu that looked decent, so I ordered a real meal: onion soup, some kind of wrap, onion rings, and a milkshake.  Unfortunately a bunch of other riders came in right behind me, and there was only one waitress and probably only one cook, so it took a while to get all that food.  But it was good, and I probably needed the break.  I ate with the tandem team of John and Cindy, chatted with a couple of other riders, then left to climb Mill Gap and Wolf Gap.  I wanted to make sure to get down the steep side of Wolf Gap before it got dark.

Unfortunately I got a flat right at the top of Mill Gap, and it took me about 15 minutes to fix it.  I never found the cause, so I'm going to assume it was a pinch caused by the rough road, though that's surprising since it was a brand new 25 mm tire, I was going uphill (so not fast) and I don't remember hitting a particularly huge bump, just a zillion small ones. So maybe I have bad rim tape or something; I'll find out if I get another front flat soon.  While I was up there two tandems and two single bikes passed me, and sunset kept coming closer.  But it was 15 more minutes to digest dinner, and by the time I started climbing Wolf Gap the bonk was gone.  I stopped at the summit for a couple minutes to put on more clothes for the cold descent, and John and Eric caught up.  It wasn't dark yet, but there was very thick fog on the east side of the mountain, and I didn't fully trust my just-fixed tire, so I had to descend at 15 mph.  (Of course I don't descend windy roads very quickly anyway, so this wasn't a huge loss.)

I was almost out of food, so I went off-course a bit to the Sonoco station to buy a couple of candy bars, which I ended up never eating.  (But it was still a good idea to get them, because I was almost out of food, and really didn't want to bonk again.)  John caught up with me there, and we decided to ride back together.  On the steep hill when we first got on Back Road, I dropped my chain, for the second time that day.  A few miles later, two big dogs ran out into the road in front of us, but they backed off and let us by when we yelled at them.  And about halfway down Back Road, my headlight bracket got loose and my headlight started drooping and illuminating my front wheel instead of the road, so I pulled over into a church parking lot to fix it.  Carol and Paul and Chris went by while I was doing that, then John and I caught up with them and decided to ride with them the rest of the way, to avoid getting lost.  The five of us did the last 12 rolling miles or so of the brevet at a moderate pace, and finished just before 10 p.m., with a time of 16 hours and 51 minutes.

So what did I do wrong this time?  Two navigational errors (both when following other people, but still my fault) adding up to about 2.5 bonus miles, imperfectly adjusted derailleur limit screws resulting in two chain drops, one flat tire of unknown origin, cold toes caused by trusting the weather forecast and failing to wear my winter boots or bring shoe covers, and bonking from not eating enough.  The bonk probably cost me an hour, and the flat definitely cost me 15 minutes, so if I avoid those mistakes, I should be able to do this ride in 15.5 hours next time.  (Of course I'll probably make different mistakes, or it'll be windy, or something.)