Saturday morning was the start of the final ride I needed to complete to qualify for PBP later this year. This was a 600k ride that I’d first ridden in 2007 in my first year of randonneuring. In actual fact it was my first ever 600k. Back then I took 37 hours and 13 minutes and still have memories of being pretty stiff after the couple of hours of sleep at the overnight stop at Elma before battling the hills in Tahuya to the finish.
This year’s plan was a bit different in that I’d decided to ride the whole distance with no over night stop with the group training to ride PBP this year in Charly Miller pace (56:20 or less for 1200k). My projections for this ride had a target time of 24:59, based on 10 minute stops at controls and 20 minute stop at Elma. While we ended up spending longer at some controls and less time at others we actually ended up completing the ride in 24:58. That’s 12 1/4 hours faster than 4 years ago!
On to the ride — I rode down to the start from Ballard with Jan, Chris and Bob at 5am, registered and chatted with various people as we all waited for 6 am to come along and a chance to start turning the pedals. I tried to stay near the front as we headed out from downtown so I wouldn’t get separated by the various traffic lights that can split the group up early on. We rolled past a line of people at the stadium who were already queuing up for the U2 concert that evening and climbed up the hill to the I90 tunnel and bridge. I had a bottle of Ensure fall off the back of my bike just before the bridge so had to stop and get it and then chase back on (checking my stats I ended up setting a PR across the bridge of over 20mph to rejoin the pack).
The group headed out to Buckley with a stop to try to figure out a mechanical issue with Greg’s chain. Robin joined us here and we then got rolling proper with rotating pacelines. We had quite a large group for a while before people started dropping off the pace and we got down to the core group. A quick stop at Buckley and it was on to fast rollers to Eatonville. This stretch took it’s toll on various people as the pace may have been a bit high for the heat and terrain. We were going 20/21 mph with a fair bit of climbing.
By the time we got through Packwood, Centralia and reached the “overnight” control in Elma there were various people in the group who changed their plans and decided to get some sleep here to try to recover before completing the ride the next day. We’d averaged 18.3 mph to this point and had hit 300k in 11 hours which was well ahead of planned pace. I’d had to take breaks from pulling in the pacelines for the last stretch so as not to fry myself. We took a 40 minute stop at Elma which allowed me to have a quick shower, change of clothes, bite to eat and to restock my supplies. Then it was off into the dusk to ride through the night to Bainbridge.
We reached Potlatch in good time and added a couple bonus miles searching for a Chevron station before backtracking to the Shell station that was the actual control. (It was labeled correctly on the brevet card but differently on the cue sheet and as my garmin had run out of power I was simply going by what things were called). Then it was on to Tahuya, for a great manned control in the middle of the night and the chance for some warm soup, tea and banana bread before tackling the infamous final stretch through the Tahuya hills, a series of pretty steep little climbs in and out of Seabeck.
Our group of 6 made it to the finish in Bainbridge at 6:58 am to be greated by Mark Thomas and his wife in a hotel room they had set up with some food and grub. We hung out for a couple of hours as we waited for the drop bags to be brought over from Elma. The overnight control actually only closed at 7:08 am so the bags weren’t going to brought to the finish until the last rider had headed off from there.
Then it was down to the ferry and a ride back home up to Ballard, ironically with a heavy backpack on my back this felt like one of the toughest parts of the weekend.
All in all the ride went really well. It was great to ride with a good group of strong riders and to keep stops to a minimum. No real aches or pains to complain about compared to previous years. Nutrition still remains a bit of a problem as I haven’t found quite the right thing to eat after a couple hundred miles in the saddle. My mind knows I need calories but my stomach rebels at the thought of another gel block and energy bar and the liquid fuels just seem to much drinking. The bottles of Ensure I had worked well for a quick calorie fix so may need to work out how to carry more of those. Will keep experimenting …