Friday evening was spent getting my bike all set up for Saturday’s 300k brevet. This ride was starting from the U-Village so I decided to ride to the start (a 6 mile warmup for the day ahead). My alarm woke me at 4:30am and I left the house a little after 5. This ended up being the only riding in the dark I had to do, which gives a sneak preview of how fast I was on the official ride.
Around 80 or so riders were milling around the Starbucks near Barnes and Noble (one of 4 in the village and naturally open at this early hour). There was a good buzz and we left promptly at 6am essentially biking back towards Ballard before turning North for our big loop up to Mt. Vernon via Mukilteo. I try to work my way up towards the front early on in a ride to find a group going at a compatible pace. The risk is that you miss a group that you could ride with if the large initial mass of riders gets separated by a changing light that splits the group and then you never see the people who made the light again.
Made good time out to Mukilteo via familiar roads and then started climbing out of the port. This was about 20 miles in and a larger group caught up with me and the guy I was chatting with as we climbed along. This was the group training for Charley Miller type pace at PBP (they’d stopped for a puncture earlier on hence they were behind us). I joined up with them and ended up sticking with them for the rest of the road.
Great organized pacelines and short control stops meant we motored along and made good time. I ended up finishing the ride in 12:33, which is about 3 1/2 hours faster than my previous times for this distance and 1:20 faster than my target time for the ride.
I was pretty tired after the ride but no real aches or pains. All the P90X is definitely helping I think. I was pleased that I was able to hold my own with this group of faster riders and take my turns up front in the pacelines. The electrolytes prevented any cramping though I could have used a bit more variety in my food. The gel blocks get a bit too sweet about 100 miles in and I can only stomach so many energy bars.
This bodes well for a considerably different experience in my longer rides this year if I can keep riding faster and have more time in the bank for sleep or cafe stops in France!
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