Road Ride OC to SD Century this Saturday the 1st

put it in your cute messenger bag or tight pants :lol:

 

You're dead! :lol:

I'm pretty excited for this ride.. last time I was excited for a ride (Noble Canyon) I didn't sleep at all, drank a 5 hour energy and somehow managed to make it through the day. There's a good chance I'll be doing the same thing tomorrow. :lol:

 

great... i'm having another late night. Tomorrow is going to 'le suck'

 

I'll be at the Santa Ana Amtrak station around 715, silver Honda civic with a bike rack. I'll try to park in an obvious spot near the main entrence. Here's my number if anyones gunna be late or what ever. (nine zero nine) seven one four nine zero nine one.

Mark

 

Sounds good, I'll be in a black Civic with a roof rack.

 

Got a fresh pair of chamois..... new bar tape, fresh seat, air in the tires and lube on the chain. See ya all in the morning at the train station!!!!!

 

Are you giving lycra a go?

 

Ha... yeah tight-ass lycra, under my baggies....

 

got me a new saddle as well....Fizik Arione boyyyy

 

Have a great and safe ride everyone. Wish I could join you all.

 

Still haven't been able to sleep. UGH we'll see what happens :lol:

 

I wouldn't advise trying a double without the proper training. I've done over 20 doubles and I've never seen anyone finish a double without training for it.

When I first started to do doubles we did a lot of training rides. We did 100 then 135 up to a few at 150 and finally we did a 183 miler. I felt worked after the 183 but thought I could do another 17 miles.

On my first double which is rated as one of the easier ones (formly named Butterfield Double now El Camino) with only 7500' of climbing, I thought I was ready. We started at 4 am and I was riding with a guy who had over 25 doubles in so he was a wealth of info. His brother joined us and it was his second double.

The first 100 was mostly small rollers and I started to hurt in the first 80 miles. He gave me some Tums and that helped a lot. Now we worked our way down past Oceanside then came inland. By the time we got to Temecula I was really thinking I wasn't going to make it.This was a make up ride and we had no support. The weekend before they called the ride due to severe weather. Now after we hit the 150 mark I started to think I can do this. Up to this point the average was good and now with only 50 miles to go I was thinking I had it easy. Now usually in training we knocked out 50 miles in 3 to 3.5 hours, but this day was different. We all took turns hitting the wall. Even the guy who had 25 doubles in fell apart at some point. There is a point where the riding becomes so difficult you really are about to give up. I've seen people crying trying to make it in and we had a lady pass us crying her eyes out but wouldn't give up. We eventually caught and passed her but she came in 10 minutes after us, still crying.This last 50 miles always seems to be the hardest part of the ride. I'd done a 183 and at 185 I was done. I got off the bike sat down on the curb in the dark and wanted to just go to sleep. It was dark and very cold and we were on the road that goes up Carbon Canyon. One of my friends who had fallen off came up and parked his bike next to mine and had a seat. We sat there for 20 minutes discussing how we were going to get back to the cars. We ran out of options and finally got on our bikes. By now my legs were cold and every pedal stroke was intense pain. There was literally nothing on my body that didn't hurt. I looked at the computer and it was now 187. I couldn't climb a roller. I got off and limped up the roller and at the top found our experienced rider waiting for us. I looked back and seen my other bud pushing his bike up. This was a hill that I normally would hit in the big ring and now here I am walking up it. So now we all saddle up and hit the downhill. It's freekin freezing now but I don't care. I look down and we are at mile 194.We stop at a AM/PM go in and buy some water and coffee. I think if anything I can walk the last 6 miles. So we leave the nice warm store and it's now 9:30 and the tempeture is in the low 40's but it feels much colder.So we have almost all flat now but we don't care, we just want off the bike. We ride 4 miles and at 198, we stop again. We talk about showers and different foods trying to get our motivation up. Come on guys only 2 more miles but I know we have more because I lived in this area before but I don't want to think about it. Back on the bike we hit that magical number 200! Now we all stop here and I want to cry. I know we still have at least 4 miles to go to get back to the cars. Then I want to kill my friend for not telling me it was over 200. After standing there until we couldn't take the cold we get going. I'm in so much pain at this time I ride a mile and stop. I was dropped now and didn't care. Irode another mile and caught my friends. They were also taking a break. We went another mile or close to a mile when another couple of riders caught us.They told us there were riders scattered miles back but everyone was still working on it and no one had asked for help. Now as these two took off we went with them. Their pace was slow enough I could hang and we all 5 finished together at 11 pm. If my life depended on it I don't know if I could of rode another 3 miles.

There was a lot of battling in my mind from the 150 mile mark on as to weather I could do this or not. They had a 30% DNF on this ride as it turned out to be a lot harder in the cold.I kept telling myself I've already rode this far, is it all for nothing? The next double wasn't that bad though as I kept my training up. I ended up doing 5 doubles that year and 7 the next. I won the Triple Crown jersey for 5 doubles in a year and the next year when we were doing the Solvang Double we did our best ever and finished a double in 11:29. Mostly because of a strong tailwind on the way back but still a very fast double.

There is no such thing as an easy double and some folks do them all the time but it requires a lot of training and I do love them but I don't have the time to keep the training up. Some day I hope to do it again.

 

Inspirational Mike!

 

So when are you starting your training Jojo?

 

what training? For now, i'll just riding. But some day Mike, i want you to be there for my first Double,:beer:. btw, Can we do 150 first? :lol:

 

Jo Jo be careful what you wish for, I rode the Amtrack century and Mike kept passing me then I'd see him on the side of the road laughing and then he'd pass me again laughing.

 

I was just out having fun that day. The Amtrak is a very easy century, pretty much the route of this one. I was very impressed with Jason that day as he kicked butt.

I rode the Amtrak one year for time. We started at 6 am and made it to the pier at noon. So for the next 4 hours we got to sit on the pier watching all the other folks coming in. I've never rode it hard again. This is a sweet ride that is just a lot of fun to go easy on.

 

Thie ride was awesome. Weather was great and we all had a good time. No major mechanicals except for Chewy busting a spoke at mile 90. Props to Chevrolegs who did his first Century on a fixed gear with no brakes..and no helmet (no props for that maneuver though).

Highlight of the trip: Passing hundreds of cars on the 5 fwy since there was an accident. We laughed at all the frustrated drivers as we cruised by.

I ate two chipotle burritos when I got home...delicious!

heres the route we did;

http://www.geoladders.com/show_route.php?route=26464

when is the next century ride?

 

:beer:

Have to agree. Thanks for pulling me the last 10 miles! The train ride back was extra credit fun.

 

When you guys are ready for a little fun, I recommend this:

http://www.geoladders.com/show_route.php?route=488