Road Ride Report How I got screwed by Levi! (and what I plan to do about it)

This weekend was the weekend I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time. www.levisgranfondo.com
Levi Leipheimer’s Gran Fondo. The ride is billed as 103 miles and 6,500 ft. of climbing. There were two other options, a 65 mile and a 30 mile.
A Gran Fondo is a timed event and a mass start. They are huge in Europe with some Fondo’s getting upwards of 7000 to 15,000 people. I’ve read that one in South Africa gets 40,000 people.

I had signed up for the newsletters and they never failed to warn us about how difficult this would be.
Jeanine and I trained as much as her schedule would allow which was pretty much a long ride only on Sundays.
The last Sunday before the event we rode 92 miles with 5100 ft. of climbing. If we can do that on the tandem, we can do their route without too much trouble.

We drove up Wednesday to Santa Rosa and checked in to the Hyatt which was a freebie due to being time share owner! YAY!

On Thursday we did a 66 mile ride to Bodega Bay and back. The weather was perfect, about 73 degrees, no wind and not a cloud in the sky.
We started late and finished late and pedaled along with no worries and nothing making us have to hurry back.
It’s apple season and I went nuts stuffing my jersey pockets with apples (Gravenstein) that I picked from trees along the roads.
No, I didn’t go in to any orchards to steal them. I may have had the best apple ever this trip. Crisp, sweet and tasted like honey!
Walnuts and blackberries were abundant along the roads as well as the apples.
I can’t believe it’s so beautiful up there. I guess I can though since NorCal was where I was born and spent my childhood.
Amazing how the scent of the air can bring back memories.

The big problem is the roads pretty much suck! The patches have patches and the asphalt is chewed up in so many areas.
There are pot holes that seem to always be in the shade of trees so if you have dark lenses, you can’t see them.
I hit a hole so hard that I pulled over and we checked the bike to make sure we didn’t crack a rim or get a flat.
What did happen was it knocked my handlebars down so that I was stretched out when I applied the brakes.
It was so weird because the shift was so subtle that I barely noticed it, I just noticed that something felt different.
Rudy, my mechanic, who happened to be doing the Gran Fondo ride with us fixed it up later and tightened it up really well.
It is a new handlebar and stem. He said it had probably settled. uh-huh...

OK! So first I have to post that I haven't seen this in years and it brought back some serious bad/good/no memories! I couldn't have tasted it because it would have made me vomit just like 35 years ago!






Jeanine's smiling. That means no hills!


Mealy or crisp? Looks purty,tasted crappy.


Which way do you think we went?


Lots of wild turkeys in the area. I scared the gobble out of these guys.






This is a cool little shop in Bodega Bay. The woman and her husband toured Australia and New Zealand for 10 months on a custom tandem. The last 3 weeks of the trip, the tandem was stolen. The frame was found but no parts.






This boats been out there for over 2 years now and won't right itself. Why am I telling you this? I don't know!




They have a pretty good network of bike paths. Long shadows leading us back.


There was a pasta feed that night that I think like 12 people showed up too. It was pretty good though but maybe they all went to the http://www.frenchlaundry.com/ or something.

We woke up at 6 to room service! 6 cup pot of coffee and pancakes and french toast! Only 40 bucks! Really, what a bargain! Really tasty too!
We rode to the event and found where we were supposed to stage. It's on the honor system. If you're fast, don't go in back. If you're slow, don't go in front! If you don't know, go in the middle. We are fast and then slow and then really, really fast and then we get slow again. So we went in the front of the middle.
Announcements and the SSB was played like Hendrix and then we tri-podded off for about 10 minutes and then it opened up and off we went. 3,500 people all starting together was pretty cool but it did string out pretty fast.

Weather was great! I had on a beanie, arm warmers and an undershirt as my warm clothes and they all came off pretty quick. Intersections were closed and people were out cheering us on.
The bummer was that some of these folks have known about this for months and they still chose to leave their houses and then wait as we passed looking PO'd.
It took forever I'm sure with no gaps in the line.
The other thing I noticed was that even though the roads reminded me of narrow European roads, they were loaded with American drivers.

Here's the front of the bunch with a few thousand lined up behind me


the big cheese himself getting ready to lead the pack


Jeanine and my good friend Rebecca. She did the 65 mile but should've done the 103


We smilin' now


No doubt we are on a climb as the pack whooshes away from us




share the road

one guy was kind enough to snag my camera to get a shot of us. He almost killed himself so I definently appreciate it


notice the crap road surface


Eventually the rides split and we said bye to Rudy and Rebecca. We got on a long flat section and picked it up and when I turned around, we had about 25 people sitting on our wheel zipping along at 23 to 25mph.


Fair weather friends! as soon as we hit the hill...bye-bye
or as this one guy said with a smile as he jumped past us up the hill"Thanks for the pull, now we're gonna ditch ya!"
These were everywhere




Yeah! No sh*t!




Seriously, when I looked at my gradient, it usually said 11%. Sometimes 13 and 14% and occasionally a very nice 7 and 8%


Stand by for more ...

 

Looks fun. I think I'll try and do it next year.

 

nice. i used to live in sebastopol. gravensteins are the best apples, and bodega bay is a cool little town (the first time i ever had oysters on the half-shell was on a dock like the one in your pic). thanks for the report--and the memories.

but i never rode on the roads up there--too skinny and/or crappy.

:beers:

 

AWESOME! besides the roads, the climbs look FUN!

 

By the title of this thread, I thought your mother was Sarah Palin.

thanks for the clarification!

#-o

 

Sweet! Nice RR. Great pics. I got to go up there sometime and ride. :bang:

 

Here's the rest of it! Sorry it took so long!!

I really hate being last and left behind. This is when riding the tandem pizzes me off!


Jeanine is all smiles because we stopped on a tough hill so I could take a pic


The pic I took


Rest stops were great with potatoes and cookies and FRS and tons of fruit. The lunch stop was great with sandwiches and sodas!


one guy was riding a bamboo bike


the water set-up was great


I was pretty wasted by the lunch stop and noticed we were at about 5500 ft. of gain and 50 miles. My tired brain didn't think to much about it except that I guess we have about 1000 more feet of climbing or so. But....

An 18% grade going down is difficult on roads that you've never been on. Jeanine screaming at me to let go of the brakes but I'm tired and have the brakes pulled all the way in and we still aren't stopped. And EXCUUSE ME but HAIRPIN turn with a cliff!! HELLOOO!


Up at 15%


Down at 18%






Here's where it started to get funky
we drop to Highway 1 and apparently the wind SoCal experienced yesterday was moving in on us as we headed along the coast. The wind was literally howling through the wires and buffeting the tandem all over the road. It was like trying to control a bull. I was freaked but Jeanine seemed to barely notice it. "What are you doing?""let go of the brakes" "Why are you going into oncoming traffic?" The guy in front of us almost blew over and then the gust hit us! WHAM! And we'd slant sideways! This was no fun and trying to keep the beast steady hurt my shoulders.






Finally we turned on to Coleman Valley road.
I was so glad to get off the highway.Coleman valley road was steepest by far. It's in the Tour of California and everytime I looked down, my gradient was at 14%. With 75 miles in my legs and wasted from fighting the wind, this was not welcome!



It was also very windy going up but sometimes it was a tail wind and I swear we barely had to pedal!
I told Jeanine to sit up and make like a sail and it really was nice to have the wind at our backs on a climb!

At the last rest stop I was so wasted and depleted I ate about 5 Oreo's, strawberries, potatoes, fruit and nuts and then farted the next 5 miles, which is when it really does not pay to be a stoker on the back!
Another thing I noticed was that my altimeter said 8200 feet of elevation. WTF? Maybe I'm not seeing it right and need to put on some glasses.
The final stretch in. A dirt bike path.


And the finish at last!

This was insane! I've done some hard sh*t in my time like climbing Mt. Ventoux with a fully loaded tandem or riding the Pyrenees on a loaded tandem and this was right up there for sure!
A final look at my altimter says 8500 ft. WHAAT? They said it was 6500 ft.
Then I started asking people around! Everyone had 8200 to 9000 ft.
MAN! We got screwed by Levi!
There's a press conference with Levi and the folks that organized the event. I'm gonna go talk to them!
Now believe me ! I'm not pissed at all! I'm damn proud to have done it on a tandem and although there were other tandems in the event, I think Jeanine and I were the only woman tandem team and also one of only two tandems in the 100 mile event.
I go up to the press conference and when there is a break in the questions, I pipe up and ask if I can ask a question.



They say yes but look at me like, uh-oh, and I say I did it on a tandem, which gets a cheer, and then I ask "did you guys ride this before you set it up? Because it's over 8000 ft. of climbing and you guys said 6000?"
Levi looks at me and passes the buck to the guy in the middle and he passes it to the ride director and they are all cracking up and he says he used a Garmin.

I said don't you know Garmins lose data under tree cover? It was all pretty funny. The problem is if someone trained for 6500 ft and gets 8500 or 9000 or whatever it was, that could be a problem for some.
So that's how I got screwed by Levi. What do I plan to do about it?
I plan to ride it again next year and train for 10,000 ft.

cool sculpture


Paella the finish line feast along with pasta or mexican food.


What did we get for the ride and the money we spent to sign up?
We got a free Road ID mailed to us with whatever we wanted to say on it.
A huge sale at a local bike shop on great stuff.
A challenge
A beautiful ride
a cool jersey(not free)
bragging rights
a shoulder ache
65% of money went to charity
and a free tube from the bike shop!

Thanks for reading!:beer:

 

Great pics and write up, thanks so much for sharing!

 

Awesome!

 

+1!!!!!:bang:

 

What awesome pics, great job on the ride and the review!

Thanks for sharing :clap:

 

that sculpture is crazy!

 

Great report - cool that you had the balls to ask about the elevation gain.

 

cool report. i have noticed with garmins...it seems the fast guys always show less elevation gain for the same loop. I always show anywhere from 10-20% more feet climbed than a fast guy and I always say mine is more accurate since it picks up points/time and the more time you take, the more points you gather, the more accurate the data is.

 

Thanks for the great RR and pics, though if anyone actually manages to get a reservation for The French Laundry, they have done better than I have ever managed:lol:

 

If you can afford to eat at the French Laundry, I'd like to be your date!

 

I'm sure you can down a bottle of boones farm in the parking lot before hand to keep your costs down Liz

 

That was great. Thanks so much for sharing your trip!

 

great job awesome RR

 

Thanks for sharing Liz. Awesome write up.