MS 150 Ride
This was a fun ride. We drove out to Colorado on Thursday stayed with the family that night and then Friday headed for Castle Rock. Bright and early on Saturday (well okay not very bright) we got up ate at IHOP (lots of calories) and headed for the start of the race. Parking wasn’t very coordinated and they had us parking in a field, probably fine for a Subaru or a Jeep but a little worrisome with a Saturn that has 6 inches of clearance.
At any rate we got all setup and my sister and I headed out on our bikes. It became apparent early on that I was definitely the stronger rider between the two of us. Before we even got to the first rest stop we had a big hill and I set a new personal best (45.8 miles an hour!). For those who think this isn’t very impressive, go do it yourself, it takes more than you would expect to go that fast on a bike. Air resistance starts to become a huge component at 30+ miles an hour. So we rode on from rest stop to rest stop and finally made it to the lunch stop. At this point Tammy (my sister) was starting to feel the lack of training and took a while to get ready to go. Once we were back on the road again, we had a bit of climbing and Tammy decided it was time to SAG.
For those who don’t know SAG stands for Support and Gear. SAG wagons run up and down the ride all day helping out riders with all sorts of problems.
After Tammy got on the SAG wagon I was able to put the hammer down. This was fun as I was one of the top riders at that point. I say “at that point� because the best riders probably all left in the first wave (i.e. the competitive wave). I caught up to my sister after about 15 miles of riding and she was looking much better. From there we rode on in to the finish line. That day was about 8.5 hours on the course with a ride time of 6.75 hours for 76 miles.
We stayed in Colorado Springs for the night and got up bright and early on Sunday and were on the course by 6:00 am. Tammy made it until lunch or so then SAGed a stage. This time I rode strong and ended up in a pace line with a few other strong riders. This was really a kick since we were holding about 22mph into the wind on level ground. When we rode into Canyon City there was a bit of a down hill and I got on my drops and started pushing myself pretty hard. I looked down and my computer said 38mph looked up, speed limit sigh said 30. I passed a car, got out in the traffic lane and just kept cranking on it to the next stop light. That was fun, it was intense, physically demanding, and a little crazy all at once. From there I waited for the SAG with my sister to catch up and finally we were headed for the Royal Gorge. This involved about 1500 feet of climbing (after already riding 50 some miles). I didn’t think too much of it, but I did keep drinking a ton of water and Gatorade. After we climbed up the hill we went down a ways and Tammy was starting to get disoriented. We stopped at a water stop and this is where I think Tammy started to realize she was done for the day. We waited around for a while and finally she hitched a ride with another SAG up to the gorge. Once that was lined up I headed out. Right before the Gorge there is a section called “The Wall� This is a short section ~2 miles of switch backs with mostly climbing at an 8 or 9% grade. This was physically difficult but not at all beyond my training. Later I found out that it was over 100 degrees on that section of the ride. I made it up without stopping or getting off of the bike or putting a foot down. I did however drink a lot of water. I got to the Royal Gorge Bridge and waited for the SAG with Tammy to catch up. They finally made it and this time Tammy had gotten worse instead of better. I encouraged her to ride back with the medics (who did not want her to continue the ride) so she listened to me. We had about 12 miles left, some climbing and some fast downhill on a busy highway. I’m not sure how many people really take dehydration and whatever it’s called when you run out of salt and electrolytes seriously, but the effects are very similar to getting drunk. You get disoriented, dizzy, nauseous, slower reaction times, and in summary you get stupid. This is not the time to be ride 30 – 40 mph down the side of a busy highway.
Once Tammy had agreed to ride down with the medics I head for the finish line. I was in the last few groups of riders by this point in the day as I had been on the course for over 11 hours. However, since I had been holding back most of the day I was still riding quite strong. This was kind of fun ‘cause the last mile or so through town I was flying by people and came across the finish line really strong. Total distance was 87 miles for the second day and 163 miles total for both days.
I think I drank around 8 gallons of water and Gatorade over two days. This was good training for the STP (168 miles in one day). I believe that would take me about 10 – 12 hours at a fairly intense pace, but so far I haven’t run into anything that makes me believe my body would be capable of such a ride.
Don’t forget to support the MS 150 ride. I personally became more aware of the effects of MS over the course of this ride. There was one guy (a really strong guy) who rode a tandem and put a dummy on the back and hauled a boom box behind it. He had a tag on his bike that read “In memory of James.� I think James might have been his riding buddy or something. There were a lot of other people I heard talking about how many people they knew with MS.