MS150 Day 1: Captain's Log

The alarm went off early, but we were pretty excited to stat the ride and rolled out of bed at 5:15 am.  Connor was sleeping in his crib in our room, so we carefully snuck out of the bedroom and out to the living room which contained our biking clothes and bikes.  We quickly got dressed and brought Granny over from next door.  Just when we were going to leave Connor awoke in the next room.  Sorry Granny!  But we left the two of them reading some stories and let them know they should try to head over to the ride start by 6:30 am to see us off.

We headed to the ride head quarters in the darkness to eat some bananas, hard boiled eggs, and oatmeal at the ride center with some of our other bleary eyed teammates.  After that there was a flurry of activity of attaching rider bibs, securing Domos to helmets and bikes or stuffing him in backpacks. (Thanks again Val for the cool idea!).  We got a team photo at 6:45 but we probably only had about 20 out of our 31 riders represented.  Such is the chaos of the morning ride.

The official picture, although missing quite a few riders.

The Penultimates more or less left as a pack, with the riders intending to do the slow ride leaving near the end.  I departed with Ali and we cruised by Connor and the grandparents who gave us a warm send off.

And we were off - heading toward Espanola with a cool police escort.  Always fun to ride on the road as if there were no cars around!  Ali told me to go ahead and try to catch some of the riders doing the longer ride, but I am not that fast and ended up riding up most of the next 10 miles solo.  Just as I pulled into the first stop the bulk of the Penultimates were just leaving, with the instructions to plan to stop at every other rest stop (meaning that rest stop 3 at 30 miles was the next rally point).   I let them go ahead and waited until Ai got to rest stop 1 as well.  We spoke briefly, and then I headed off to try (in vain) to catch up to the main group.

I had a nice meditative solo ride for the next 20 miles, catching up with Buddy at rest stop 2.  I biked with him for most of the ride from mile 20 to mile 30.  Near the end, I caught a pace line with a few riders from Los Monos Ayudantes which included a fellow rugby coach from the Los Alamos HS program. We made pretty good time, and I closed the gap between the Penultimate vanguard and myself significantly.  I rolled in there just as the bulk of Penultimate headed off again.  I recovered and waited for a while at there to see if Ali and the other 60 mile riders would get there (Val, Margaret, and Jen) but they never showed up.  So I headed off again and rode with some new friends onto the next rest stop.

Domo hanging out in Buddy's backpack was looking at me for many long miles!

At rest stop 4 (mile 40) I caught up with Larry, John M, and Diane.  At this stop was the decision on whether to head out to do the 100 mile spur, or continue on for 88 miles.  My thoughts were that I could either drop the 100 mile spur, and catch up to the bulk of the main Penultimate riders and try to hang with them, but on closer introspection realized that I would be dropped by them too eventually.  For that reason, and lots of encouragement from the other riders, I opted to go with the 100 mile spur and headed out with John M, Diane, and Larry.  (Thanks for the encouragement guys!)

The spur was a rough ride as the surface had just be redone and consisted off chipped rocks poured into the asphalt.  If a few years it will be smoother, but right now it was the roughest surface of the day.  It also turned out to be mostly up hill for the 6 miles to the turn around (good thing I didn't look at the topo before hand or might not have done it), but we stopped briefly for some water and headed back to main ride.

After a little rest and recovery at stop 4/5 we were ready for the final 10 mile leg before lunch.  We also caught up with TJ, which had missed a turn and had gone out about 6 miles before returning to the course.  So the 5 of us headed out to complete miles 50 to 60.   It started with a relatively steep uphill section.  At about a half mile into the hill, John got a flat tire, which necessitated us changing the tire on the extreme slope.  Luckily, a sag vehicle stopped and helped us out.  John got the tire changed relatively quickly, but then it took us a while to figure out why his brake was dragging.  Finally after about 20 minutes we were ready to continue on.

Field changing the tire.

Both John and I had actually forgotten what this leg was like, as we both remembered it being mostly down hill after the initial climb.  That turned out to be wrong, as it actually was a long slightly uphill ride for the next 6 miles and one of the most grueling legs of the day.  It was hot, we were hungry, and the hill didn't seem to end.  Finally when we made it to the top there was a sag vehicle there that was giving out iced towels.  These things were amazing and just the thing to recover from a grueling segment!  All that was between us and lunch was a 2 mile descent and ride through the tiny town of El Rito.

We had a nice lunch in the shade of big trees with John's wife Mary and his kids who where volunteering at the lunch site.  After a quick lunch of sandwiches and chips, we headed off on the next segment.  According to the rest stop volunteers, we were only about 25 minutes behind the main group when we got there, so that stretched onto an hour by the time we left.  At this point we were 60 miles in, so 40 miles left and 3 stops.

Heading out after lunch.

The next leg was uneventful, a slight downhill the whole way with a few slight uphills.  It is the kind of riding I like, we kept a pretty good pace for the whole leg.  The five of us reconvened at rest stop 7 for  some bananas and gatorade before heading off again.

At rest stop 7!

The last 30 miles is when it really starts to feel like work!  The temperature kept climbing, the energy levels were dropping, and we began the not so pretty ride into Espanola on some rolling hills.  The five of us spread out a little bit but kept within view for most of it.  John noticed his tire was slowly going flat (so this makes two tire problems today) and we covered about 3 miles of John sprinting ahead for a quarter mile, quickly filling his tire, and repeating.  As we rolled into stop 8 (unbelievably without seeing any sag vehicles the whole time we needed them), his tire gave up.  John swapped out his tire again and after a longer rest (they always become longer near the end of the day) we headed out on the last 20 miles.

These passed rather uneventfully, if slowly.  We were just ahead of the van that was breaking down the rest stops (there were only a handful of riders behind us now) as we headed off.  The climb out of Espanola toward the casino was extra grueling, and my cycle computer showed just shy of 100 as we topped the hill.  The last little bit down the hill and to the casino went pretty quick, and we were greeted at the finish line with friends and family.  One thing I am very proud of is that I was the "penultimate Penultimate" to cross the line (the second to last rider for our team to cross the finish line).  Sure, there can only be one person to finish first, but there can also only be one penultimate rider too!

All told a long day - depart at 7 am finish at 5 pm for slightly over 100 miles covered!  We definitely could have shaved about 45 minutes off our time if we would have had better luck with tire, but a finish is a finish.  Take that MS!