Family Bicycling

This 400k ride represents the third ride of 4 rides in a randonneur series (200k, 300k, 400k, 600k). The 400k would be the longest ride of my life, so it would surely be a challenge! Training time has always been an issue for me, but this year I’m getting a little more than my usual (mostly) trainer only fare. I’m prepping to ride the GPC metric century with my daughter on the tandem, so in the last month, we did a couple of 40ish mile hilly rides as well as some triplet rides with my son and daughter. All told, I probably got 140 miles of rubber on the road since the 300k, and I did my usual twice a week or so trainer rides after the kids go to bed.

The one development on my trainer rides is that my legs felt fit enough to do some all-out intervals, so I cut back on my movie watching and went back to the ~30 minute suffer-fests. All told, I probably peaked 2 weeks before the ride, which is before I took a week off the bike on Spring break with the kids, but hopefully I maintained enough fitness to do the ride. For the SFR brevets, they aren’t the hilliest of rides and I haven’t encountered rain, so finishing simply meant survive the hills and ride strong on the flats. That strategy was the same one I would take for the 400k.

Rambouillet ready for the brevet

Of the GPC/SFR folks, Kirk Hastings and Rob Hawks were at the start (and Rob at the finish, although on an earlier shift than my return). I saw Bruce Marchant at the start, but not much on the ride. I was very fortunate to have the company of Jack Holmgren and his buddy Kevin for probably 3/4 of the ride, but I’m getting ahead of myself. As we started the ride, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito, and I rode with Jack for what I thought was just before he took off like a rabbit (he finished the 300k a few hours ahead of me). However, he and Kevin were recovering from a big Fleche event, and Jack was busy taking pictures, so as the ride progressed down Nicasio Valley, I was very fortunate to ride with Jack as he pulled me up to a big group of riders. I talked to Carlos Duque and reminded him that he took a great picture of Tomo and me on our first brevet as we finished the SFR populaire a couple of years ago. That was still one of my best rides ever! http://ttoshi.net/bicycling/blog/?p=37

I was able to stay with this pack of riders all the way to the first control in Bodega. At Bodega I bought 2 V-8s and chugged them as I was in line and a big bottle of water to refill my bottles (with Perpetuem) and part of my camelback that was empty until then. I knew that there were two big hills on this ride: Joy Rd. (or perhaps more aptly “Joyless Rd.” as someone commented to me) and HWY 128 and Black Mountain Rd. I took it easy on Joy Rd. where parts of that were really steep (over 15%?) then rode on and off with a couple riders till I got to the second Safeway control where I had more water and gatorade. It was really starting to heat up and after a couple of turns off River Rd. I got confused and went for a couple of miles and thought I was off course and turned around. Luckily Gabe and a couple more riders came by relatively soon and I was more or less able to keep up with them for a little while, and we took a water break at an air conditioned bar. There was a super nice bartender who filled up all of our water bottles and we got cooled off before continuing on.

I was going super slow in the heat and Roland rode past, although he also had some issues with hot foot later, but passed me while I rested in the shade and ate a couple boiled eggs that I brought with me. I finally made it to Cloverdale where I saw Jack and Kevin getting ready to leave and I got some more Gatorade and water and I got to talk to Gabe, Ian, Brian and one other rider (I’m sorry I missed your name!).

At this point, I was riding pretty slowly in the heat, so I went off on my own, figuring that the others would easily catch up. Just before HWY 128, I ran into Kevin and Jack who were doing some derailer adjustments. I rode with them for a little while until I was nearing heat exhaustion and decided to slow down and try to cool down. For the rest of the climb I took it slowly and rested at nice shady and breezy locations.

I managed to make it to Hopland without completely withering and bought a clammato (should have bought 2!), gatorade and slice of pizza (yum!). I took off, and Eric Larsen and I went to find our way, but managed to get lost when the road we were supposed to turn on had a different name (Old River Rd., I think). The lucky thing was, as Eric and I retraced our route, we ran into Jack and Kevin, who also seemed to miss the turn too. Lucky for us we were 4 strong as Kevin organized our 0.5 mi pulls down HWY 101 to get us efficiently past any dangers on that road. We made it back to Geyserville, at which point there were a bunch of us, including Ian, Gabe, Brian and gang and we teamed up to go to Petaluma. For some reason, nobody wanted any bonus hills on the Geysers so we continued down 128 and climbed a hill, but on the descent, Brian flatted(–those Grand Bois tires), so we all stopped and rested. Just as the flat was fixed, Kitty, Eric and another rider came along and we all continued our way to Petaluma.

At this point, the paceline speed varied depending upon how badly the rider in front wanted to get to Petaluma, so we lost a few riders, but in the end we did all manage to get to the Petaluma Safeway, where I got some hot chicken fingers and more water for perpetuem.

The end was within range, so Jack and Kevin kindly waited for me while I finished my preparations and we took off for the final leg. All in all, I was actually in pretty good shape. The heat was gone and it was starting to even get a bit chilly, but with the decreasing temperature, my strength returned. My butt hurt like crazy and I was getting sleepy tired, but luckily my legs still had enough energy to ride, and Kevin was expertly pacing us through the hills and flats. –I was extremely fortunate to have ridden with these super experienced veterans of 1200k events! We basically counted down the hills until we made it back to the finish.

The GG bridge was shrouded in mist and while it was a nice view, it wasn’t so nice on the bridge. My glasses misted up and I just followed Kevin’s tail light hoping that I wouldn’t crash on the last mile of the ride.

At the end, Sterling and another great volunteer helped us out and got us warm fluids and sustenance. I rested and caffeined up before my drive home. My finish time was 21:39 or so, and my original goal was 22-23 hours, assuming I rode alone. I had a ton of help and despite the heat, I still finished with a good time, so I am very pleased with the outcome of the ride. As I was leaving, Brian Chun followed by several others from the Petaluma gang showed up, including Gabe, Brian, Ian and company. Thankfully my butt recovered after a few hours of sleep, and I am having amnesia over the pain of the heat, so it looks like I will make an attempt to do a 600k next. Thanks to all the volunteers and friends both new and old for making it a great ride!

Toshi

Well, this is ride two (300k) of the San Francisco Randonneurs
Ride Series. I did the 200k last month and the 400k and 600k are to
follow if I dare. My work colleagues wonder why I do crazy stuff like
this. It’s mostly because I love to ride my bicycle, but I also like
to have tangible goals to work toward so I can keep motivated and do
some exercise. With two young kids and their activities like baseball
practice, violin practice, swimming lessons etc., and my normal work
and life routines, I have to work hard to fit in time for training and
riding.
I joked that after my 200k, in preparation for the 300k, I rode
zero miles on the road with my single bike. While that was true,what
I didn’t say is that I did ride with my son and daughter during the
weekends and put in a good 70 miles the last month on the tandem and
triplet, including an inaugural run up Wildcat Canyon with the kids,
where we saw Melarie and Mike et al as well as a bunch of Grizzlies on
the Century Prep Warm Up Ride. Other than that, I did do at least two
spin sessions a week on my bike trainer. Last year I did very high
intensity intervals and about 30-40 minute sessions. This year, my
legs didn’t feel up to those intervals because of a slight knee pain
here or there, I’m too tired that night or my dog ate my homework.
However, I had to do something, so I did longer workouts and watched
some movies. OK, so this form of training was great because I was able
to get some lengthy riding time in on the trainer and watch some good
movies that I got for free from the library.
(*Start digression)
I don’t have Netflix, but I did rediscover the library. San
Francisco Public Library allows you to reserve movies, which is
awesome. It also now allows 3 week rental terms and you can renew the
movies provided nobody else has reserved those movies (In contrast,
Oakland has 1 week rentals and no reservations). For which movies to
watch, I used a great site called criticker.com. Criticker lets you
rank some movies that you watched and it will make recommendations for
you based upon how you rated your watched movies. The more movies you
rate, the better the recommendations and it will match your taste to
other people with similar tastes and you can look at their favorite
lists for ideas. For the most part it is spot on in terms of
recommendations. Here are five of my recommendations from my Top ten
list before we go back to cycling: Seven Samurai (my best movie ever),
Princess Bride (offbeat classic), 12 Angry Men (Henry Fonda, wow a
great Criticker recommendation), GATTACA (Real science fiction–No
guns or aliens in this one), My Neighbor Totoro (my daughter Mei was
named after this perfect family movie, and in Japan there was a huge
spike in that name .
(*End digression)
Brevets are self-supported rides. You should carry enough stuff
to get by and know how to fix things should you break down. In order
to become more self-sufficient, I wanted to build up my own bike.
After the death of a fellow rider on Grizzly Peak road as his tire got
stuck in a crack and thrown into incoming traffic, I decided to buy a
frame that allows wider tires to at least help stabilize my ride and
decrease the odds of losing control by using wider, lower pressure
tires. As a side benefit, I get a super comfortable ride that
incidentally is not necessarily slower due to the wider tire. Anyhow,
I saw a Rivendell Rambouillet frame on sale on a bike list and I
purchased it. I had the headset installed by a bike shop and then
built up the rest of the bike myself. For the 300k, I put on my front
wheel with a generator hub that I hand built and used my hand-built
rear wheel as well. If something broke down, then I would have only
myself to blame!
For this ride, my good buddy Randy was not available and I had to
plan on doing it alone. My plan was to spend as little time as
possible off the bike and eat on the bike and stay on the go. My best
time on the Davis Double was 14:30, and this ride is a little shorter
and maybe similarly hilly, so I thought that 15:00 was pretty
reasonable if I managed to keep my rest stops short. I started the
day volunteering for the sign-in. I always try to give back to
volunteer organizations I participate in when I can. Sign-in is easy,
except for the fact you need to wake up a little earlier, but you get
primo parking, which is a perk! Anyhow, fellow GPC-er Bill Monson and
I checked in the riders for the N-Z group and I saw the usual crew of
GPC riders, including Mark A., Mark H., Nancy Yu, Andrew, Eric, Bruce
M. and Rob Hawks.
The ride went well and I took it easy on the hills and kept a
strong pace on the flats. Rich Fisher kindly volunteered at a secret
control and I continued on to Petaluma basically on my own. I stopped
in the Safeway and picked up a can of almonds which I stuffed into my
front bag and some water and continued on my way. With me, I brought 3
bottles of hammer gel and 2 water bottles with Perpetuem, along with 4
baggies full of Perpetuem to refill along the way. I also brought 5
emergency boiled eggs for extra protein and a big bag of Berkeley bowl
fig bars if I ran out of Hammer carbs. All I needed along the way was
additional protein and salt. After quickly leaving the Safeway, I met
Bubba from El Cerrito, who was also riding a Rivendell, and Mack from
Fairfield. Mack was super strong and pulled me most of the way to
Healdsburg. Along the way, I ran into two guys on carbon fiber bikes
and I think one didn’t even have a saddlebag! I was presciently
thinking, so much for self-supported! My bike and provisions probably
weighed 15 lbs more than his bike. Anyhow, they were super nice and
joking about their lack of provisions and one of them said they want a
nice touring bike like mine. We were riding for a little while and I
thought one of the guy’s rear derailleur might have broken, but what
ended up happening was his chain broke and put his derailleur in a
funny angle. Lucky for them, a guy riding with us had a 10-spd master
link and a huge pannier and lots of other stuff I’m sure (despite all
the extras, he was stronger and faster than me!). The carbon fiber guy
had an 11-spd bike, but I guess the master link still worked (It’s a
wonder that Campy didn’t force it to be incompatible . After this,
Roland, Mack and I cruised to the next Safeway stop where I got a
chicken breast, corn dog, V-8 and more water.
The corn dog tasted great and I kept the chicken for later. We
passed a bunch of wineries on our way to Guerneville and we held out
our arms wanting to get some wine passed to us, but they thought we
were waving to them. They probably knew it was a self-supported ride
and didn’t want to help us. Anyhow, there were quite a few little
rollers in this section, and a bunch of people including my new buddy
Mack passed me on this short hill. I had no intention of catching
them, but there was a big downhill and turn onto a road perfect for
pacelining and luckily joined the group. We held it mostly together
until we got to Highway 1. Luckily the wind wasn’t bad and I soloed it
to Bodega Bay where I got another corn dog, 2 V-8s and another water.
Every challenging ride will have a section where you feel like
you’re quite stupid and you’re wondering why you are out there and
unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) on this ride there are no sag
wagons to take you home. I felt this way on a relatively steep (my
computer said 11%) section on the way to Tomales Bay. I had a good 5
hours in the bank, and even if I walked up all the remaining hills on
the way home, I would probably still make it on time, but that thought
didn’t make me feel any better. What I’ve learned is that when I feel
like that, there’s nothing better than a bottle of hammer gel. I
probably downed a good 600-700 calories right there, and wow, in about
15-20 minutes, I felt like new.
I made it to Marshall, where the store was officially closed, but
still open for business and I bought a diet pepsi for caffeine for
later. I stuffed that in my handlebar bag and continued on. I didn’t
need any more water since I was close enough to home and had a good
full bottle (and diet pepsi) for liquid and probably another 1000
calories of hammer gel if needed. Life was good and I was thinking
that hey, things are going well, when all of a sudden I heard a pssst.
Yeah, a rear flat. Luckily it was easy to fix and although I didn’t
find the cause, it also didn’t repuncture, so that was good! I
navigated my way back to Sausalito on my own while downing my Pepsi
and teamed up in Sausalito with two others for the finish. I finished
at 8:53 PM, in 14:53 total time, which matched my goal, so things went
well. The bike did great and I was super comfortable in my $15 700x32c
Panaracer Pasela tires. Overall, it was a great ride thanks to the
volunteers and my new found friends. I ended the day with 3/4 of a
bottle of Hammer gel, 4/5 of a chicken breast, 4 boiled eggs, 3/4 of a
Perpetuem baggy and a full bag of fig bars. After this good
experience, I will try the 400k, and will probably continue to carry
the extra 3 lbs of food. Better safe than sorry right?—hmm…

I wanted to include these rides in the family ride series blog because I did most of my training after my kids went to sleep on the bike trainer or quick 1-2 hour rides on weekends by myself, or on mini-adventures with the kids on the tandem/trailer.  Hopefully it can provide some inspiration for other parents who might want to take up some big challenges while not taking too much time away from the family.

These rides consist of three of among the hardest double centuries (200 mile rides) in California.

http://www.caltriplecrown.com/schedule.htm

Ride 3 report:

The Mt. Tam Double Century represents the third challenge in the Triple Crown Stage Race, which is comprised of three of among the hardest double centuries in California. The Mt. Tam ride is the easier of the three rides in the 2011 series, so Randy and I were hopeful that we could finish the series and retain our position as the last place finishers (Lanterne Rouge). My training time was limited as usual, so I simply hoped to maintain the fitness that I had from the Terrible Two and finish the Mt. Tam double. Honestly, I got a little lazy and instead of riding my trainer during the week, I just rode two weekend days and didn’t really ride the trainer at all until a couple weeks before the event. On the weekend I rode a hard 25 miler on Saturday and I took my kids on a family ride (Tomo on the tandem and Mei in the trailer) on Sunday (when I wasn’t out on vacation). Although I was lazy, I took my training time seriously and pushed the intensity high for what little I did do. Two weeks before the ride, I killed myself (in a good way) towing my kids around through the Oakland/Berkeley hills ~35 miles and crammed in an extra couple indoor spin sessions. All in all, I rode seven times on the road for 150 road miles and maybe 5 spin sessions over six weeks. Pretty minimal, but I still felt like I retained reasonable fitness from the previous two doubles. When I told Randy about my training, he shook his head and told me he didn’t want to hear that. What he left unsaid was that I better not be pathetic and ruin our chances to finish the stage race. One good thing about this ride is that Randy’s buddy Jim from San Luis Obispo was riding with us, so we’d be three strong on the flats, which would help a bunch since Jim is a strong rider.

The Marin bicycle club didn’t really treat the double like a serious race. For the Terrible Two, there were flasks of filled hammer gel and lots of powders and mixes for the riders. For the Mt. Tam, there weren’t even any Gatorade or water jugs there (there were some breakfast foods and coffee). I was expecting this, so I brought my own filled hammer gel flasks and two bottles filled with Perpetuem to fuel me to the second rest stop. I told Randy that I was already planning on skipping the first rest stop because I was stocked with my potions. I saw Mark H. and Mark A. before the ride, and the speed of the mass start was pretty tame as we cruised up Lucas Valley Rd. The descent, however, was treacherous. It was completely fogged out and my glasses were covered with mist. I managed to find a rider descending at a reasonable pace and had a solid (non-blinking) rear light (so I didn’t go epileptic following the light), and so I just kept watching the light and just hoped that the blind weren’t leading the blind off the edge of a cliff. The fog finally lightened up and we got going again at a reasonable pace. I’ve ridden many of the roads here before, but every time has been with me towing a trailer or a tandem and trailer (Marin 100k, GPC novice rides (Lucas Valley to Pt. Reyes Station), SFR Populaire 115k SF to Pt. Reyes Station). This was my first ride in the area without a trailer or tandem—the hills go by much quicker!

Anyhow, I was feeling good, and Nicasio Valley was a mere blip. We were cruising along Sir Francis Drake at a moderate pace. Randy said he felt like a 7 because he was watching out for his knee to make sure it didn’t flare up, but I was feeling like a 9 or 10. I even pulled out a PB&J and was munching on that while I was riding. Amazing—this was the first time in five double centuries that I wasn’t going all out with barely enough energy to squeeze hammer gel into my mouth! I was hoping that this was not just a false sense of bravado. I guess I’d find out when Mt. Tam came up. After a bit of climbing we came to the first water stop at Pine Flats. I told Randy and Jim that I would continue on and soft pedal my way up as they filled up their water bottles. This was my first time up Mt. Tam (despite being a local!) and boy did I enjoy this section of road! I was absolutely elated because I was soft pedaling and enjoying the ride completely. The scent of pine was in the air. The redwoods were spectacular in the morning light. I thought to myself, “You big dummy! This is the first time in 2011 that you are riding your bike and not suffering like you are going to drop dead. You are finally enjoying the ride, the scenery and bicycling.” This was definitely a highlight of the year as I rode past the dam and up into the hills.

My reverie came to a halt as Randy and Jim caught up to me, and soon thereafter Mark A. caught us and we conversed about the degeneration of Lightspeed as a bicycle company as we rode up into the fog. Soon we were in the thick fog with my glasses misting over as before. We continued on the best we could and finally reached the turnoff towards the summit. We finally cleared the fog and got to look down on a sea of clouds as we continued to the top. The faster riders were plummeting down the road and Mark H. whizzed by us as well as Veronica and Zach later on. We got to the top and took a quick bio break and I continued on and told Jim and Randy that I’d softpedal again as they caught up. Once again I was elated that I had time to enjoy the ride and the scenery. I am a native plant enthusiast and I saw a ton of beautiful California natives that I had planted in my own yard. There were at least three varieties of Manzanitas, CA lilacs, sticky monkeyflowers as well as several annual wildflowers. Once again my leisurely touring came to an end as Randy and Jim caught up and we descended down Mt. Tam back into the fog.

At this point, I basically got lost in the fog and followed a nice rider who seemed to know where she was going (was this Gabrielle?). Boy was it cold and wet. After the rest stop near Muir Woods, Randy asked me what the temp was, and as I wiped the mist off the computer, it said that it was 56 degrees. Randy and Jim thought I was optimistic to put on sunblock before the ride, since they noticed the rain beading up and dripping off the sunblock on my face. We also saw Jack Joseph here and throughout the day as we were faster on the road but took long breaks, so we ping ponged multiple times. After the stop, Jim pounded the pedals as we cruised along highway 1 into Pt. Reyes Station. I was glad because we were approaching territory that I was familiar with, but I was feeling a little tired (probably a 5 or 6) and it was only mile70 or so—there was a long way to go. It could get ugly. Well unlike the Geysers, where I never recovered on the Terrible Two, after a short while the Hammer gel kicked in, and as Jim and Randy looked back for me, I was able to cruise past and we caught some riders who pulled us to Pt. Reyes Station.

This next section was completely familiar to me and boy did it fly by quickly! The weather was sunny now and it was 84 degrees on the road. It felt cool because of the strong breeze. I guess it was both a blessing and a curse. We pulled into the rest stop by the park, and during our extended stay, Mike, our buddy from the Terrible Two and DMD passed us by; we had 2 hours to reach the cutoff time at the next stop 25 miles away according to our route sheet. Randy had a little trouble out of the gates whenever he had a full belly, but we eventually got going and braved our way through the winds. Along this route, we ran into a herd of 20 or 30 cows walking along the road and we were at a standstill for a few minutes while the moo-moos were herded into their pasture. I had my excuse ready if they wanted to kick us off the course for being too slow: the cows made us late! It was better than the dog ate my route sheet excuse Randy tried at the Terrible Two. At this point we caught up to a guy and his riding partner (Was this the guy at the Terrible Two with the Death Ride jersey who pulled us to the monster paceline?). We traded pulls and happily reached the next rest stop at Valley Ford around 2:30. That gave us about 8 hours to complete an additional 80 or so miles, which was well within reach. I saw Ernesto volunteering at this stop and it was a welcome sight to see another friendly face. We completed the Coleman Valley loop—I went up at a nice and measured pace while Randy and Jim waited for me at the top, and we continued back to Valley Ford where we had about 6 hours and 60 miles to go. At this point I thanked Ernesto again and felt confident that we would finish.

Basically, the only real challenge that stood between us and completion was the Marshall Wall. The good thing about the wall was it isn’t relentless. There were steep pitches interspersed with breaks, so this went well with my interval training. We reached the final rest stop (that we stopped at) and we were very happy to see Scott Halversen from the Quackcyclists there. He lamented that he didn’t finish the Terrible Two—otherwise he would be taking home the Lanterne Rouge from us. Hopefully he’ll give it a try again when the stage race returns to N. California in two years. This stop was also great because my stomach was tired of hammer gel and the hot dogs there—I had two—tasted great! We had three hours for thirty more miles and no real challenges. I was feeling stronger as the night went on and we made our way to the final hill of the night (Lucas Valley Rd.) on the return with our buddy Mike and another rider. I tried to convince Randy to push through that last little pitch, but he didn’t seem to be buying it. In fact, I suspect that he was trying to steal the Lanterne Rouge from me and be the final finisher on the stage race without me. However, I couldn’t let him take that glory away from me and we finished the ride safely and happily together. Randy, Mike and I all celebrated our Triple Crown Stage Race anti-podium (as the final three finishers of the race) at the finishing festivities. We also were greeted by Jim and Randy’s faithful spouses who were hanging out after texting us all day about how their century was done and how they were relaxing and eating Haagen-Daas bars while we were suffering on the route. This stage race was certainly a great adventure and I am grateful for all of the support and friendships throughout the series, and Randy noted that he and I were the only riders with the same finishing time. We stuck it out together, and without his help, I would have probably given up the ride series after I flatted two miles into the first of three double centuries. We have to figure out what to do next. Randy thinks the PBP is calling in four years; I’m not so sure, but stay tuned for more adventures!