About 6 of the “Nightriders” showed up for the ride. It was great weather, even though we are still in March.

I took my new Garmin Edge 500 on the ride and was able to later download the data and get a map of where I went. I had to cut the ride short today because it was my birthday and we were going out to dinner.

I uploaded the data file to a website called Strava. You can see all the details here. It lets you name some of the climbs you discover with the Garmin GPS. I needed to figure out the name of the major climb we did, so I found this map of Harvey Bear Ranch and saw the name was Harvey Bear Trail. Click the image below to download the full Harvey Bear Ranch map.

Here is a short video I took.

It turns out we did very well, averaging 22.2 mph for the 4 sections and I was able to get my heart rate up to 167-171 on each of the legs. Anne took her heart rate up to 154. We were back home in no time and still had a good workout.

Starting near sea level, the finish is at over 4,000 feet, the highest elevation for any local climb. At the top there is the famous Mt. Hamilton Observatory. With a maximum grade of about 6%, the road leading up is never real steep. To allow the movement of the heavy equipment to build the observatory many years ago, they had to keep the grade from being too excessive. Still, with over 18 miles of racing, mostly all up hill, it is a challenge indeed.

There was a very large turnout for the race, the most I have seen at any Low Key Hill Climb race. I arrived around 8:30 when registration was open and we all started soon after 9:30 am. The temperature had warmed up by then so I took off my jacket before the start and carried it for the later descent. I started a ways back in the pack of about 200 cyclists, not wanting to get in the way of the real fast riders. That was a bit of a mistake because I had to go around a lot of riders in the first half mile. But soon I settled down to a fast, but constant rhythm. I noted that my heart rate was hovering around 170 and I started to worry that maybe I was burning myself up. This is above my Lactate Threshold so I would not be able to hold this for the 90 plus minutes of the race. But I felt fine so I kept holding the pace and continued to pass a few more riders.

There are two short down hill sections on the course, which allowed for some recovery.

photo by Adam Tow

When I was within 3 miles of the finish, I was surprised I had been able to not only keep my heart rate up, but was feeling strong enough to pickup the pace further and start to pace some additional riders who seemed to be suffering from the effect of the long climb.

I crossed the finish line at the parking lot of the Observatory with a total time of 96:46. This is a bit less than my official time of 97:03 because I did not start my watch until I reached the intersection while the front of the pact was actually positioned beyond that point when the official clock started. Although this was not my very best time, it was a minute faster than the same race last year, so I was happy with that.

When I returned home and downloaded the data from my heart rate monitor I was surprised that for the entire climb I averaged a heart rate of 168, including the downhill sections. That means my Lactate Threshold is something above that, which is remarkable for someone nearly 62 years old. My maximum heart rate during the climb was 176, close to my max heart rate. You can see this on this graph (click to enlarge).

When they posted the results I was 86th place out of 152 men and it appears I had the fastest time for anyone over 60 years of age. It is a bit difficult to be sure because this is a low key event and some people make up their own categories, but most use something related to their age. They have a scoring system where you get some percentage of the median time. For this race I got a score of 97.80 since I was slightly slower than the median male rider. When I did the Montebello hill climb race last month, and set a new PR, I scored a 102.15.

My biking is not quite up to last year’s level in either total miles or feet of climbing. Last year in the fall I did both the Everest Challenge and the Furnace Creek 508 races so I didn’t think I would do as well this year on the Mt. Hamilton race. Even being a year older and with fewer feet of climbing, I still shaved over a minute off my time from last year.

It was a fun event. I was surprised I was able to hold my heart rate at such a high level for so long. I think I might have been able to push even harder but it was Thanksgiving and I wanted to have energy left to eat that big meal. Since I burned over 1,600 calories on the race, I had no guilt eating that afternoon.

I have a few major things on my bucket list that I checked off in the last few years, but one that I had not yet accomplished was to ride the Moab White Rim Trail in a single day. I have ridden it before but in 3 days so I knew that although the trail is not that technical, with over 100 miles with no water sources, over 6,000 feet of climbing, sand, and pounding from the terrain, finishing it in a single day makes it a monster ride.

A couple of weeks ago my brother Mike called and let me know they were going to attempt to do the White Rim Trail in a day and thought they would have a spot for me. I knew my friend Jim would also be interested so I checked if there was a spot for him, which became available. It was short notice and no time to do much training on the mountain bike so it was relying on my road bike training. I figured I had a fairly good chance of finishing but was not fully confident. There was going to be a vehicle to follow the riders to carry water and food, and provide the only bail out if someone could not make it.

On Thursday Jim and I made the long drive from California up to our second home in Orem, Utah. On Friday afternoon, Mike came by to pick us up for the drive to Moab. Mike and Stu’s bike were in the bed so we loaded Jim and my bike on a rear mounted rack.

It was dark by the time we arrived in Moab. The four of us checked into the motel and then met Rian, Vint and Jack who had driven from Colorado. Jack had offered to drive Mike’s truck along the route and be our support vehicle, supporting the 6 riders (2 from California, 2 from Utah and 2 from Colorado). We decided at dinner to leave in the morning at 5 am. First stop was Denny’s, the only place open at that time to get some breakfast.

From Moab it is a 30 mile drive out to the White Rim Trail. The trail itself does not form a complete loop so there is a section of connecting the two ends of the trail with 14 miles on a dirt road and then about 7 miles on a paved road. Some people do the White Rim in a Day by skipping these miles, having someone shuttle them, but we wanted to do the entire loop and finish where we started. We drove the 14 miles out on the dirt road and parked at the top of the Horsetheif Trail Climb. Our biking route would then be going back on the 14 miles of dirt road to the highway.

Our plan was to start biking around 7 am, just before civil twilight. After getting a group shot we started at 7:15 am.

It was now barely light enough to start without a light. We rode the 14 mile dirt road section back to the highway and ended up with 1,600 feet of climbing. The sun was now fully up so we decided to take off some of the clothing and put it in the truck. That stop cost us 7 minutes. It had been decided earlier to send the truck ahead at this point so it could get down Shafer Trail before we did since we could descend faster than the truck. We biked another 7 miles on the paved highway to the park entrance where we had to stop and pay the entrance fee. There was no one manning the entrance booth to take the fee and we didn’t want to bike an extra 2 miles to the visitor center to pay it. Luckily we noticed a drop box we could put in our $5 each in an envelope. Soon after the entrance we made a left turn and headed down Shafer Trail. This is my least favorite part of the White Rim Trail. It is very rocky and a relatively long steep descent. On some sections, if you went off the trail, you would fall down 500 feet because it is cut into a cliff.

When we reached the bottom at 7:43 am there was no truck. Evidently Jack had not noticed the drop box and had driven over to the visitor center to pay the entrance fee. While waiting I took a few pictures of the riders.

After the truck arrived we topped off our water and headed out, for a total stopping time of 18 minutes at that spot. Vint and Rian went out ahead, and Mike and Stu were falling behind Jim and I. Jim was riding next to me. Just as soon as he made a comment to me that my mountain biking skills had improved, he hit a bump that knocked one hand off his handlebar and he was headed off the trail. He was able to recover just in time. I thought it would have made a better story if he had taken a fall, but with a trail of rocks and slickrock, no one wanted to fall on this ride.

At 34 miles into the ride we came upon Rian, who had stopped to wait. While waiting, Jim was checking his tires and realized the rear was too low of a pressure. It seemed like a good spot to wait for the other riders and the truck.

We were not quite sure what happened and it was 15 minutes before they showed up. I guess Jack was having a hard time driving the truck to keep up with the bikers so Mike was holding back. Jim pumped his tire with the floor pump from the truck and we were off, with a total stop of 18 minutes. Rian had estimated that we needed to average 10.5 mph and stop a total of 90 minutes, or we would not finish without lights. But we had now used up half of our total allocated 90 minutes stopping time and had only gone 17 miles from the start going down Shafer Trail. We clearly needed to pick up the pace and keep any more stopping to a minimum.

Our next stop was at mile 43 and we were off within 6 minutes. We had some periodic stops along the way and were doing similar quick stops. Keeping up a fast steady pace and short stops left little time to take any pictures but I was able to grab a few at some of the stops.

At White Crack (1:24 pm and mile 58), we did take a bit longer break. With 11 minutes I was able to gobble down a PB&J sandwich and drink a diet coke. After another 2 hours we finally reached Murphy (2:15 pm and 65 miles). I knew from past experience that this was one of the hills I would not be able to climb so I got off my bike at the bottom and started to walk up. It allowed me to grab one picture of Rian who was making it up the hill.

After another short stop at the top of Murphy we continued on. Mike had promised me no more climbing before the last climb so I kept saying, “hey I would call this a climb” every time we had to go up.

Actually we had some real serious climbing up Hardscrable (87 miles and 4:45 pm). This section proved too difficult for me so I was walking part of the climbs but Rian and some others were motoring up them. I could never figure how someone could climb such steep grades with rocks and loose dirt. It was amazing to watch.

We now started our descend down to the Green River. I recall last year this section had a lot of sand that I had to walk through this year I was able to stay on the bike. I could see several vehicles stopped on the road ahead. Some group, headed in the opposite direction as we were going, had got stuck trying to pull a loaded trailer with a truck that just had street tires on it. Cars had been stopped behind it. This is a steep section and no room for a vehicle to go around and it was difficult enough just to get my bike around the congestion. They kept trying to put some rocks under the truck tires to get traction but were failing. I decided to bike on down where I saw Vint waiting. It was now 5:16 pm and I was running out of daylight so Jim and I decided to go ahead. But that meant we could not retrieve any water or food, or even our lights, from the support vehicle. I had enough water and hoped we could make it before dark. Vint said he was going to wait for a short while to see if they freed the road, then catch us.

Finally we reached my favorite part of the trail, along the Green river. Jim was not feeling that great so we made one stop to take on some more food. While we were waiting Vint and Rian joined us and told us that the trailer had finally got freed so it should not be too long before our support vehicle could continue on. We all continued along together. Rian’s bottom bracket was making a real racket so I was not sure he would be able to make it. At last, at 6:13 pm we made it to the bottom of the final climb up Horsethief Trail. We had figured that we could bike without lights until 7 pm so I knew that I had plenty of time to make the climb. I was feeling fine enough so I went ahead and reached the parking lot at 6:35 pm, with plenty of time to spare before it was too dark to bike without a light. It was a great feeling to finish such an epic ride.

I grabbed my camera and took some pictures of the other riders as they finished right behind me.

It was getting cold now. Luckily I had kept a jacket in my Camelbak but that was not enough. Rian and Vint had both parked their cars at the top, but both had left their keys in the support vehicle. Fortunately Rian had a keypad so we could get in his car, out of the wind. Another gal was also parked there, waiting for her group who had also been doing the White Rim in a day. Some time passed and no sign of Mike and Stu or any of the riders she was waiting for. One of the riders from the other group finally came in and gave us an update that although the trailer had been freed, it got stuck again. I figured Mike had stayed back to watch his truck and would not leave until it had got through. We were not sure how long it was going to be now. Finally a second rider from the other group arrived and let us know that the trailer had finally cleared the climb. At 7:48 pm Mike and Stu arrived, wearing headlamps. Right behind them was the support vehicle.

It turned out to be ideal conditions. Although this time of the year meant less sunlight, the temperature was just about right for such a long ride. I had a fantastic time and the group of guys I was riding with made it extra special.

Later I downloaded the data from my Polar heart rate monitor. I had to adjust my distances because I didn’t have things set right for my mountain bike so I was reading 7% low on the distance. Mike got around 100 miles on his Garmin GPS so I used that as the total distance and adjusted things accordingly. Here is a elevation profile and some other data. Click the chart to view enlarged.

Date: 10/24/09
Distance: 100 miles
Climbing: 6,600 feet
Average Heart Rate: 132
Maximum Heart Rate: 169 (93% of Max HR)
Average Speed (rolling): 10.5 mph
Total Time: 11:20
Stopping Time: 1:50

Franz At Finish - photo by Calvin Do

I kept my heart rate high the entire climb with an average of 168 and a maximum of 174. After the initial ramp-up, I keep it in the red zone for the whole climb, as you can see below (click graph to view enlarged).

After returning from Atlanta (week 20), we started our crash recovery course on cycling, quickly getting ready to a Century ride that Saturday. It was the first time for quite awhile for both Anne and I to reach 200 miles of cycling in a week. The next week should have been much better than it was, but the long ride we were planning on that Saturday turned out to be short due to very cold condition. But for this week (week 22), I biked nearly 400 miles. Yesterday was my first time to cycle without any splint on, and it worked okay. I went on the long distance training ride with the club (Anne could not join due to a conflict). The 115 miles seemed not too difficult, but I did have a hard time to keep up with the guys I usually can hang right with. My climbing is slowing coming back but I still have a ways to recover.

If I look at the accumulated cycling miles over this year, compared with prior years, the fall off is quite apparent. From being ahead of any prior years, I have fallen back, well below last year.

Due to issues with my knees, my running has been very moderate for several months now. While traveling, I did run more than I had been, but it is still at a relatively low level, never getting more than about 16 miles in a week.

My weight had climbed as my cycling at declined, but it is now finally coming back down, which is good news.

So in celebration of getting to the 6 week mark when bones are suppose to be healed enough, I decided to go on the night ride up Henry Coe, the very same ride when I had the crash 6 weeks ago.

Over the past week I have learned to ride well enough with my left thumb held out by the splint. I just can not shift the front derailleur without reaching over using my right hand. Braking with the left hand is also an issue, so I have been doing mostly flat riding and just braking with my right hand. But enough waiting already and I felt okay to do a ride with a significant climb.

About 6 of us showed up for the ride. With this group I can usually push the pace enough to drop most all of them. But today I could not. Taking my heart rate up much higher than I usually do during a climb kept me in front of most of the riders, but not a couple of them who went out ahead. During the lower section of the climb I was above 170 bpm, going as high as 176. In this type of group ride I usually never go above 165. But this higher heart rate is usual when I have been off the bike for awhile and have not been pushing the pace and climbing. It seems that at my age, my cardio system declines faster than my legs. When I am in shape and climbing the legs become the limiting factor, but tonight it was the heart and lungs. But just as the cardio system declines faster, it also recovers faster so I am confident that with some more work, I can regain my conditioning.

Descending down Henry Coe was a bit problematic. I can easily brake with my right hand (rear brake) but bicycles are meant to be used with two brakes. So I had to keep the pace at a much slower decent and even then I did use my left hand somewhat to brake, but I could not wrap my left thumb around the bar when in the drops. It has kind of made me off balance and I found that I was pushing the inside of my right leg against the top tube, I suppose to get more rigidity with the left fingers pulling on the brake without the left hand with a firm grip on the bar. With the slower pace, I felt fully confident during the decent.

We have four weeks before out 10 day bicycle tour across the state of California. I am now confident we will be ready. Completing the ride up Henry Coe was exactly what I needed to get my confidence back again. And yes, the spot where I went down last time, I made that turn REAL SLOW.

At the emergency room they used a simple splint after finding the fracture in my left thumb, but the following day when I visited the orthopedic surgeon, he made a new splint. It is kind of a neat process. It looks like a pad of cloth with some foam on one side. After cutting it to fit my hand, he got it wet, then wrapped it around my hand and thumb to form fit. Then to hold it in place, he wrapped in in gaze. It is much better for me than a cast because I can unwrap it and remove it if I need to.

At today’s visit he remove the splint to examine my hand and then used the same splint, wrapping it this time in an ace bandage. He said this type of splint is bullet proof and some have even used it when playing football. This image shows the splint on my left hand wrapped in the bandage.

This afternoon we went out for the first time on a bike. I was hesitant to use a road bike because of the need to brake and shift with the left hand so I went on my mountain bike instead, and Anne went on her road bike. We only went 20 miles, but that seemed like a long ways on a mountain bike. We had a nice tail wind coming back home, getting our speed up to 24 mph. That is rather fast for a mountain bike. I think I will put my slick tires on my mountain bike and use it for now to ride outside in keep the road bike on the trainer. I can still use my left fingers (to do things like type this blog) and to get a little grip on the handlebars, but most of the stability comes from my right hand.

I had another xray to day also and the doctor called and said it looked fine and to just come back and see him in 5 weeks. I need to keep using the splint for that entire time. This is the splint itself, with the ace bandage removed.

I am real happy to be biking again but I hesitate to use the tandem while I need to use the splint, so it is single bikes for awhile.   Although I am not so excited about the splint for another  5 weeks, there is one good thing.  My left hand now has a palm rest when I am typing.

That photo insert in the lower right shows what I looked like 6 days ago. It all started with my night ride up Henry Coe a few of us do on Wednesday evening. As usual, we started out at 5:15 pm from Chuck’s house and after a short while we were climbing. After riding two double centuries already this year, I was finally starting to feel in shape, enough so that I went ahead of the others on the climb. I was at the regroup area, about half way up for awhile while the rest of the group arrived. As we were waiting for everyone to get ready to ride again, a couple of young riders whipped by us on the climb. I thought at the time that they were sure moving fast and figured it was because they were young.

Again I started to go ahead of the others in our group and soon started to gain on one of the two younger riders. I guess he was not going as fast as I had thought. After passing him, I was wondering if I could catch the other young rider, so I charged ahead. Well before the top I caught him. He stayed on my wheel for the rest of the climb, only going ahead at the very top. I was happy enough with that.

We got dressed into warmer clothes before the descent and then headed down. I again went ahead of the rest of the group because I wanted to get down before it got dark since I had not brought a light. I remember that I might be descending too fast since I did not see the others behind me, but I felt confident I was in control. I made it down the entire hill without any problem.

I was now coasting on the flatter section at the bottom and approaching the turn. I saw an arrow painted on the road, showing the turn for the Tierra Bella Century coming up. I thought for awhile to go all the way to Hill Road to see if they marked it right for the turn, but made a last minute decision to turn right and take the short cut over to Hill Road. That was a mistake I wish I had not made.

I know that short cut road has gravel and I didn’t think I was going that fast, but somehow I misjudged things and knew I was going down. I don’t recall hitting the ground exactly, which might be a good thing. My glasses were off and I saw they had broken, leaving the side piece still stuck over my right ear. I went to remove it and then saw the blood on my glove. I figured the glasses had broke upon impact with the ground and I had cut my face.

I felt a bit stunned but decided I could bike. I checked the wheel rotation before mounting and could see that the front wheel was not rotating because the brake had moved over against the wheel. I had a hard time moving the brake back center because my left hand was hurting. I don’t recall much after that and I don’t remember riding the mile or so back to the car. I do remember putting my bike on the top rack and the others in the group were then with me. I went into Chuck’s house to wash up, but not until Chuck took my picture (see above).

I knew I must have hit my head since I did not have a clear memory so I decided to call Ann to come get me instead of taking a risk of driving. She was there within 20 minutes and we decided since it was late now, about 8:30 pm, it was best we went to the emergency room to get checked out.

It was a bit difficult to change into those wonderful gowns they have and I could see some road rash on my right side, but not too bad. I had some on my right shoulder, exactly in the same spot where twice before I had had some injury. I guess I fall on my right side all the time. I was not sure why my left hand was hurting if I fell on my ride side.

The doctor decided to do a CAT scan and also x-ray on my left hand. I was worried what the CAT scan might find. Hey, maybe they would find out that I was really an alien or something from outer space. While I was waiting for those results another doctor stitched up my cut over my right eye. I didn’t feel much pain, except the left hand.

The results were in and CAT scan did not show any problem but the left hand had fractured so they put a splint on in. After getting some bandages on some of my other wounds and some cleanup of the road rash, we were finally out the door, around midnight.

The next day I decided to call the orthopedic surgeon they had recommended I see, but we had no communications in the area since someone had cut the fiber optic cable. No phone, no cell phone, no internet. We drove over to the address on the card they gave me but the doctor had moved to Morgan Hill so we drove up there. I was able to get an appointment later that day. But I realized that without the internet the doctor could not access the x-ray they had taken, so we drove back down the the ER to get the films, then back to Morgan Hill.

The orthopedic surgeon looked at the file and said the good news was that I probably did not need surgery. He put on a new splint, a much nicer one that almost fits like a cast, and wrapped the hand up. I scheduled an appointment to see him in a week. I did ask him about biking and he said if I was okay to bike with a splint, after a couple weeks it would be okay for me to get back on the bike.

A day later I had the courage to look at the data from my heart rate monitor. I could see that I had stopped a bit less than 6 minutes after I crashed until I was back on the bike. I assume the others in the group had came upon me and road with me to the car, but frankly I can remember. Looking at the data, I could see it took me 6 minutes to ride the 1 mile back to the car.

Last Saturday was the Tierra Bella Worker’s ride. Anne and I had planned to ride the 100 mile route on the tandem and then go to the picnic. I thought about just driving to the picnic, but I didn’t like that idea, so I got on my mountain bike, and Anne on her road bike, and I biked one handed over the 3 miles to enjoy the picnic.

Yesterday I finally had the courage to go look at my road bike. The right brake lever had rotated around upon impact so I fixed that. Then I saw that the left aero bar had also rotated and the ends of both aero bars were scrapped up. I adjusted the aero bars back. Actually last Wednesday I had decided to take the aero bars off since I would not be doing any more time trials or double centuries for awhile, but with the left hand in a splint, they are going to come in handy. So today I put the bike on the trainer and got in over an hour of training. Did I already say I hate the bike trainer?

Actually I was feeling rather prepared for this double, even though it occurs so early in the season. For the first time ever, it was not my first double century of the year because I rode the Death Valley Double one month early. Maybe I was feeling a bit too confident because in the same week Anne and I did a little too much speed work, setting 3 new PRs on tandem hill climbs on Henry Coe, Thomas Grade and Metcalf. I don’t mean PR for this year, I mean our best time ever. In retrospect, maybe that was not such a keen idea to do only days before doing a double.

Last year I completed Solvang under 10 hours. By under 10 hours I mean by about 20 seconds. I remember last year I felt I had a shot of breaking 10 hours about 40 miles from the end, which added a lot of pressure and drove me to push much harder than I might otherwise. I had no intention to do that again. I told everyone I was going to stop and smell the roses.

I showed up at 7:15 and they started a roll call of those who wanted to be timed. Joining me was Paul D, Gary F, and Barley and Susan.

Gary, Paul, Franz at start of Double

I knew I was in trouble when I saw four tandems there. One was Barley and Susan, who I had ridden with a week ago and knew they were fast.

Barley and Susan at start of Double

Right at 7:30 a group of 62 riders were off. The tandem in the photo is what I call the 4th tandem later in my story.

The reason why I knew I was in trouble with all those tandems is because two years ago I was not able to stay connected on the descent down Foxon Canyon, and lost the fast group at that point. Last year, with no tandems making the descent, I was able to keep with the lead group all the way to the second rest stop at 84 miles (we skipped the first rest stop).

This year keeping with the pack was a bit of a strain but not overly taxing. We when up a couple of short hills and I would move right up behind the tandems and stay on their wheel as they went down. The first descent down Foxon Canyon went alright but on the second one, the same spot I lost the wheel two years ago, proved too hard. No matter how hard I tried, I just could not stay on the wheel and the group started to drive away from me, even though later I could see I had hit 50 mph. Being a poor sprinter meant I was working way too hard trying to catch them. I was actually making some progress and starting to close the gap. It was a race between either burning myself out or latching back on. I should have known better and backed off sooner and saved the legs for the many miles ahead. You can see from this graph, my heart rate was running in the red zone going DOWN the hill trying to get connected to the lead riders (click to enlarge).

Soon after I realized I would not be able to close the gap, I was passed by a younger faster rider wearing a Furnace Creek 508 jersey. We worked together, although he was taking longer pulls. For awhile we were starting to gain on the lead group, but you can only drive that hard for so long. Soon the group ahead was vanishing from sight. I had lost my route sheet on the fast descent so I was not sure where the next turn was. The fellow 508 rider pulled his from his back pocket and started to read it. I road in the center of the road to give him space but even with that he cross wheels with me as he was looking at the sheet. Suddenly he was down, and extremely upset about it. But this was one tough dude. Even with some road rash and torn cycling shorts, he got back on his bike and we started off again. Just then we were pasted by the fourth tandem, along with a couple of other riders drafting behind them.. We jumped in the group and stayed with them for a few miles, but they stopped and the first rest stop so we went on without them. Only one other rider skipped the stop and rode with us, another one wearing a Furnace Creek 508 jersey. Kind of like 3 FC 508 guys, but the others were much younger and stronger than I was. Several miles down the road, as we were making a right turn, a group was coming back toward us, having missed the turn themselves.

Yes, I thought. I was now back with a larger group. I moved up toward the front of the group not wanting to get dropped on some of the rollers ahead. I thought I would be able to stay with them until the 2nd rest stop, but my legs were burning from trying to catch the lead riders earlier. It just didn’t seem worth the effort, so after about 5 miles I let them go and started riding solo, something I would do for much of the rest of the event.

I was a bit worried without a route sheet but eventually did catch a couple of other riders. Having no route sheet, I wanted to stay with them so I did not get lost. Although I wanted to go a bit faster, I was afraid I would miss a turn, so I ended up mostly pulling.. The problem is that this small group did miss the turn and we went about 3 miles before we realized it. So by the time we got back on course we had biked an extra 6 miles.

Just as we got back on the course I saw Paul D. He rode with us for a mile or so but then started to cramp and dropped off. Soon after that we passed Louise. Once I knew I had made the final turn before the second rest stop, I moved ahead and rode solo. At the second rest stop I saw that I had averaged only about 19 mph, compared with close to 22 mph last year when I had stayed with the lead group, but this year I had now biked 92 miles before stopping for food and water. I guess that was some sort of record for me.

It might have been my imagination but there seemed to be more headwind. I was riding that stretch along Highway 1 toward Moro Bay by myself into the wind. About 6 miles from Moro Bay a group of about 8 riders came up from behind, so I joined them. I saw a couple of riders ahead, both wearing the same jersey. As we passed them, I could see it was Art and Patrice. I stayed with the small group until the lunch stop. I was thinking to keep with them, but they were taking longer eating their sandwich than I wanted to wait so I headed out alone. I never saw them again until I was waiting at the finish after taking a shower, so it is a good thing I didn’t stick with them.

Several miles before the 4th rest stop, while waiting at a traffic light, the 4th tandem came up, the one that had stopped at the first rest stop. They had only one other rider with them, so I joined the small group. The two of us on single bikes would take turns doing some pulling. As we kept passing riders, they were jumping on the train, but they were all wheel suckers. I took another pull and tried to move back into the group but these wheel suckers would not let me in, wanting to keep their spot. Forget them I thought, and I just went ahead and dropped the entire group, again riding solo. At the 4th rest stop I saw Gary S. and Gary B, who were about ready to leave.

After mostly solo riding, I finally made it to the the last rest stop where I saw Chuck, who had started at 6 am. By now I had passed all the other club riders, except of course Gary F. and Barley and Susan on the tandem. I knew Gary was probably about two hours ahead of me, which meant he was already enjoying the finish line. Ann was there and took his picture.

Gary at Finish

I didn’t spend much time at the last rest stop, knowing the end was not far. It was up Drum Canyon Hill, a part I really like. I enjoy climbing this hill and passing all the other riders who hate to climb, especially after 180 miles. But unlike last year when I was climbing at full speed to make some time, I kept it much easier. I made the turn on the final highway, with the slight uphill and then the down hill. While going down, I was passed by the 4th tandem and a bunch of riders. I had to accelerate quickly but was able to finally close the gap. I rode with them to the end. I knew the tandem started at 7:30 but I think most of the rest of the group had started earlier.

Franz at finish

I finally made it to the finish, taking a total of 11:16, which was more than a hour slower than last year. Part of that was due to riding an extra 6 miles and part was from doing a lot more solo riding. I still felt I was working hard and when I looked at my data later, my average heart rate was even higher than last year. Of course that might be because I am just getting older. These two tables show a comparison with my prior Solvang Doubles. My stopping time at the rest stops was a bit more than last year but the crash did cost me some time while I helped the rider back up on his bike. Overall I am happy with how I did. A little older, a little slower, but still riding alongside the young bucks. My only regret was even though I was slower, I never did see any roses to smell.

My thanks to Anne for taking all the photos in this blog. See all her photos of Slovang here.