My First 100 Mile Ride - The Palm Springs Century

Well it’s been a month since I have been back in the States after a great trip back to the land of Marmite, Squiggles, Monteith’s, Mac’s, Hell’s Pizza and Meat Pies. Carrying on from that I have now well and truly worn off all them meat pies I had. Even Edan would agree. What have I been up too???

Well it started off pretty busy. In the days after I landed I moved into a new house with Derek now that Alex is in Alaska and lovin it from what I hear. The new place is great. A million times better than the old place and has such conveniences including a door opener and general fittings that actually work. Since then I have been trying to do as much riding as possible. I have not done as much as I wanted due to the bad weather. Yep it’s been real shitty here. I nearly got hypothermic a couple of weeks ago when I was MTBiking and got caught out in near freezing rain with a super chilled wind coming down from the Mountain Peaks. Even in Redlands itself we have had some pretty cold weather with a few heavy frosts. For those that don’t believe me are here is a picture. It’s hard to believe that in a couple of months there will be no rain for months and months and the temp will rarely have a max of lower than 30 degrees C. For weeks in a row it will hover around or above 40c.

So it was with a little trepidation that I did turned up with Derek to the Palm Springs Century Charity ride. (I had 3, 50 mile or less rides under my belt in the month since I was back on the road). There were 3 lengths available to ride. 100 miles, 55 miles and 30 miles. All up 9000 odd people participated. Anyhow this particular Saturday turned on the weather for once. Friday was shitty as was the Sunday and especially the Monday just gone. It was cold however. Probably about 5c degrees at the start but we soon warmed up. We started after the mass start so for the next 2-3 hrs we were passing a constant stream of people. It was kind of fun actually. Especially the punters who were riding some serious bling but going at a speed that I could have ridden a downhill bike at J. We saw tandems, triples, recumbents and even a tandem recumbent.

The first 50 miles of the ride was pretty intense. We pushed each other, well mostly Derek was pushing me slightly having the edge most of the time. I stuffed up and left all my electrolyte drinks at home on the counter. This meant that at 50 miles I was starting to cramp. The water only diluting the few salts left in my body. Luckily at one of the food stops I drunk heaps of very strong Gatorade and filled up my one bottle. After another 20 miles I started to come right which was just as well because the final 20 miles was fast. We were in a fast group with everyone pushing each other. It was painful but racing in a fast group was surprising enthralling. The one thing I struggle with is being super confident right on the wheel of another. I am learning but it requires lots of trust in strangers you have never met. When I hang off their wheels or miss the slipstreams though I really pay for it cause I spend so much more energy keeping up the pace. With MTBiking this is not an issue and team work is rarely needed so I am taking a while to cotton on.

Don’t worry MTB is still where it’s at fellows J

So in the end we finished together in the same fast group having done the 102 miles in 5hr 15mins ride time. So it was a 19.4mph or 31kph average which I am pretty happy with. It makes me feel better about the proper hard centuries we have lined up starting in April. Though these centuries have 3-4 times the amount of climbing. The first being the ‘Mulholland Challenge’. 110 miles, 12,500ft climbing and the fastest time ever is a bit over 6.5hrs. So I might be looking at a 8-9hr day in the saddle if I make it at all. Jeez…



One more observation from the Palm Spings ride. OMG tandems can be fast. At around the 35 mile mark a tandem was drafting me, they then passed me and I drafted them and Derek drafted me. To cut a long story short they kept upping the tempo. They keep pulling. In the end they were hitting 45+mph on the flat rolling terrain. We were well dropped, I got spun out (ran out of gears) and my legs wanted to separate from my hips. Insane. Derek hang on for another minute or so having a bigger gear than me then was also dropped. It was incredible. A guy and a girl. We can’t say how blown away we were. When they pulled out to pass if you were not right on their wheel you lost their slipstream and that was that. No getting back in behind after that. WOW.

Next race is the first of the Southern California State XC Series and maybe Super D (Not sure if I will do these or not yet). I was thinking it would be a nice intro to racing again as it’s a week before the Vision Quest on the 7th of March. This is the race I am really worried about. 60 miles of off-road riding, heaps of technical single-track and 12,000ft of climbing. However this first Cal State race is 27 miles (44km). 3 laps of a 9 mile course. No walk in the park especially cause the race categories have been changed this year. I am in Cat 1, one below the pros. The Semi-pro category is gone so now I will be racing against a bunch of semi-pros that did not want to have their arse handed to them in the Pro category. Yikes.

The only consolation to all this is that I am working on a new race bike. It’s pretty exciting so I can’t wait to have that up and running.

Anyhow until next time get out there and push some boundaries. It’s entirely satisfying in a painful why the hell am I doing this kinda way… ;-)
Kurt

P.S – One more thing. I did a Dirt Bike (Motocross) introductory course a few weeks back for 5hrs one night. All I can say is it was tones of fun. That the MTB skills really cross over and that after a couple of hrs I was really starting to tear it up. Oh and don’t ever let me buy one. If I do I will not be round much longer, or will end up as many Southern California dirt riders. In a wheel chair. .. It’s sad but true. The Pro running the course told me this and is the reason he doesn’t race anymore.