March 2009 |
The night and morning were once again very cold and despite going to bed extremely early, it was not much fun to get up. I wanted very much to be present for the start of the ride this time and to stay within view of other cyclists during the ride to some extent. As fate would have it, we were on time... and the start of the event was late.
Today was supposed to be a 50 mile ride and we felt really good for the first little bit. Riding in a large group offered a great mental distraction and the first 10 miles flew by very quickly. Our pace was definitely slower than the obviously more hardcore bike people, but we were at least in the loose trail of people towards the end. The rest stops throughout the event were impressive. Huge moving trucks were dispatched to set up tables, chairs, and shade with fruit, water, energy drink and bars, sunscreen, pain relievers, etc. It was fantastic! Susan and I quickly learned to copy others and eventually executed the difficult and elite standing bicycle parking maneuver!
Exactly at that spot my bike rolled over its 1,000th mile... woohoo!
We finished the ride tired, but not really too messed up. I'd say it went very well and of course was a new personal best for both of us! We'd debated going all in and doing the 75 mile route, but by the 35-ish mile rest stop decided it probably wasn't a good idea. Upon returning to camp we asked a man to take pictures of us, intending to pose with our bikes above our heads like crazy people. Unfortunately this person didn't really understand the concept, and took all the pictures during periods of time when I was not ready... like this.
Determined to have a crazy picture of me in this pose, Susan just took one of me back at the tent. Ha, victory!
A 'normal' picture was probably also a good idea to have, so we flagged down a nearby nice old man to take one...
Distance: 50.0 miles |
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Finally it was here! Bike MS 2009... Susan and I had arrived the night before, set up our tent, and slept in the park that was designated as the event headquarters. We had met up with Heidi and Josh, the rest of the AZFJ.org non-team team. There was some concern that we might go a little slow since Josh had not been on a bike in a while and was stuck with a mountain bike with fairly ridiculous off-road tires... but as it turned out, he was not the slow one by any means. Our home for the weekend...
We were a little slow rising in the morning and getting ready to go, and as a result we were amoung the very last people out onto the road. Just ahead of us were a few guys riding literally in rickshaws they'd rented... read about them here. In an act that was a combination of their awesomeness and our group's amazing lamess, they actually finished the ride well before us.
Josh, bored with the silliness of being constrained to the road, took off on many side adventures riding down unnecessary farm roads and at one point flipping head- first over the handlebars into a huge mound of dirt...
Distance: 36.4 miles |
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Still hungry for bike action and with another opportunity to go for a ride in a new place, we set out again from Susan's relatives place in Chandler. Today I planned a much more ambitious route of about 40 miles (to be a new record for us both). This was to ensure that we'd be OK a the MS ride in only one week where we planned to do a 35-40 mile ride. The ride was largely flat until the very far end where it became quite steep and hilly. We did a few challenging (for us) climbs and turned around to come back the way we came. I felt great as we began to come back, but soon felt my energy crash. The last few miles were very difficult and slow but we made it! My hope is that this ride and the one yesterday demonstrate that we'll be fine for the MS ride... Distance: 41.9 miles |
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Because we'd be in Phoenix to see the musical RENT and visit her relatives, Susan and I brought our bikes up and planned to ride someplace in Fountain Hills. I search mapmyride.com for local rides and after ruling out the so-called "tour of pain" decided on a nice route that would take us out of town into some nice rolling hills and nice scenery. It was a blast! We've both come a long way... at the end of the ride I felt great and we easily could have turned around and done it again. The route was in fact very nice. Distance: 22.8 miles |
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Since Susan and I had never before ridden with a group of cyclists really in any capacity let alone a major event, we thought it wise to go out with a group before taking on the Bike MS event. There were many training rides scheduled by the MS Society in the Phoenix area, but not so much down here in Tucson... fortunately there was one at least, and we decided to do it. The only information we had was 7:00am and the address of a grocery store. We arrived a little beforehand and were puzzled by the complete lack of any evidence to suggest there was a group of bicyclists leaving there soon... no people, no bikes, few parked cars and none of them had bike racks or anything! After a little bit of freaking out, a huge herd of bikes darted away out from behind the store... DOH! There was a parking lot on the other side that we weren't aware of, and the 7:00am time was the leave time! Soon after another group of bikes started to go by and Susan ran out to them. They waited for us to grab our bikes and we were off! Unfortunately this glitched forced us to meet breakfast... so it was a hectic and late start with no food in our first ever ride with a group over an unknown course at unknown speeds. OK! Fortunately the group turned out to be an amazingly friendly bunch. They were called the Cactus Cycling Club and the motto "We leave no behind behind!" was most welcome to Susan and I. The ride was very enjoyable as was the company. Also, not only did I not die from skipping breakfast - I actually felt really good for the whole ride. Interesting... We both agreed that coming on another CCC ride would be a blast and something we must do. Distance: 26.7 miles |
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To date the longest bike ride I've ever done was just about 30 miles. At the end of this, I remember quite clearly, I was exhausted do a disturbing degree. So, feeling that 30 or so miles is pretty lame as a personal best, I wanted to push on into something more like 40. The plan was to run the Rillito River bike path back and forth until I was ready to keel over. This way I would never be more than 6 miles from my apartment and there would be no giant hills seperating me from home. If able to make it from my place to each end twice, the total would greater than 40 miles, in fact closer to 50. The ride went fairly well! I went to the West end, past my place to the East end, past my place to the West end again, and back to my place for a total of 38.2 miles. It wasn't very hard and I wasn't too beat up physically at the end, but I'd definitely underestimated the mental strain of the ride. Perhaps it was the fact that I was riding the same short and generally uninteresting path back and forth... whatever it was, my brain was in bad shape. Probably should choose something more interesting for next time... Distance: 38.2 miles |
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