Not a double century - a bit of recap, a bit of vent

[wawa]

So...that double century.  I knew 200 miles wasn't happening.  200k was my fall back, but I thought I could do something more like 150+.  (course had several loops for variable distance) Well the day came and it became apparent pretty quickly that I had ZERO interest in riding any more miles than I had to on the course the ride organizers had laid out.  So 112 miles it was!  

The course was just...not good.  But I can't decide if I'm just a sissy or what...
I expected the section out of the city to be hairy because that's just that area and there's not many options for crossing the river.  
But then once we were out of DC it actually got worse.  Like...we were briefly on a six lane road with no right hand shoulder and a 55 mph speed limit.  It was short (a little more than half a mile), but DUDE NO.  Later in the course we played frogger across a major highway at a totally uncontrolled crossing.  (301 for the locals.  Just south of La Plata, so lowish traffic.  Relatively speaking)  Those were the uhhh...highlights.  
The vast majority of the course was on two lane roads with fairly steady traffic, zero shoulder and absolutely abysmal pavement conditions.  Like more pothole than pavement.  At several points whoever was in the lead gave up trying to point out holes and instead just sorta waved around generally yelling, "HOLES!"  And every long ride is going to have to hit a few of these here and there because around here even in the rural areas there's just a lot of people...but this was MOST of the course on the types of roads I generally try my damnedest to avoid.  The kind of roads where you're grinding away up a fairly steep grade eyeballing the ditch next to you, because you know if you need to stop you can't waver to the left at all because there's just a steady stream of cars a foot or so away.  (I didn't need to stop.  There were some STEEP grades on this thing though.  That I expected at least)  The kinds of roads where you listen to the cars behind honking at the one person in the traffic stream who decided NOT to blow by you with half a foot to spare since they can't see far enough ahead to safely move into the opposing lane and you have no shoulder.  My back and shoulders ended up hard as rocks and are the only part of me still a bit sore because I kept tensing up as the traffic flew past.  And I got to have my closest call yet as a woman decided that I was taking too long to make a left turn through an intersection (it was uphill around mile 90) and tried to swing around me on the right.   So I mean...that was all just GREAT.

And then for icing we had to ride 1/4 mile on loose gravel at two different rest stops which wasn't so bad for me on my bike  - but I do wonder how that went for the folks at the front rocking the aero carbon race machines.  

and finally the thing that made it REALLY easy to decide to cut short our distance - No SAG.  They'd announced the week before that now that they were running the course with these side loops, they weren't going to have what they referred to as a SAG bus anymore, since people could just skip a loop if they were behind the minimum pace.  I took it to mean there wasn't a sweeper that picked people up as the course closed behind them.  But turns out when they said that...they meant they weren't going to have SAG at all.  Like...if you had a major mechanical or a non-emergency injury...you were on your own to make it back to the start/finish.  TriBestie tweaked her knee pretty badly early on.  Called the number they'd provided and they 1st asked her if she could call somebody else and then reluctantly came to get her, but just took her to the next rest stop and left her to her own devices there.  She ended up calling a $40+ uber.  She then ran unofficial SAG for the rest of the day, shuttled a few people back to their cars, and shadowed the final riders through most of the final 50 miles since all the rest stops had closed by then.  

They've been putting on this ride for 15 years.  200 miles is a lot of miles to provide support and the whole thing is a lot of work and they seemed like nice enough guys, but just...nope.  it was a lot of nope for me.  I've never been put on roads like that for an organized ride.  

[hurricanedrunk]

Great job on finishing the 112 miles!

That really sucks about the organization and SAG situation. I'm curious how many overall riders there was for this event?

[wawa]

Jun 12, 2019 9:22:28 GMT -5 hurricanedrunk said:

Great job on finishing the 112 miles!

That really sucks about the organization and SAG situation. I'm curious how many overall riders there was for this event?

They said a little more than 100. I believe they had rather more than that signed up but they had a lot of no shows, potentially because of the last minute course adjustments. (That's second hand rumour though)

[sadlebred]

Great job on the 112 miles!! Sounds like it was a really disorganized. Maybe they need to figure out a better way to run it!

As an aside, does AAA pick up bikes having mechanical problems in your area? They do here in Georgia. If you flat, break your chain, etc and have AAA, you can get the same 5 mile "tow" that you could in a car with a basic membership. The "premium" membership is something like a 75 mile "tow" for your bike or car (bike "tow" is really a ride back to your car).

[wawa]

Jun 12, 2019 9:51:25 GMT -5 sadlebred said:

Great job on the 112 miles!! Sounds like it was a really disorganized. Maybe they need to figure out a better way to run it!

As an aside, does AAA pick up bikes having mechanical problems in your area? They do here in Georgia. If you flat, break your chain, etc and have AAA, you can get the same 5 mile "tow" that you could in a car with a basic membership. The "premium" membership is something like a 75 mile "tow" for your bike or car (bike "tow" is really a ride back to your car).

I just looked it up. They do! I had no idea. My insurance offers roadside, so I don't have a AAA membership anymore but this is something to consider.

[mysticmuffin]

Congratulations on 112 miles! That's nothing to sneeze at. That really sucks that there were so many less than desirable changes to the event plan.

[minzy]

I’m sorry your ride was not what you’d hoped. I’m sill impressed by 112 miles though!

A little bit of a tangent about the car drivers getting too close - have you seen the pool noodle thing? It is probably not ideal for a race but seemed like sort of a clever and cheap idea to get more room from drivers. www.google.com/amp/s/lifehacker.com/a-pool-noodle-isnt-the-worst-way-for-cyclists-to-keep-a-1787965236/amp

[gt7301b]

Congrats on your 112 miles! I am sorry the conditions were tough, but you did a good job with those conditions.