06.11.2013 | 8:14 am
By Jeff DeVries (aka ClydeinKS)
Upon the announcement for the 100 MoN ’13 edition I rallied two buddies to register and join in planning for the day. I was excited to have 3 of 500 “official” MoN participating and began talking to other people about our insanity. During one of these share sessions with one of my patients, I was intrigued when she told me of a newly forming charity called the Team Ryan Foundation for pediatric cancer research and I began to have ideas for something larger scale.
Fatty was gracious enough to give his blessing for bringing in more riders for the MoN, so we added a silent auction, and the “Spin and Bid” event was born. Following two weeks of intense planning, our event was going to happen! Here is the flyer we had made to spread word:
We had decided to allow additional riders to join for a minimum donation of $20 to Camp Kesem. Next Door Pizza, our host for the ride and after party, committed to donating 10% of the day’s sales to Camp Kesem as well. During the evening after party, a silent auction of items donated from all over the city was held benefitting Team Ryan. The three “official” riders had also received an incredible anonymous sponsorship of $10 per mile ridden to go to Team Ryan.
In 2 weeks time, we received approval from the local police and parks and rec. dept to use the route we planned without alteration – a 2.5 mile loop going into park grounds, past ball fields, and around a community college campus with what appeared to be leisurely rolling hills. Media coverage was obtained and silent auction items were coming in. Riders were asked to ride a minimum of one lap of the course that was marked and then feel free to continue the loop or take another route as desired.
Much advertising was done through the Select Physical Therapy (where I am a therapist) cycling group that was formed and organized by myself earlier this year. We gained more riders from work, set up a Facebook page for the event, had hand-painted banners donated, set up a tent for registrations, and were ready to start the day. I stayed with the FC jersey to maintain representation through the day.
The morning couldn’t have started much better. The winds were very calm, temps were perfect, and 3 gorgeous whitetail deer were observed on the initial laps before a large group of approximately 50 riders came through the other direction and scared the deer back into the woods.
The route was nice as it provided good scenery entering park grounds, moving toward a lake, a nice tight bend to play with, approaching youth baseball fields, and traveling alongside a golf course. This provided lots of exposure but also unpredicted complications. The deceptive rolling hills were longer and steeper than first anticipated as well.
Contact was made with Scott R., another “officially” registered 100MoN rider and he was able to join up with us approximately 12 miles into our ride. It was great having him out to join, was able to chat some during one lap and then my wife (Mighty Athena) and 7 yr old son arrived to join on the ride. Scott had gotten called away and needed to leave, sorry I missed you leaving and hope everything was alright – thanks for joining us while you were able!
Most of my route pics were taken while riding with my 7 yr old, Derek participating in his first event and proudly displaying his homemade race number. Around the time that my wife and son joined, we began seeing more and more coworkers show up. There was also a second group from the bike shop (30-40 riders) leaving. Awesome doesn’t appropriately describe riding the loop twice with my son and hearing his joy proclaimed with each down hill section (“Woohoohoo, YEAH!!!”) and cheers and encouragement for him from the bike shop riders!
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the camera ready as the large group went by.
There was some fun and building confidence developed in taking that tight bend with speed. The initial laps averaged going the through the turn around 16 mph. As the day progressed, the speeds and comfort increased and I learned that my top speed going through was 27.6 mph, couldn’t quite stay in my lane when I hit 28 mph. There was bump prior to entering the corner and Derek’s first trip around, his feet flew off the pedals and his handlebars shimmied side to side 5 or 6 times but he saved it and maintained upright and moving forward. There were some good ascents he completed and was a real trooper when needing to push 3x, if only he had some gear options!
As the day progressed, the temps were climbing, nearly all riders completing above 40 miles were cramping badly, and the ball fields and pedestrians were becoming more busy and nonobservant, causing some safety risks in continuing to push the distance.
In the early afternoon we encountered a raccoon, and we knew that with him being out at that time of day, we were best to leave him alone!
My final 6 laps had both quads cramping to the point I couldn’t pedal on flats but had to keep pushing for the sponsored money and on my final lap decided to stop as two cars blocked my passage near the ball fields and people were beginning to congest the road making it stop and go which the quads couldn’t take.
Unfortunately, I was only able to complete 66 miles this year, one rider went nearly 70 and I was the final representation on the course for 2 loops to end the day.
There was a decent turnout for the ride and evening silent auction, but sadly we did not get the television coverage before and during that we were promised. Final numbers for the day included a total of 16 riders and 499.77 miles, and additional $260 raised for Camp Kesem (not including the 10% from the restaurant as it was unavailable upon leaving), $558 raised from 17 silent auction items and $1960 from mileage sponsorship (although likely to be full $3000 as hoped) raised for the Team Ryan Foundation. Their “motto” is HANDS IN!! but sadly there wasn’t anyone to finish the ride with hand in hand, so did it myself.
Nothing feels better than knowing we were able to help two great organizations. Hopefully next year we’ll have more than 2 weeks to plan!! Oh, forgot to mention that I still won the “Enjoy volunteering, but have a whole new respect for event organizers – 38 yr Male division.” Special thanks to FATTY, Todd and Toti for your enthusiasm in joining me, an incredible group of coworkers for your support and participation, volunteers, auction item providers, and NDP for hosting!
Comments (19)
06.10.2013 | 11:23 am
A Note from Fatty: For the next several days, I’ll be alternating posts from the 100 Miles of Nowhere with installments from the Rockwell Relay race I did over the weekend. Just to draw things out and mess with you a little bit.
I love bikes. I love bike races. I love the kind of people who do bike races. I love the people who spend their time and energy putting on bike races.
And above all, I love standing behind a grill, serving really good bratwurst (Colosimo’s) to racers and talking with them about all of the above, the night before a bike race.
Here I am, last Thursday afternoon, right before the crowds showed up.
Those two big ice chests behind me are holding 400 brats, which The Hammer had boiled in PBR and onions the day before, since I was kind of out of my head with work deadlines.
Which made the hours of 6pm ’til around 8:30pm — when The Hammer and I grilled and served around 300 of those 400 brats (the rest would be grilled and served at the finish line Saturday) to racers and their families (and to the occasional random park-goer who was drawn in by the incredible smell) of the Rockwell Relay: Moab to Saint George.
We told favorite stories. We shared race tactics (i.e., bring an ice chest completely full of ice to keep drinks cold), and we talked about what a strange and fun experience this race was every year, and the fact that every single team would come away with an amazing story to tell.
I also signed a couple books, which served my vanity very well.
Most importantly, we listened very carefully whenever someone else mentioned that they were part of a coed team, asking — very casually, mind you — whether they were there to race, or just to ride.
Hey, as two-time winners of the coed division of the Rockwell Relay, we had a dynasty to defend; we needed all the beta we could gather.
Then, around 8:00pm, The Hammer and I made our first critical strategic race move: we called Paradox Pizza in Moab, and ordered five 14″ pizzas (a Supremo, a Greek, a Caprese, a Hawaiian Italian, and a Margherita).
Once those arrived, we let them cool down, folded them so the crust side was facing out, and then put them in ziploc bags.
Our team’s primary race food source was taken care of.
The Race Begins
The Rockwell Relay starts at 8:00am, so Team Fatty got breakfast at Denny’s together to make final plans. We agreed that – for the first time — I would take the Racer 1 position. Kenny had raced it our previous two times, and we were both interested in trading to see what other legs were like. This meant Kenny would take leg 2, while The Hammer would take leg 3, and Heather would take leg 4 (as they both had the previous two times we’ve done this race).
During this breakfast, Heather — who has been plagued with flat tires this year — observed, “Finally, I’ve had three consecutive rides without a flat!”
I turned on her, with fury in my eyes.
“You’re using The Secret wrong,” I said. “You’re jinxing us for sure, and guaranteeing a flat.”
Heather apologized, but I knew we were now doomed to have at least one flat during the race, since the process for reversing misuse of The Secret is lengthy and complicated, and we had no time.
But this was no time to dwell on what could not be fixed. So we finished our respective Grand Slams, then grabbed a quick team photo:
Left to right: Fatty, The Hammer, Kenny, and Heather
And then I shouldered my way into the very front of the line.
Did I belong there? Probably not. But I have been riding hard. And I am — I’m pretty sure — the fastest I have ever been. Maybe by a lot. So I wanted at least a chance to hang with the fast guys.
The race began, at which point very strange things started happening.
First, three of us shot out front: me, a guy in blue, and a guy in red (that’s honestly all the detail I remember of them; they probably remember me as “guy in pink.”) We rode together for the first couple blocks, and then the guy in blue stood up and took off.
I looked over to my left at the guy in red. Was he going to chase? No. He was not. “Let’s just work together,” I said, and kicked it up half a notch so he could settle in behind me while I did the first pull.
Then the guy in blue — who was, by now, fifty feet ahead of us — suddenly pulled over to the side of the road, and stopped.
What?
I figured he must have flatted or had a chain drop, or something like that. Regardless, the fact that we had gone less than half a mile meant that the rest of his team (everyone on all the teams rides the first mile or so of the race, with three out of four of the racers just rolling along in parade mode) would see him in a minute and could help him out.
So I kept on going, thinking, “How weird that I am currently the lead racer.”
After a couple minutes, I waggled my left elbow, signaling the racer in red to come up and take a turn pulling.
Nothing.
I waggled my right elbow.
Nothing.
I looked over my shoulder.
Nothing. And nobody.
Unintentionally, I had managed to launch a solo breakaway from the entire field, about half a mile from the beginning of the race, with 54 miles and 4100 feet of climbing to go.
“So,” I thought to myself, “Now what?”
All Alone
I considered my options. “I can either keep going and try to stay out front, seeing if I’m the rare breakaway that succeeds,” I thought, “Or I can drift back to the group.”
“Or,” I thought, “I can keep going hard, but knowing full well that I’ll eventually be caught, at which point I can try to just hang with the lead group, instead of getting dropped by them.”
That sounded like a pretty good idea, and I figured that I’d be swept up within a few miles. “I’ll go hard, but not so hard that when they catch me I can’t join them,” I told myself, over and over.
But then a few miles went by, and I was still in front, all alone.
And then it was five miles.
The photographer and videographer caught up with me, taking pictures and video of me, riding. Alone.
Seven miles. Still alone.
I began to fantasize. “What if they don’t catch me?” I thought to myself. “What if I somehow, during the night, magically became the fastest person here? Faster than the Cat 1 racers who are here? Faster than Brute Force, which has won this race every year?”
“Well, why not?” I thought, and went harder.
I looked down at my Garmin Edge 510. Ten miles into this race, and I was still leading.
And that’s when two people rocketed by me as if I were standing still.
“OK, I knew that would happen,” I said.
And then, seconds later, a group of twenty racers surged by me.
My solo moment of glory was over, and the race — the real race — was on.
Which is where I’ll pick up next time.
Comments (29)
06.6.2013 | 7:23 am
by Nancy S
There were several reasons that we chose to ride our 100 MoN in the dark, starting with wanting to do something that we hadn’t done before, something more ill advised than all the other rides we’ve done. Once my brother and I began talking about the concept, we got pretty excited about how we’d pull it off:
- The highly excellent system of paved (former RR) trails in Minnesota became the obvious choice for safe riding after dark. Specifically the Wobegon, Soo Line and Central Lakes Trails:
- When I started looking at night lighting products for bicycling, there was no doubt that we’d be lighting up the night in a colorful way. For a thrill, check out Monkey Lights on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLtbeU8FJW0
- We would have several 100MoN poachers, all in need of a commemorative T-shirt. Twin Six carried the perfect shirt for our ride, especially after I added this 100 MoN graphic to the sleeve (yes, it’s the 2012 graphic, which T6 kindly let me use):
t-shirt
Purloined graphic
We are the Borg
Soon our enthusiasm spread to several of our riding friends/family and we ended up with eight riders (including one from Taiwan!) plus four support people. It’s possible they all recognized the futility of resisting the tide created by our passion for a “really good idea.” It’s happened before. Resistance is futile.
Joining us was Isaac N., a friend through Fatty. Wet conditions had kept the local MTB trails closed, so he was forced to consider alternative plans for his 100MoN. The futility of resistance.
And They’re Off!
Friday, May 31, 8 pm. Early dusk: For the first hour, we were able to ride without using our headlights but, as darkness fell, the forest closed in around us forming a dark tunnel. We all agreed that we were riding in a cocoon of nothingness.
Things get mystical
Weather forecasts for the night were grim, with thunderstorms likely all night long. We were prepared to suffer immensely. OK, that was a lie. Is anyone ever prepared to suffer immensely? All I know is, extreme suffering did not become necessary on this ride. In fact, it may be safe to say that we were all awestruck with how the night turned out.
11:30 pm, already past our bedtimes: By the time we first crossed the Mississippi River, roaring through the Blanchard dam, the sky was a sea of stars, with nary a cloud in sight. We celebrated our first crossing under the stars by sharing a bit-o-whiskey with the river.
12:30 am, June 1: Traveling southwest after our 2nd crossing of the Mississippi, we began to notice northern lights (aurora borealis) off to our right. When we stopped and turned off as many of our blinky-flashy things as possible, we were treated to the most spectacular natural light show most of us has (have?) ever seen. Keep in mind, we live “up north”, and we were still mightily impressed. Here’s the crazy, mystical thing about the light show: I had gathered several “door prizes” for our riders and the one shown below was the most special, the one I felt captured the sense of what we were doing, the one I planned to award to the rider most vexed with mechanicals. It’s a limited edition poster entitled “Flat” by Adam Turman, a Minneapolis artist who beautifully illustrates the bicycling life:
This made me a bit nervous about the skull themed gifts I’d prepared:
1 am: Shortly after our northern lights stop, we rolled through Holdingford, MN, where this guy sits along the trail and is ever willing to share his bench:
1:30am: Our second swing through Albany brought us to our stationary sag vehicle where we enjoyed sandwiches, Chicken & Stars soup (the jury is still out on the soup), other sundry snacks and world-class encouragement from our support, Laurie and Christine.
2 am: Now riding east toward our campsite, with ~27 miles to go, the half moon appeared on our horizon, dead ahead. Orange with a few wisps of clouds before it, the moon was our beacon for the remainder of the ride. As fatigue set in, we began to notice, profoundly, the washboard on each of the seemingly dozens of bridges we crossed. Soon we were all making that “ahhhhhhh” noise like little kids do when bobbling on Grandpa’s knee.
3 am: We’d advanced to sounding out chords as we hit the bridge decks. My brother, Del, determined that we’d struck the opening chord of the final movement of Beethoven’s 9th symphony which, he later explained, is noteworthy in that it is two completely incompatible chords blended together such that someone with normal ears would say, “What was THAT????” I thought we sounded good.
The moon, still with us, had risen higher in the sky and become inexplicably smaller. Explanations for this phenomenon do not work at this time of night. For me, they never work.
4 am on the dot: We arrived at our campsite, one hour later than originally projected:
With the rest of the campground fast asleep, and the police just down the road, we high-fived silently. In post race analysis, I now realize we were a generally geriatric bunch of riders. Only the three youngest of us still thought beer sounded good. At 55, I was pleased to be one of the three. It was a struggle, but I had a reputation to maintain.
And in the morning we had pie. Moon pie. Homemade.
Summary
- Not one mechanical issue, not one mishap, no bonks , no crying, and minimal whining (and only after 3 am), our 2013 Dark 100 Miles of Nowhere was a smashing success!
- I used the occasion of this ride to do some additional fund raising for Camp Kesem by registering as a non-rider in the Livestrong Davis event. With a few weeks remaining before the Davis ride, I’m confident my goal of $2K will be reached.
- Soon I’ll have video and more detail about the Dark 100 Miles of Nowhere on my blog: Nanabananabike.blogspot.com.
- Oh yeah. I won the women’s division.
Thank you!
Nancy in Minnesota
Comments (23)
06.5.2013 | 6:33 am
By Jessica F
It would be a bit hyperbolic to say that the only reason I wanted to participate in 100 Mile of Nowhere was to have a ridiculous course, but that’s pretty much it. I don’t remember if I knew about this park with a great view before I started scheming over 100 Miles of Nowhere or not.
Great view, eh? (Downtown SF, the Bay Bridge, and Treasure Island, for those of you not from around here.) I love infrastructure: bridges, railroads, transmission lines, ports. This has the additional historical footnote of being the westernmost point on the Union Pacific Railroad.
Plus, the water link from one end of the park to the other would be my hook to get my kayaking boyfriend to participate. First I thought we would both bike and kayak, but the number of transitions seemed overwhelming. So we agreed that he would kayak and I would bicycle. Flat water kayaking for a whitewater kayaker is basically like being on rollers in a basement for a mountain biker.
Because kayaking is much slower than bicycling, we decided it would be a parallel relay event. (This is probably a concept I’ve invented. Which hopefully means we’ve placed first in our division: Coed Simultaneous Bike and Kayak Relay, Oakland CA.) The bicycle leg was 80 miles, and the kayaking leg was 20 miles, back and forth across the narrow section of the park horseshoe.
I’ve included the Strava screen for the ride. Started from the house, a bunch of times around the park, and a deviation for a sausage at Rosamunde’s before heading home to realize an extra loop around the block was needed to hit 80 miles.
The day was great: sunny, not too hot or windy, lots of birds (pelicans, blue herons, white egrets, avocets, gulls by the dozens and Canada geese by the hundreds). My boyfriend, T, got the best view of a pelican diving for a fish just ten feet off his kayak. Next time we do this, I’ll be getting a kayak leg, too. Getting hissed at by Canada geese multiple times just doesn’t have the same cachet.
However, if you are familiar with Arrested Development, you’ll understand why I was concerned for his well-being after seeing a harbor seal early on in the day, but it kept its distance. Sand sharks and bat rays were also hanging around.
I have done one other 100 Miles Of Nowhere, a few years ago with a friend doing loops of Golden Gate Park. One of the interesting things about spending all day in a park is seeing the ebb and flow of various parts of the community interacting (and operating completely separately in different areas), and generally all having a good time.
The Middle Harbor Shoreline park also has the benefit of being along the shipping channel. One of the bike legs looked out at multiple sailboats heading out the morning, a huge container ship coming into port later that day, and at the end, a large Coast Guard ship, probably heading up out of the Gate and up the coast. I can’t describe the effect of seeing these different sized vessels gliding by, apparently crossing my path at the end of the bike path.
We ended up taking about 8 hours to do the ride/paddle, and Strava shows me with 6 hours and 40 minutes of rolling time.
PS: FYI, Fatty, you’ve created another Strava user. I was wondering if I needed to bring out my long unused GPS device to track the ride, and of course thought about iPhone apps. When I saw Strava on the list of bike tracking apps, I immediately chose it. And ended up with a couple of trophies by the end of the day for the competitive Oakland Middle Harbor area. Also, I was impressed that Strava didn’t destroy my battery. I managed to get through all 8 hours with battery left over. As good or better than my purpose-built GPS device. Of course, most of the time, the screen was off. I’m just disappointed I didn’t know how excellent (and easy-to-use) Strava was for my first real mountain bike ride last weekend in Pennsylvania.
Comments (11)
06.4.2013 | 3:17 pm
By Doug Bolling
I have “raced” the 100 MoN for the past 3 years. In fact, my first century ride ever was my first 100 MoN ride. Things are a little different for me this year. I am training for a “little” mtb race in Colorado in August [That would be the Leadville 100 - FC] and have a tune-up race next week. So I was trying to figure out how to fit the 100 MoN into my training schedule.
Looking at my training calendar I saw that I had a 5 hour ride on tap Sunday June 2. Perfect, except how to get 100 miles in 5 hours AND accomplish my training goals?
So I thought, and thought, and thought some more.
Then it struck…..a timed crit…..on my mountain bike……riding the dirt road short lap around my block! It’s a 2.7 mile loop that takes about 11 minutes. There are three “hills” (maybe 30 ft elevation gain each). One is an attention-getter (12% grade) the other two are a little more mellow. And let’s just do six hours instead of 5. With the course and time set, my division? The Potsdam, Training for a Big Race, Mountain Bike, Timed Criterium.
The weather was calling for scattered thunderstorms, and I started the ride in a downpour. The dirt roads were muddy and soft. But the rain only lasted about 2 laps, then it stopped. And gradually the roads dried a little bit, and got a little firmer.
I settled back into the ride: crank/sprint up the kicker hill, “recover” down the backside, temp the rest of the way around.
One of the things I like about this event is that it is meditative. You can settle into it and through repetition lose yourself. Yeah, OK that’s definitely the half full metaphysical version. 32 laps around my block was definitely tedious. :)
Coreen and the kids came out periodically and cheered me on. They got me bottle refills, and 3 hours in, brought me a coke (Yumm, best mid ride drink ever!).
The weather held pretty good until about 4 hours into the ride (2 hours to go) when it rained hard again for about 20 minutes. All that nice firming up of the dirt road, gone. It became soft and muddy again.
After 6 hours the GPS said I did 86 miles, with a 14.4 mph average and a 4400 ft elevation gain. Oh, and I won my division (go figure).
My most memorable moment of the day: hitting a big snapping turtle. It’s turtle-mating season here and they are all over the place. They like to lay eggs next to the roads. The incident occurred during the initial downpour. I had a face full of spray — was cleaning it out — and when I looked up, there she was: directly in my path. I swerved and clipped her. She was fine (me too!), but it could have been very ugly.
Cars? Only was passed by one the entire six hours. I love living on a dirt country road.
Comments (20)
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