100 Miles of Nowhere: Haiku-Style Report About Epic 120+ Laps and 12,000 Feet of Climbing Division
A Note from Fatty: Today’s 100 Miles of Nowhere race report comes from Chris S, who rode an absolutely insanely wonderfully ridiculous race. It brought me to tears, nearly, it was so crazy. He then wrote a fantastic series of haikus for his report.
Somehow, he managed to be understated about it all, though.
So you may want to stick around for my postscript at the bottom of his report, where I do a few bonus screen captures from the Strava log of his ride.
100MoN: Winner of the 12,000+ Feet Through Kids Playing Basketball in the Ipswich Alps Division
Looping hill repeats
One hundred miles of nowhere
Twelve thousand foot climb.
Going slow uphill
Rider grinds standing pedals
Small moans mark hilltop.
Kids play basketball
Territory being claimed
flying bike blocks shot.
Pass one raking man
Pass two putting leaves in bag
Pass three empty lawn
Mile seventy five
Urgency breaks the circle
I ride home to pee.
Endless loop ending
Part of suburban texture
They look sideways now.
PS From Fatty: Here are the Strava stats from Chris’s ride:
And here’s what the elevation profile looks like:
It’s such a jagged profile that you almost can’t see what’s going on, at that resolution. Here’s a closeup of a portion of just the first few miles of that elevation profile:
What does this mean? It means Chris went up 97 feet, on one side of a neighborhood block, then down the other side of that block. More than 120 times. (Maybe he knows exactly how many times, but there’s no way I’m going to try to count.)
Here’s what his Strava breadcrumb around that block looks like:
And just for fun, here’s what a closeup of one corner of his ride looks like:
I tell you, Chris is a wonderful kind of crazy.
Comment by Scott | 10.24.2014 | 7:20 am
Nearly 14mph on that course and your heart rate never broke 170 (much less that the average was 129). You. Are. An. Animal!
Comment by Tom in Albany | 10.24.2014 | 7:37 am
Truely, I’m in awe.
This was amazingly nuts.
I hope you had fun.
Comment by Jerry | 10.24.2014 | 7:38 am
Assuming he kept to the right-half of the road, I wonder how many more laps he would have had to make if he rode counterclockwise? Anyone? Bueller?
Comment by Jeff Bike | 10.24.2014 | 7:43 am
I am humbled.
Comment by Dave T | 10.24.2014 | 7:50 am
Wow that is great an epic suffer score indeed. Great job Chris.
Comment by Dan S | 10.24.2014 | 8:34 am
Chris is my big brother. He is much older than he looks or as suggested by his high level of fitness. And he is crazy. His suffer score was further tested later by his wife’s demand that he attend a party that evening. No rest for the wicked.
Comment by ClydeinKS | 10.24.2014 | 8:44 am
Hundred Mile Ride
Going Nowehere but up/down
Awesomeness displayed
A corner cut short
Playing with a chasing dog
Or Strava unclear
Chris – just seeing the slope in your pic makes me hurt. Truly awesome route choice and kudos to you for taking it on!
Comment by Liz M. | 10.24.2014 | 9:00 am
These write ups are great, and so are the comments! Kudos to all.
This is what a 100 MON around my block would look like, too. You are more intrepid than me. Congratulations!
Comment by Heidi | 10.24.2014 | 9:03 am
The top photos shows
Man minding his business but
Dog thinks Chris is nuts
Comment by Corrine | 10.24.2014 | 9:37 am
Crazy! And poetry to beat. Chris, you are a talented person to both be so fit and write so poetically about it.
Comment by Mark in Bremerton | 10.24.2014 | 9:45 am
That’s the same lap length we did on the tandem last year and it was 136 laps (minus about 10,000′ of climbing). I can only imagine the painful anticipation of the next climb as you were coasting down, from about lap 10 on! Awesome effort!
Comment by Anonymous | 10.24.2014 | 10:03 am
He is AMAZING. I wish I could ride THROUGH the trees in my neighborhood!
Comment by Mike Kennedy | 10.24.2014 | 10:08 am
OUCH! That is awesome and I think you got cheated on the Suffer Score..
Comment by Jojo @ RunFastEatLots | 10.24.2014 | 10:36 am
That elevation profile is beautiful. Beautifully crazy
Comment by davidh-marin,ca | 10.24.2014 | 11:03 am
@Clydein KS
kudos are insufficient. Chris deserves Hai-Ku-Dos !
Comment by New Zealand Ev | 10.24.2014 | 11:35 am
All I can say is Wow!! I am in awe of your ride. Very, very impressive.
Comment by ClydeinKS | 10.24.2014 | 12:40 pm
@davidh – I stand corrected, thank you for correcting my oversight!
I’m Haiku’d out to respond appropriately so HAIKUDOs to Chris!!
Comment by zeeeter | 10.24.2014 | 1:11 pm
Amazing mental strength, let alone physical!! Incredible effort.
Comment by Andrew | 10.24.2014 | 2:44 pm
“Assuming he kept to the right-half of the road, I wonder how many more laps he would have had to make if he rode [ed. the other way]?”
I can’t pass this up…I’m a nerd, and it’s a Friday.
A quick look at Strava told me he was riding clockwise (left turns), so let’s assume a few things.
1) Chris’ rides in the exact middle of the lane.
2) Each lap was 0.7175 miles (I chose a random slice for 20 laps (mile 20 to mile 34.35))
3) Standard lane widths for residential streets are 18 ft (36 ft total for the street, or 18ft from center of one lane to center of the other lane). (http://eng.lacity.org/techdocs/streetd/figures/e100/e113.pdf)
Therefore, ignoring the pee break, it should have taken Chris (100 miles)/ (0.7175 miles/lap) or 139.37 (140) laps the way he rode it.
If he rides in the other direction, his rectangular course means all the straightaways are the same distance, it’s only the turns that would change. Let’s figure out the total distance traveled around the four corners.
For one lap, assume the inside lane has a radius of 15 ft (center of the lane makes 9ft to the curb, and the curb has a radius of 6ft) and the outside lane has a radius of 33 ft (18 ft to the next center of the lane).
For all four corners only (no straights), he travels 94.25 ft on the inside lane and 207.35 ft for the outside lane. (0.7175 miles is 3788.4 ft, so he always travels 3581.05 ft on the straightaways).
With the smaller radius (inside lane), he would have traveled (3581.05 ft + 94.25 ft) = 3675.3 ft. This is actually .6960795 miles per lap.
So, assuming a rectangle with curved corners, it would have taken Chris 143.66175 (144) laps.
So…he would have needed four extra laps.
Comment by Chris Sammartano | 10.24.2014 | 3:04 pm
Thanks for the haikudos everyone! And thanks to Fatty for inspiring me to throw my leg over the adventure!
Teeth hurt from sugar
cookies always in my mouth
riding works them off……
Somewhat.
Comment by MattC | 10.24.2014 | 4:20 pm
Uhm, Andrew…you hurt my brain. And it’s a Friday afternoon too…stop it!
Way to GO Chris! I’m thinking your choice of route (and pushing yourself all the way to the full 100 miles) is very Noodle-esqe!
In fact, Fatty…you should conspire w/ Noodle and have her choose a winner every year to the 100MON’er who does the most inspiring event (the Iron Noodle award, or something along that line)…sadly she is automatically disqualified from this award simply due to the unfairness of the rest of us coming up with anything more difficult than her ride.
Comment by PNP | 10.24.2014 | 6:06 pm
Long ride to nowhere
A pointless undertaking
Too much pain; no fun
Maybe raise some dough
And help some kids get better
Route planned for next year
Comment by davidh-marin,ca | 10.25.2014 | 12:16 am
@MattC PURE GENIUS “The Iron Noodle Award” I concur.
@Andrew We need to send Chris back out to test your calculations. He’s the obvious choice since he knows the route.
Should he demur the invitation we can have the Rocket Scientists GregC and DougB-Way UpStateNY its called Michigan gov us some impressive mathematical haiku=jitsu.