Ocotillo, California January 15, 2011 7AM start time
4 man time trial
This happens to be my first race report after finding out I would be racing this upcoming 2011 year for B&L Bikes San Diego Store. I love Specialized Bikes and am thrilled to be representing the best bike store in San Diego. Here goes…..
A century is a 100 mile bicycle ride. Before last week, I had never done a “century”. I had ridden 100 miles or more a bunch of times prior but never in an organized cycling event. This one has both individuals and 4 man teams. The teams start before the main group and try their best to beat the record times posted by competitors from prior years. Many of my friends have done century rides in the past. I have heard and read mostly good things about them and my wife and I had wanted to do one for some time now. Last week at group workout I found out a lot of my Breakaway team members were going to do it so we signed up last minute.
Shortly after signing up for the race I found out some of my friends needed a fourth man to complete their 4 man time trial team. So in the matter of a couple days I went from deciding to ride my first century to getting used to the thought of racing my first 100 mile 4 man time trial. The team I agreed to be part of was made up of 3 other guys all in their twenties. I, at 35, was the oldest of the group but I loved the idea and challenge of racing with younger guys.
Friday night came before we knew it and we packed up all our gear to save time in the early morning. We woke up at 3:45AM, left our house at 4:45AM, and got to Ocotillo at 6:15AM. We didn’t see any light in the sky until after we crested Laguna Mountains. We could feel the car being hit by high winds as we went past the large turbines spinning out by the casinos. This worried us. We arrived at the Ocotillo Community Center at dawn and registered. It was a beautiful sunrise and wind at the time wasn’t bad.
I met up with my team and friends and me and Kasia prepped for the long day.
Before we knew it, it was time to go. We got together at the start and listened to the time keeper count down the 15 seconds before he let us go. They allow people that sign up for the time trial to start before everyone else. Right as we left the starting gate one of my teammates broke his chain. This took a bit of time to fix. Luckily there were bike mechanics onsite and the timer was cool enough to let us start over. The only problem was the whole entire ride started before us. Oh well. As we rolled out it felt good to get the legs turning over and we were quickly up and rolling at 20 miles/hour + taking turns at the front.
Slowly we started to catch up to the main groups of people and as we passed each group people started to cling to our group. Before we knew it there were 10 or so people letting us four do all the work. It did not bother us so we kept taking turns pulling on the front keeping a good pace.
The ride is an out and back; 50 miles out and then 50 miles back. It is a slight uphill the entire time out with a couple large hills to contend with. I always like riding a course for the first time since everything is new to me. I rarely pre-ride a course; I kind of like not knowing what I am getting myself into. After about 12 miles or so we rolled through a Border Patrol checkpoint at 20+ mph. The Border Patrol agents just waved at us. 32 miles or so into the ride we hit the first major hill. It is like the inside of Torrey Pines. My 11-21 cassette made the hill tough to climb but we all made it. Here is a video of us descending it.
One of our team members started to suffer at this point. The other three of us took turns at the front and made our way out to the half way point. We all got off our bikes for the first time at mile 50. We used the bathroom and refilled our bottles. They had cookies, sandwiches, chips, shotbloks, gels, electrolyte water, water, etc. Everything one would need to ride 5+ hours. After a short break we got back on our bikes. This time the wind was in our face and I started to worry it would be an issue the whole way back. Luckily it wasn’t that bad and I knew the hills we climbed going out we would fly down. So much fun!!!!! It takes so long to climb up hills and so little time to descend down them. On the way back my teammate still wasn’t feeling good but he really dug deep and did a great job. We would occasionally pick up a straggler and offer them a couple miles of easy pedaling.
Out and backs do have some nice things about them. The whole time back I had an idea how much we had left. Before I knew it we were climbing out last hill and then flying back through the same border check point we had earlier in the morning. Our pace really picked up the last 10 miles or so. It felt good to finish strong and on the last straight away before the finish we were flying at 34 miles an hour just inches away from each other. Great way to finish.
At the end of the ride my Garmin read 5 hours and 17 minutes. I had hoped to break 5 hours but since my teammate did not feel well for over half the ride I felt we did a great job. This ride felt so different than Ironman races since I could take refuge behind someone’s wheel. The whole ride I kept thinking about Ironman Texas less than four months away. We all had lunch and I enjoyed the rest of the 80 degree afternoon waiting for my wife to finish her century ride.
All in all this was a great way to spend one of my January Saturdays. The longest ride I had done in the last 6 months was 60 miles so I was happy with the level of my fitness. I cannot wait to race this upcoming year and taking the time to enter and ride a century was a great was to start it off.
My Specialized Transition from B&L performed flawlessly and the videos I have linked to this report were taken on my GoPro helmet cam.
Totals – 100 miles, 5 hours 17 minutes. Total ascent/descent for this ride was 4900ft. We averaged 19 miles an hour, 5500 calories.
The solo record is held by Daniel McGehee at 4:38 from last year. The team time trial record is 4:49 set last year by Team Descenders.
More posts to come…….
