2nd Annual Memorial Day 200km

Our 2nd annual Memorial Day 200km didn’t draw the crowd that the innaugural ride did. We had six total riders last year–no such luck this year. It was just John and me. The bright side of this is we can stick to our own pace, not worry about any stragglers and change course at will should we decide at the last minute. That was a bit of foreshadowing for you astute readers out there. “Change course?”… never on a group ride.

Google map of route

The night before as I was assembling my cycling kit, I struggled with whether or not to bring arm warmers and the skull cap. I knew that certainly I wouldn’t need a jacket, but the arms might still get cold in the morning. Saturday morning, the need for those two articles was clearly decided by the ultra-comfortable 62 degrees at 8:00am.

One of the topics of conversation invariably turned to TV. Lost in particular. Season two just ended last week and we have to endure a summer of not being Lost.

The first of the two major climbs of the day came early on at 15 miles, Antioch Road. Fifteen miles isn’t nearly enough of a warmup for me, so Antioch was an early morning challenge. It doesn’t seem like it should be so significant but it is the highest point of the 200km. Once you leave the Maple Avenue school starting point, you’re heading uphill nearly all of the 15 leadout miles.

The second climb, Truesdale Road, in Warrensburg just east of Exit 23 is much more challenging. I liken it to Ormsbee but longer. John kindly kept track of our climbing times; he had 14:20 and I was about 2:30 minutes slower at 16:50 or so. I could be way off on these numbers, I’ll have to recheck ‘em with John. Interestingly, my heart rate didn’t get very high, it only got to the lower 180’s. The thing holding me back was the spirit-crushing, mind-numbing lactic acid coursing through my quads. It was very frustrating seeing a good and low HR (for me) and not being able to do anything with it, like pick up the pace or grab a bigger gear. I persevered and didn’t stop or walk, though I sorely wanted to. The descent is pretty intense though it is marred by two stop signs. Later John said what I was thinking was that climbing Truesdale from the other side looks even harder.

Lunch in Lake George. We found an open air pizzeria and muscled our way to a table by the wall where we could prop our steeds up. After bravely ordering a medium cheese pizza, we recounted our progress and compared GPS data. We also toyed with the idea of aborting Goggins road and Call road, a series of significant rollers that look like shark’s teeth on the map profile–instead opting to head south on 9N. By the end of lunch we pretty much had latched onto that idea and were enjoying a less taxing ride home.

Two people asked us for directions. Apparently cyclists are the next best thing to postmen for knowing where stuff is. Before lunch and before Warrensburg even, the first car pulled up next to John and I couldn’t quite tell what he was asking. Turns out he was looking for Thurman–we had just passed through Thurman minutes before crossing the bridge and entering Warrensburg. Unfortunately for the driver, John didn’t realize this and the driver continued on still lost. Probably wishing us ill since we obviously weren’t fulfilling the unwritten rule that cyclist must provide accurate directions.

After lunch, the second driver pulled up next to me. It was considerate of him to choose me, since John had already had his chance at helping a wayward driver. Now was my time to shine. This guy wanted to know if this road “was the way to Lake George.” Ooo, Ooo, I know this one! “Yes… but in the other direction.” About six miles back. Guess he shoulda turned right off the Northway exit instead of left. Perhaps since I had accurate information for my driver, the cycling gods took pity on me and only choose to throw a hazard John’s way.

Now I might be a little generous in describing John’s accident’s catalyst as a ‘hazard.’ It was a sidewalk curb. Now granted there weren’t very many at all on our wide rangin’, forest piercin’, lake circumnavigatin’, mountain climbin’ route. That curb rudely got in his way and broke his Luzerne waterfall gazin’ reverie. All amusing prose aside, he did go down pretty hard. Harder than my fall in my first century. Luckily nothing was broken except an accident-free 2006 record. He did sustain some serious scrapes (photos probably will be available on his site… look here for links). After a minute or two of collecting his wits and washing the grit out of his wounds he saddled up again and proceeded to kick my ass on the way home. Guess that adrenaline rush lasted quite a while!
Things I saw:

A BakeMark tractor trailer. Odd because the BakeMark a few miles from my house renamed itself Food Distributors of the Americas. Catchy, huh? Hmm, their acronym would be FDA.
More Monarch butterflies.
GPS data is all relative. Both John’s Lance-o-matic and Garmin GPS and my Magellan GPS all had very different altitude readings at the tops of climbs.
This was one of the most comfortable centuries I’ve done. Definitely on par with the January Century. Very little in the area of aches and pains. Ate and drank well, drank six scoops worth of Perpetuum mix.
Perceived effort was much less that heart rate average would have normally dictated. At the first rest stop, 30 or so miles in, my avg HR was 161. By lunch it had dropped to 159. By ride’s end, settled in to 156.
That is one long-ass gentle climb out of Lake George west on 9N! It’s the bit in the profile below immediately after the 2nd sharp spike.
Motorcycles with loud exhausts never cease to irritate and startle the crap out of me. We have Lake George and beautiful weather to thank for the preponderance of non-human powered bikers.
My Serfas tires have been feeling squishy lately even though they’re pumped up to 125 psi
Aside from the rider who chatted with us in the first three miles, it was over fifty miles before we saw any other roadies. We saw a couple of comfort riders, but oddly, the roadies didn’t appear until North Shore road. Unusual for a holiday and good weather. Eventually we tallied about 5 or 6 roadies.
The profile only shows 108 miles total, but I did finish with 124.1 by riding to and from the start. Originally the bonus miles were going to be on top of the 200km but they ended up being just enough to complete my day.
John’s ride recount