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My second attempt at the ADK 540–the second epic ride of the year. Funny, how a century ride just doesn’t cut it as an epic ride this year. Perspectives change. Last week’s mediocre showing at the Club Century only reinforced my determination to perform well here.

Woke up early and had a big bowl of cycling gruel (or oatmeal with brown sugar as it’s more commonly called). Loaded the last couple things in the car and headed north. Man that’s a long drive–70 miles. I, um, underestimated the distance/time a little and got there about 5 minutes before the start. So after signing in, taking a bathroom break and suiting up I got on the road 13 minutes after the official start of 7:00 am. Not a great start. Actually, it’s easily the worst start of any event I’ve ever started. I tried not to dwell on it and said to myself, “That’s OK, I’m still going to get close to my goal of 8 hours. Maybe I’ll just adjust the goal to 8:13.”

Now I’m the type of person, that likes to keep things in perspective, try to keep stress to a minimum, and only worry about the things within my power to change. Starting late was firmly within my power to prevent with better planning so this festered for a while. At the first rest stop at around 25 miles, I encountered two of the three riders who started on time, Roger and Luke (I think it was Luke). Hmm, didn’t expect to catch them so quickly. That bolstered my confidence.

Then five miles later, Lloyd appeared around a bend and I quickly reeled him. I now had all three riders behind me, and they had started 13 minutes ahead of me! Big confidence booster there. I would never see another rider on my side of the road again for the rest of the day. Well, not another rider registered for the event. I did catch another roadie on the next long climb (YES! Actually caught a rider on a climb… I’m loving this year’s big improvement… climbing). Anyway I didn’t catch his name, but he was in full roadie kit pedalling a sleek Cannondale six13 with the FSA carbon bars that I thought were awfully flexy when I tested the bike last year. Both unnamed rider and Kyle have sworn they haven’t experienced that with these bars, so either I had a different set on my demo bike or I mistook the flex for something else.

As for seeing riders on the OTHER side of the road, I saw plenty. One happy sighting was Dick Murphy on a group ride with his Adirondack Spokes cronies. He let out with a jovial “Hey Kurt!” when he recognized me, I wasn’t quite as fast and missed my opportunity to reciprocate. I also saw John B. Twice. Camera in hand snapping shots driving the course in reverse. (Looking forward to seeing your gallery update, John!)

Lloyd was from The Valley. Now, I’d always thought of The Valley as San Fernando Valley in California, probably as a result from TV and movie references. He was from the Ottawa valley in Canada. We chatted for several minutes on the first long slow climb. Turns out this was his first major endurance cycling event. I hope his 11:30 time isn’t an indication of how he felt at the end–he was, I believe, shooting for 10 hours. Lloyd had a crew he talked into helping by bribing them with promises of camping in the Adirondacks.

So… a goal of 8 hours, last year’s time of 9:05. Ended up with 8:56 official time, or 8:43 if you subtract my 13 minute stupid late start. John, you still have me beat by 18 minutes by a time of 8:25 from last year. Curse you Red Baron! Course was flatter. Weather better. Felt great, ate well, rode strong the whole day. Improved time by 22 minutes over last year (unofficially), only 9 minutes officially. No mechanicals except a creaky seatpost. Several loud cracks heard while going over the seams (or more accurately… chasms) in Frontiertown.

So… what went wrong? Pretty much my average speed. I didn’t bonk like last year. I didn’t have poor weather at the end to contend with. I’m much stronger this year. Anthony suggested,

The only problem with doing primarily long, slow rides, is it makes long, slow riders. Not that we are slow, it just takes training at tempo to really boost an average. Do a calorie calculation for the speed and distance and find the approximate increase in work output. Ponder how significant 5% or 10% really is. Sometimes perspectives are skewed and an expectations suffer as a result.

A 5% improvement in my average pace of 15.3 mph results in a 16.065 pace for a time of 8:30. Not quite enough. A 10% improvement results in a time of 8:15, enough for a win. My maximum heart rate stayed below 190, at 187. This, I’m sure, is a result of staying in the saddle on the big climbs and sticking to spinning rather than dieseling à la Ulrich. I guess I just didn’t try hard enough. The start of the race was hot for me since I had short-term goals of catching the riders ahead, but with the rabbits gone, it was just me and the clock.

An interesting aside about heart rates: from Wikipedia,

In particular, the change of 10 beats per minute in heart rate corresponds to the change of 1 degree Celsius in body temperature. This is very useful in determining the body temperature when thermometers are not available, provided that person knows his or her normal body temperature and heart rate.

This goes a long way towards explaining why my body puts out massive amounts of heat the night after a big ride.

Brett Walker hit his first two splits at around 7 hours each. And, I heard, annoying some of the other RAAM qualifier hopefuls enough to give up early since they wouldn’t make the cut-off time. Jen and the over-50 group were safe from his blistering pace and unreachable RAAM qualifying cut-off time.

Things I saw

• A gaggle of Corvettes (is that the group term? How about a covey of Corvettes?) Must be a car show nearby.
• One discarded toilet spotted.
• Shockingly, no Fieros.
• One iPod Nano dangling from the neck of the non-participant roadie I met on route.
• Many, many Monarch butterflies.
• Over 75 cars parked near the Cascade mountain trailheads. (So many I lost count after 50!)
• More kayaks and canoes on roofs of cars than you can shake a walking stick at.

Statistics

• Total climbing: 9025′ (see climbing breakdown below for details)
• Official course altitude gain: 7600′
• Max speed: 43.8
• Avg speed for total time: 15.3 mph
• Avg speed on bike: 15.62 mph
• Total rest time: 25 minutes
• Avg heart rate: 157 (which is a typical number for me for this type of event)
• Max heart rate: 187 (which is conspicuously below 190–I didn’t get out of the saddle for any of the monster climbs, only for the rollers)

Standings for Bronze Blast (136 mile single lap)

1. Peter Grant • Ottawa, ON • 08H 26M
2. Michael Flartey • Mine Hill, NJ • 08H 42M
3. Kurt Higgins • Gansevoort, NY • 08H 56M
4. Lloyd Barry • Vanier, ON • 11H 30M
5. Alex Bekkerman • New York, NY • 11H 45M
6. Art Crowley • Spring Lake, NJ • 11H 45M
7. Roger Byrom • New York, NY • 11H 55M
8. Luke Wiaczek • Milford, NY • 11H 55M

Google Map of the route

This route is color coded based on my speed, and the regularly spaced diamonds are one hour increments.

Route profile

This entry was posted Friday, September 22nd, 2006 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Cycling. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.