Ouch! I almost got leg cramps just reading about your feats. You must have eaten some "loco" weed to tackle these monstrous ride challenges, but you must feel very proud of your accomplishments and you have every right to. Congratulations!
James ----- Original Message ----- From: Tim & Susan To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, 4 Jul 2010 21:23:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [COWs] 400K (to h#ll and back) Ride Report !!! This may be long winded as I have nothing else better to do as I finally get to enjoy recovery drinks. John o. and I head for Salisbury Friday evening where we share a motel room for the weekends adventure. Saturday morning, up at 4:20 and we slide over next door to IHOP. 5:30 we arrive at the bike shop with like 20+ other fools for pre ride registration and bike inspections. Because of night riding we have to meet a few safety regulations. Off we go at 6;00am. 9 riders doing the 400K, 6 doing the 600K, and the rest doing double 200K's or double 300K's. Some riders will say a mountainous 400K is the hardest brevet because you have time limits and you can't really build up enough time cushion for any sleep so you have to stay up the whole ride. I second that motion. Salisbury to Lenoir, the first 100K pace is a little brisk as we're averaging a bit over 18 mph. I keep my sights on the lead group but I'm more comfortable riding solo. Lenoir to Marion begins to offer steeper longer climbs so the peloton crumbles. Mile 87 the groups divide with the 400K riders heading to Lake James. John and I find ourselves alone out front of the other 400K crew. Near Lake James, Our friend Jerry joins us a bit later. Major climbs begin at mile 95, we would visit the Lake, climb a mountain, drop back down to the lake, several times, a beautiful route. The final climb away from the Lake to Marion was a 15 minute 3 to 5 mph affair. We arrive at Marion, mile 115 and I'm already toast. The "FUN" hadn't even started yet. Marion to Little Switzerland, 18 miles, 3,800 vertical feet just to get to the halfway point. Starts out ok, minor climbs for the first 8 miles. Mile 123, NC 226 and 226 Alt split, our route has us taking 226 Alt. (less traffic) to Little Swiss. Sign says, steep grades and curves for next 10 miles, "trucks not recommended" What about bicycles? 8 to 12% for 10 miles, stopping a half dozen times. Stopped once, heard a plane flying over, then realized it was a motorcycle a couple hundred above me coming down the next switchback. That's when the "F" words started. I'd bottled up those words for several months and released them all over the next 12 hours. The 3 of us arrived in little Swiss between 4:30 and 4:45 in the afternoon. Joined in their 4th of July parade then got burger and fries and discussed the first half of our ride. 135 miles down, and only 125 miles to go. The organizer of the ride Tony paid us a visit and he seemed delighted that it took so long for the first group to arrive. I guess he gets brownie points for making such a difficult route. So from then on the "F" words were directed at him. Next 20 miles were on the Blue Ridge Parkway heading towards Blowing Rock through Linville. Tony was happy to inform us of a 3 mile and a 5 mile climb through this section with no food or water for the next 50 miles. @#$%!!!!. Slow going again. Jerry left out before us and we never saw him again. John and I stayed in contact for the rest of the ride. That proved a very smart move for the both of us. Our goal was to get out of the mountains before sunset because we had a very fast 13 mile decent ahead of us. we succeeded! At the bottom (mile 165) we stop at a very festive campground hoping for food but the grill had closed. We rig up our lights. Only 95 miles to go. It takes a lot of effort to get back on the bikes, but off we go heading back to Lenoir. About 10 miles outside of town the fireworks start. Very impressive display right in front of us. As we get closer we arrive at the county fairgrounds and there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cars. It looked like a NASCAR event. We speed through. Grand finally and then we find ourselves between the fairgrounds and Lenoir. @#$%*!!! We find a side street and pull over. Local cops pull in behind us sirens blaring wanting to know what the h#ll????. They let us know that emergency vehicles were on the way to a 911 call down the road and we might want to wait this out. We had already made that decision and we sat and watched bumper to bumper traffic for an hour. By the time it thinned out the local cops checked in on us and let us know that a couple more bikes were just a few minutes down the road. The 4 of us headed on together to Lenoir. 11:45, mile 186. John and I stop at Sonic for grilled cheese sandwiches and large coffees with a shot of espresso. Still over 70 miles to go, it was gonna be a long night. Legs are completely gone, sleep deprivation creeps in through the night and the pace slows. Mile 230, the last control at a huge truck stop. We can barely stand up, and barely keep our eyes open at 4:30am. We walk down the long coffee selection. The last one was labeled "JACKED UP". I'll have some of that!!! Throw in a krispy creame doughnut and things are ok for a little while, but we still have to finish this. We are both seriously trying to stay awake and upright on the bike. The last 25 miles take forever. Lots more "F" words whenever we start another climb. We throw in a few sprints to stay focused. John throws in a 20+ mph effort towards the end and I struggle to catch up. The last 8 miles take forever, the sun is up, I'm checking the mileage every couple tenths. Finally, the END, 260 miles, over 15,000 vertical feet of climbs and 25 hours later it's over. 7:00 am we head for the motel, check out is 11:00 so we have time for showers and just a couple hours of sleep. How hard was this? I plan on doing BSG again next year. John nor I plan to ever do this ride again in it's entirety. NEVER! tim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CyclistsOfWilson-COWs" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cyclistsofwilson-cows?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CyclistsOfWilson-COWs" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cyclistsofwilson-cows?hl=en.
