tour de palm springs: just another ride

the tour went very nicely. i finished 101 miles in about 6:30. many things happened along the way.

first, i had a cold. the day before the TDPS i went for a 9 mile ride and finished it rather beat. i worried that i'd do poorly on the tour. the cold was a head-cold and i still have it, lots of coughing and spitting. bleh.

i have never ridden in a group before. sure, i've tailed a fair number of pacelines, and i've had pacelines tail me, but i've never been in the middle of one, and certainly not in the middle of a large peloton.

right off the bat i was thrilled to learn something entirely new: how to make a kickstand out of a curb. now i know how to stand my bike up on the curb! i used that several times that day and once today.

i started in the third or fourth starting group. there was a whole lot of one-footed shuffling and i was pretty nervous about falling or being fallen-upon. i later found out that hops was fallen-upon and had to take her bike to the Giant booth for repairs. after the ride, i took my bike to the specialized booth because the shifting had been banged to hell. they wouldn't help me, but giant would. they fixed the bike up in a couple of minutes, accomplishing what would have taken me an hour. i'm pretty impressed with giant, even though i'd never heard of them until that moment.

i got off to a decent enough start. i woke up at 4:50, 10 minutes before i'd been training myself to wake, and expelled all the stuff i had trained myself to expel before sitting on a bike for half a day. that out of the way, i'd thrown the bikes in my bro's truck and my dad drove me and hops to the start. it turned out that the start was for suckers, unless you really wanted to start in a big group. in fact, it turned out that maybe the whole ride was for suckers unless you were doing it with some friends. now that i've done it, i'm not sure what the point was. more on that later.

after rounding the first corner, we were joined by a bunch of cyclists who wanted to ride but weren't interested in starting off at the start line. if i were doing it over again, or not being dropped off by someone, i'd start like that. why deal with the large crowd hassle?

the ride out of town was difficult, in the sense that it was entirely new to me: riding in a gigantic group of evenly spaced riders that stretched off for miles ahead. it was difficult to pass but i did when i could, and got yelled at by a motorcycle cop for crossing out of the cone area. meh.

my folks and hops and i had driven the 100 mile route the day before. my dad had pointed out all the "climbs", saying things like "a bit of a grind here!" or "you'll really have to pump up this one!" i had pooh-pooh-ed those statements: not one of the hills on the entire 100 mile route holds a candle even to the warm-up hill at the beginning of my bay area rides.

but one thing that worried me a little was the wind. after riding out of palm springs proper, the route took a left turn right into the windmills, an area known as "windy point". there's a reason it has that name, and a reason they built the windmills there: it's very windy. this was where the group began to spread out and i could actually try to go my own speed -- except that i was heavily opposed by the wind. i ended up going about 10mph -- pretty sad considering that i'd spend most of the rest of the ride upwards of 20mph.

every time our group approached a hill i spun right up it, past dozens of people, many of them out of the saddle doing their climbing thing. i got passed plenty of times on the ride, but i dont think i ever got passed on a hill. yay me.

after 10 or so miles of struggling against the wind, we arrived at the first sag stop, which was a total mess. they'd set it up so poorly that everyone, everyone had to dismount to pass through. it was absurd. i had no intention or need to stop but i had to dismount and walk through dirt (i'm not a priss about getting dirty, but it does put wear on my cleats) to get past. lame.

after that, indian and dillon road. i've never been on indian/dillon but next time i visit the folks and bring my bike, i'm sure they will figure into my ride. long, undulating, and largely downhill with the wind at my back, i maintained speeds upwards of 40mph for large sections, never dropped below 25mph (except during a pee break) and spent a lot of time in 35mph pacelines. the downside: the pavement is largely total crap. sun baked, cracked, knobby, rough. i started out the ride with a little slop in my shifters (probably introduced by the truck-ride to the ride start. next time, i ride to the start) but by the time i was off dillon and through thermal/coachella, i had only four or five usable gears to get me the remaining 50 miles. the other gears worked but would shift out unexpectedly. if i'd realized how simple the fix was, i'd have done it myself (next time!) or had the repair dudes at the sag stop do it (also next time).

the leg through "down valley" was kinda smelly, ugly, and uneventful. you know, "down valley". one thing happened though: i followed a group of riders out of a sag stop and down the street. after a while, i noticed something odd: nobody was passing me. i had been passed all day at all speeds, even when i was going 40mph people were passing me. i looked behind me a bunch of times: nobody. i checked out the people i was following, and they all had the yellow wristbands of the 100-mile route. eventually, we came to a cross-street clogged with cyclists. we'd been off-route and had joined up with the real route. sigh.

it turns out that this error cost me 1 mile from the ride, which brought my ride total to 101 miles instead of 102. as you may have noticed, 101 miles >= 100 miles, which means i still did a century.

at the sag stops, people were loafing about, getting off their bikes, chatting and laughing and enjoying the bands and the girl scouts or whatever. i tried to get into this mood but couldn't: i was really there for the ride. for me, the sag stops involved water refills, a pee-break (if i hadn't already gone on the road) and a quick getaway. i used my phone at the second-to-last stop to notify my folks that i'd be done soon. i also took off my arm and leg warmers there (at 10 miles to go :D). that felt like an extravagant wait.

i saw three or four ambulances, and one actual person being carted off to an ambulance. i saw lots of flat tires and felt really bad for not stopping, because in the bay area, i always ask if i can help. i saw lots of people enjoying the ride, lots of people struggling, and only one guy with an arrogant bastard jersey (though there were at least 5 in the ride). i passed a lot of fancy bikes, and got passed by a lot of modest bikes with grizzled riders. i averaged 21mph (moving -- lots of stoplights :() the last 10 miles of the ride, and 17mph (moving) the entire ride.

one of the roads during the last mile was cracked and gnarled, and banged the crap out of everyone's bike. it was a truly needless routing decision.

at the end of the ride there was little fanfare besides from my folks, who were (mostly) waiting for me. i laid on the pavement and enjoyed the sunshine, but i wasn't especially tired or bushed. i rode without my HRM so maybe i wasn't pushing hard enough. i dunno. it felt to me like just another ride.

i think next time i want to ride 100 miles, i won't pay 70 bucks for the privilege. it was nice having refill stops, but i can plan a route to include water fountains. it was a really great experience and i enjoyed myself thoroughly, including all the training and the getting up early and stuff. i didn't enjoy the head cold. it was just a ride, and i enjoy that enough without the framing of an "event".