186 Miles for the 1090 Cycling Team

Today was an epic bicycle ride with Keith Jensen, who is by far the strongest rider among the radio contestants. I foolishly let him talk me into doing a 300KM (186 miles) Brevet from San Diego Old Town to Sunset beach and back again. He is riding a Brevet series to try and qualify for the Paris-Brest- Paris 1200K bicycle race next year. This is the oldest bicycling event still regularly run.

This was the longest ride I have ever done and I’m glad I did it with Keith. I basically “sat on his wheel” with my head down trying to stay somewhat aero almost the entire ride. I was just trying to hang on the entire day. I would not want to ride this distance by myself even though riding this distance alone is typical for many long distance cyclists. I figured that if I could complete this distance that I would probably be able to complete the 620 mile ride down the coast in October. I also thought it would be a good way to promote the CAF and the Scott and BR cycling team since we wore the 1090/CAF bicycling jersey.

No major issues during the ride except I did have one flat which did slow us up some. I also tried to take Keith out very close to the end of the ride but no major damage except again for some lost time. I did get pretty tired at about mile 130 but felt better again at about mile 150. My feet also got a little numb toward the end of the ride for a little bit. I may move my cleats back on my shoe to try and get rid of this issue. We also had several close calls with some motorists who weren’t paying attention. The closest one being with a very large motor home who even though they had plenty of space on the road, managed to pass by us with a total of 6 inches to spare! Usually I’m extremely polite to motorists even if I think they are in the wrong but a few choice words were yelled at that driver!

I'm a little tired after 300K!

Several interesting parts of the ride were riding on the side of the highway between Oceanside and San Clemente. The vehicles going by you at 65 (or closer to 80 in California!) can be a little intimating. They actually do sort “of suck” you along though and our speed was probably one mph faster than normal during this stretch. The stretch through Laguna Beach is also interesting. Lots of art galleries, pretty scenery, beaches, etc. but lots of cars parked on the street with very little room to ride. This is not a stretch of the ride I would like to do again.

Our overall ride time was 11:34 for the ride and 09:41 of on the bike time for an average speed of 18.9. The scenery and weather were great all day! Special thanks to Keith for convincing me to do this and taking me along on this ride. He went slower than he probably normally does just so I could hang on.

And yes, I am sore from sitting for almost 200 miles on a little bitty seat but what a great day!