bma sufferfest
How do you insure you suffer during Sufferfest? Leave your car @ 8:30am and ride 45+miles and return at 4:30pm and only eat 1.5 clif bars the entire time. duh!
Sufferfest started at Ned High School and ended at Beaver Rez with a campout. I opted to not camp out as I wanted to spend the evening with my honey. So the plan was to do the ride and then ride back to Ned via the Peak-to-Peak Hwy.
The ride started out with a loop about the Hobbit trails and then hopping on FS road 505 to Caribou (aid 1) hit the Rainbow Lakes trail to Sourdough and take Sourdough-> Wapiti-> Sourdough to Beaver Rez - easy enough, eh?
getting lost
62 people started out and I didn't latch on to any one group but rode alone. I lost contact w/people and then recognized I was doing the loop again...hmm...so I rode along and then saw I was riding the same trails again! oops...after riding the same section 3 times I admited to myself I was lost - I couldn't find my way out and was turned around. I finally ask some campers how to get to a major road and then pointed me to Hwy 72 (P2P). I popped out on the other side of Ned and then rode back to the High School. It was 10:30 pm by this time I had been riding for 2 hours.
Since I didn't know the area that well and I didn't want to get lost (again) I figured I'd ride the road to the Sourdough TH and keep going from there. I got to Sourdough ~11:30 and I was at 22miles on my bike computer.
Sourdough
Right when I was starting out on Sourdough I ran into John Perry. John and I are compatible riders - he's a bit faster on the climbs and I'm a bit faster on the descents so we ended up riding the rest of the ride together.
By the time we hit Aid Station 2 (brainard rd) I was STARVING. I had been out for over 4 hours and hadn't eaten anything. The only thing they had to eat was chocolate-mint mini clif bars. yuck! But I was so hungry I ate 4 of them. Apparently only 3 other riders had gotten to the aid station so we were at the front of the group. oops! guess the riding the road to the Sourdough TH is a lot faster even with those 2 extra loops on the Hobbit trails. Jason and his riding buddy got to the Aid Station a bit after us.
The Aid Station folks said we only had 7 miles left to Beaver Rez.
Popular trail and fashion flair
John and I hopped on our bikes and continued on. John wanted to put on his armor (his "hero" pads as he calls them) as he said the trail got really rocky. We started riding with another guy on the ride, Mike, a handsome young man. Not too far into the this section we ran into Sonya and Sean(mtnjedi on mtbr). We stopped and chatted for a bit.
Since I was faster on the descents than John and Mike - i would roll ahead and then wait. I felt I was riding well and was having fun bombing the descent. Then I ran into Anthony Sloan and Dave(icegeek) they were heading to South St. Vrain(yummy). Last week i ran into Anthony at Keystone and this week on the trail - small world, eh? We stopped and chatted with those guys for a while. Jason caught up to us and he chatted a bit too.
A lot of people commented on my flair - everyone from the Aid Stations girls to random peeps on the trail to Dave(icegeek). I was wearing my skully arm warmers and knee high socks. The good thing about wearing armwarmers and knee high socks is I don't have to put on a bunch of sunscreen. ;) Plus - with the crew I ride with i'm usually the slowest - if you can't ride a bike you might as well look good.
With all the visiting and such it probably took us 1.5 hours to ride that last 7 miles. We popped out at the Beaver Rez ~3pm. whew!
John said he really liked following my lines on the descent - he thought I was a good descender. I just told him - "well you should see my girlfriends they are WAY faster than me!" Mike also was impressed with my riding - esp when I told him my age. He's like "gosh - i thought you were my age(30) - you look 30. Since you kicked my ass I'm gonna think of you as 30". He was a sweetie for sure.
the grind to ned
John Perry offered to ride back part of the way with me (he had parked at Sourdough) but he wanted to hang out and eat. I was ready to get back so I said I would go ahead and head back. I hit Peak-to-Peak from CR96 and started back.
ugghhh...when i got back on the road I realized I should have ate something - by the time I passed Ward (the sign said 14miles to Ned) I thought 'how hard can it be?' I also noticed my rear tire was low... I didn't want to waste time stopping to pump up the tire or to get food out of my pack so I kept grinding. I suffered the whole way back - it took me 1.5 hours to go 16 miles on the road. In hindsight it was pretty stupid of me not to eat or pump up the tire but I was ready to be done.
I got to the car ~4:30...usually I'm pretty good about my nutrition during long rides but I totally botched this one. Even after I ate a big dinner I felt like crap the rest of the evening.
Sufferfest started at Ned High School and ended at Beaver Rez with a campout. I opted to not camp out as I wanted to spend the evening with my honey. So the plan was to do the ride and then ride back to Ned via the Peak-to-Peak Hwy.
The ride started out with a loop about the Hobbit trails and then hopping on FS road 505 to Caribou (aid 1) hit the Rainbow Lakes trail to Sourdough and take Sourdough-> Wapiti-> Sourdough to Beaver Rez - easy enough, eh?
getting lost
62 people started out and I didn't latch on to any one group but rode alone. I lost contact w/people and then recognized I was doing the loop again...hmm...so I rode along and then saw I was riding the same trails again! oops...after riding the same section 3 times I admited to myself I was lost - I couldn't find my way out and was turned around. I finally ask some campers how to get to a major road and then pointed me to Hwy 72 (P2P). I popped out on the other side of Ned and then rode back to the High School. It was 10:30 pm by this time I had been riding for 2 hours.
Since I didn't know the area that well and I didn't want to get lost (again) I figured I'd ride the road to the Sourdough TH and keep going from there. I got to Sourdough ~11:30 and I was at 22miles on my bike computer.
Sourdough
Right when I was starting out on Sourdough I ran into John Perry. John and I are compatible riders - he's a bit faster on the climbs and I'm a bit faster on the descents so we ended up riding the rest of the ride together.
By the time we hit Aid Station 2 (brainard rd) I was STARVING. I had been out for over 4 hours and hadn't eaten anything. The only thing they had to eat was chocolate-mint mini clif bars. yuck! But I was so hungry I ate 4 of them. Apparently only 3 other riders had gotten to the aid station so we were at the front of the group. oops! guess the riding the road to the Sourdough TH is a lot faster even with those 2 extra loops on the Hobbit trails. Jason and his riding buddy got to the Aid Station a bit after us.
The Aid Station folks said we only had 7 miles left to Beaver Rez.
Popular trail and fashion flair
John and I hopped on our bikes and continued on. John wanted to put on his armor (his "hero" pads as he calls them) as he said the trail got really rocky. We started riding with another guy on the ride, Mike, a handsome young man. Not too far into the this section we ran into Sonya and Sean(mtnjedi on mtbr). We stopped and chatted for a bit.
Since I was faster on the descents than John and Mike - i would roll ahead and then wait. I felt I was riding well and was having fun bombing the descent. Then I ran into Anthony Sloan and Dave(icegeek) they were heading to South St. Vrain(yummy). Last week i ran into Anthony at Keystone and this week on the trail - small world, eh? We stopped and chatted with those guys for a while. Jason caught up to us and he chatted a bit too.
A lot of people commented on my flair - everyone from the Aid Stations girls to random peeps on the trail to Dave(icegeek). I was wearing my skully arm warmers and knee high socks. The good thing about wearing armwarmers and knee high socks is I don't have to put on a bunch of sunscreen. ;) Plus - with the crew I ride with i'm usually the slowest - if you can't ride a bike you might as well look good.
With all the visiting and such it probably took us 1.5 hours to ride that last 7 miles. We popped out at the Beaver Rez ~3pm. whew!
John said he really liked following my lines on the descent - he thought I was a good descender. I just told him - "well you should see my girlfriends they are WAY faster than me!" Mike also was impressed with my riding - esp when I told him my age. He's like "gosh - i thought you were my age(30) - you look 30. Since you kicked my ass I'm gonna think of you as 30". He was a sweetie for sure.
the grind to ned
John Perry offered to ride back part of the way with me (he had parked at Sourdough) but he wanted to hang out and eat. I was ready to get back so I said I would go ahead and head back. I hit Peak-to-Peak from CR96 and started back.
ugghhh...when i got back on the road I realized I should have ate something - by the time I passed Ward (the sign said 14miles to Ned) I thought 'how hard can it be?' I also noticed my rear tire was low... I didn't want to waste time stopping to pump up the tire or to get food out of my pack so I kept grinding. I suffered the whole way back - it took me 1.5 hours to go 16 miles on the road. In hindsight it was pretty stupid of me not to eat or pump up the tire but I was ready to be done.
I got to the car ~4:30...usually I'm pretty good about my nutrition during long rides but I totally botched this one. Even after I ate a big dinner I felt like crap the rest of the evening.
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