National 24 Hour Challenge 2015

I'm an idiot, my wife has been telling me that for years, I've always been too stupid to listen. Todays definition of an idiot is someone that does not learn from their mistakes, sometimes doing the exact opposite of what should have been learned.

Just last month, Calvin's 12 hour challenge was a very rough ride for me. Even though I met my goal, I felt terrible during the and after the ride. I had to hold my head down between my knees a few times after the ride to keep from passing out. My foot still has pain remnants while simply walking. I'm sure there are a lot of reasons the ride was so rough for me, high on the list was not training for the ride.

The lesson learned should be obvious, don't do another double century or longer ride until I'm in better shape and prepared. So I need to do some proper training, drop my winter pounds then perhaps in a few months, I'll be ready.

Since the National 24 hour challenge is in June, that means I needed to skip it this year. I haven't done any training since Calvin's, I even had a bike crash that held back my riding for a week. My bad knee was bothering me a bit for the last couple of weeks. It's five hours away, which isn't too bad, until you consider the five hour drive back, right after completing a 24 hour bike ride.

So it seemed like a lesson learned, skip the 24 hour this year. I'm not physically ready (as made clear by Calvin's ), they were also predicting severe weather with lots of wind. So there is no reason to even consider the N24HC. After all, I'm not an idiot (don't ask my wife's opinion on this). So it's settled, perhaps next year. End of story.

Then why am I sitting at the N24HC registration page just minutes before the registration deadline? The weather still shows thunderstorms, I'm still carrying my winter weight, my foot still aches, I'm not in better shape. Why am I so drawn to this event? It would be great if I could get my first ever  triple century. Somehow, I don't have the power to stop myself, five minutes before the midnight deadline? Suddenly I'm filling out the online form afraid I may not make the midnight deadline. HA! completed, I made it in time, I am totally an idiot.

The next few days after registering I set my phone weather app to closely watch the weather at Middleville Michigan. It doesn't look good. At first it looked bad all day and night.  They were predicting 15 - 20mph winds from the South East, so the first 60 miles of the 121 mile loop would be slow against the wind, while the trip back would be fun depending on how hard the rain was. As Saturday drew nearer, they re-guessed it was only going to be severe weather at the very start of the ride. Then they changed it to early afternoon, later it moved to late evening. I was prepared for the wet adventure, I had my biking rain coat ready and made a rain visor that could be velcroled to my helmet when needed, using the bottom of a clear Tupperware container as the visor. I hope the wife doesn't discover that her bin is missing a bottom.

Late Friday morning I left for Middleville, expecting to get there around 4:00 in the afternoon. The weather app was now predicting the thunderstorm to hold off till Midnight, but the humidity was going to be high with temps in the mid 80s. I had been hoping for some severe weather so I would have an excuse for failing this ride. I would consider anything less then a double century as a failure, since I already completed one of those this year. An utter complete failure would be not even completing the first 121 mile loop.

Goals for this ride:
Even though this ride is hillier then Calvin's, I wanted to complete the first 200 miles under 12 hours, like I did at Calvin's. My primary goal was to complete my first ever triple Century, 300 miles.

The morning of the ride:
I looked outside the van I was sleeping in and saw the flags blowing steadily in the wind. Drats, so much for the 3 - 4 mph final wind prediction for the morning. Looking at my phone I see the severe weather was going to hold off till after midnight, but the winds are in single digits all day! The temperature is in the high 50's so I won't be needing my jacket. This ride works by starting everyone on a 121 mile loop at 8:00 Saturday morning, once that loop is complete, we move to a 24 mile loop, then after 7:15 we can start the 7 mile loop for the night time ride, we can ride the 7 mile loop as many times as we can before 8:00 Sunday morning.

The 121 mile loop:
The first loop started at 8:00 sharp with the local school band playing the bagpipes over the loudspeakers. There are over 250 riders for the mass start event. The local police are controlling the traffic at the major intersections to help keep it an incident free start.

Once in the countryside, like most other mass start rides, the upright bikes would pass me on long uphill sections, but then I'd re-pass them on the downhill sections. On other rides, I used to try stick with other groups, but that meant hitting the brakes through the downhill sections, so I usually go off on my own. After 20 miles or so, the groups start spreading out, some behind me, others ahead. There are usually a couple riders off in front that I can see, to help assure me that I'm still on the correct road. I've missed plenty of road markers in other rides, I wasn't looking for any bonus miles today.

The rest stops had plenty of fruit and water plus porta-potties. In this ride you have to stop at the sag stops so they can punch your mileage card to document your distance traveled. There are three stops along the first 121 mile loop, the longest is around 37 miles between stops. I put on the arm and leg coolers at the first stop. The weather was almost perfect, it could have been a little cooler and we could always do with less wind. But the temperature only got to around 84 and overcast most of the day. I started to feel some heat and humidity around 3:00 but it didn't seem to last long.

The 24 mile loops:
Once you have finished the 121 mile loop you can start the 24 mile loop at any time, and do as many loops as you like, as long as you get to its check point before 8:00, when it closes. The check point was around 7 miles into the loop. The 3-4 miles right before the checkpoint seemed to be all gentle uphill with the strongest headwinds all day. I was feeling great up till this point, now I was letting the riding conditions get me down. Leaving the checkpoint was still gentle up hills, but then a turn to a different street and suddenly downhill speeds! nice. Then came the steepest hill on the 24 mile loop, not a monster by any means, thankfully it was short but not too steep. Once I got to the top though... it had a great long downhill section, which had me coasting at 32mph for what seemed like a couple of miles. There was a rolling hill, but the momentum from the last hill almost took me to the top, then more fun downhill sections. Definitely worth the uphill climbs for the downhill joy. Before I knew it, the 24 mile loop was finished and I was ready to start my second one.

Some upright cyclist would pass me during the uphill sections of this loop. Since the recumbent is more aero then most uprights, I would almost always pass them on the downhill sections. When I could easily coast over 30mph. It was like activating my secret super-human powers as I could effortlessly coast by some very fast cyclist that were putting some real effort at keeping me at bay. I simply coasted by them, without peddling and waved while they peddled as fast as they could. For some reason, I was starting to enjoy the 24 mile loops. I imagined myself donning a superman cape on the fast down hills. I ended up doing 3 loops for a total of 193 miles.

The 7 mile loops:
We are allowed to start the 7 mile loop start at 7:15, It's around 7:38 when I finished the last 24 mile loop, giving me over 20 minutes to complete the double century before 8:00. The 7 mile loop has all the intersections controlled by the local police department, plus they have spotlights powered by generators to lessen any chance of a car-bike accident at any intersection. This loop is mostly flat with one nice downhill section that ends too soon with a right turn, while the last mile is mostly uphill. I finished the first 7 mile loop before 8:00, meeting my first goal of 200 miles under 12 hours, YAY!

Now it was time for a quick break. I put on some dry cloths, took off the arm and leg coolers, took a potty break then ate a banana. I have almost twelve hours to do a century, to complete my primary goal. I had plenty of time, I could even nap a couple of hours and still easily make it. Unless the thunderstorm came through and ruins everything. A quick check of the phone app to see what time the storm was expected, had an unexpected surprise, the storm chances went to zero, there wasn't going to be any severe weather tonight. Nice, but I wasn't going to take any chances. I decided to complete the last century before taking any long break, in case the storm actually did make a surprise visit.

Somewhere around 3-4 o'clock I finished my 300 mile goal. I decided to add a few more miles just so it wouldn't look like I was desperate to hit the goal and then quit right away. My mind kept telling me I had been biking long enough and it was time to do something else for a while. I wasn't able to concentrate on keeping a straight line and was afraid I could crash into someone that was trying to pass me. I had completed my goals, there didn't seem any reason to keep on going. I could have easily gone more miles, but at 5:00 with 323 miles in, I decided it was time to put the bike up, get cleaned up and sleep a couple of hours before the five hour drive home.

I turned in my punch sheet and received the 300 mile pendant, to go along with the 200 mile pendant from two years ago. I brought my own towel and showered at the middle school gym, which supplied the soap. I then set my phone alarm for 8:00 and turned in for a couple of hours of sleep.

The morning after:
Once I was up and about, I mentioned to another rider that I stopped riding around 5:00 and had completed 323 miles. He mentioned, I had plenty of time to get the 350 mile pendant. DRATS! Why am I just now hearing about the 350 mile pendant? I had no idea there was a 350 mile pendant, or I would have pushed on.

They had a free breakfast brought in by Subway. There was also a drawing of a lot of great gifts, including a set of $1,200 Velocity wheels and three $100 bike floor pumps. It looked like there was at least  $2,000 dollars worth of prizes. I won a set of USB chargeable front and rear bike lights.

They had a great awards ceremony for all the age groups or by type of bikes. Giving out medals to all the 1st, 2nd and 3rd distance placers. The longest male distance was 493 miles the longest distance female was tied by two ladies at 424 miles, while the longest distance recumbent male was 462 miles (no female recumbent riders rode this year)

After the ride I was convinced that I was more of a 12 hour rider instead of a 24 hour rider. I was thinking I'd never do another 24 hour, instead I'd start concentrating on 12 hour rides. But, as time went by ( a couple of hours), I started thinking about the 350 mile pendant and how many men and women rode over 400 miles, and saw how passionate the volunteers and the ride admins were. I started thinking about signing up first thing next year. After all, waiting for the last minute to check the weather didn't make any difference, I have gone twice, and the weather guessers have been wrong both times. Last year they predicted it was going to be a great day, when thunderstorms blew down my tent and forced them to close the ride for a few hours. This year they predicted terrible weather, but it was an almost perfect day. Might as well register the first of the year and save on registration fees.



I actually felt great physically after this ride, I did have some aches and pains but nothing as severe as after Calvin's. I didn't get lost even once on this ride, which is unusual for me the road markings were great. The volunteers were fantastic and really helps make this the great ride that it is.

This ride has an old fashioned way of tracking your mileage, by punching your card and documenting your times through each checkpoint. This method may cause some lower times since you have to stop and start over and over again. But is highly accurate compared to Calvin's electronic method, which has always had errors on my rides that I had to correct. I think I prefer the old punch card method.

Link to ride details:

The ride photographer snapped my picture a couple of times
Hill climb and smiling

On Sission Road