I was looking for an UMCA 12 hour race to replace Calvins Challenge, since last year looks to be the last year of Calvin's. I really both loved and hated Calvin's Challenge. It was only a couple of hours drive for me, was in early enough to prepare for the National 24 hours challenge over Fathers day weekend in June. I sometimes hated it since it was held early enough in the season to have some really bad bad weather days, whether it be the cold, cold rain, snow or very strong winds, or the combination of all the above. But when the weather was great, it was a fantastic ride. Plus it was my inaugural UMCA event which was held on my 50th birthday a few years ago, I managed 187 miles even though there were 25MPH winds all day.
I liked the Maryland Endurance Challenge since it is still well before my 24 hour ride, and matches the 12 hour of Calvin's. I never would have considered this new ride if I had completed Calvin's this year. The negative for me is the 8 hour drive time to get to the event, this would be the longest trip I have ever made for a bike ride.
The Ride details:
This is the inaugural Maryland Endurance Challenge held on the Mount St. Mary's University PNC Sports Complex in Frederick County, Maryland. This event is to help benefit the local organization SHIP which helps local county homeless students of public schools This new event has three challenges available, 12, 6 and 3 hour courses. Each course includes two loops, one at 34 miles and the second at 7 miles. The 12 hour challenge starts with three 34 mile loops, the 6 hour challenge starts with two 34 mile loops and the 3 hour with one 34 mile loop. Each challenge then finishes with as many 7 mile loops that you can fit in before your time expires, whether it is 3, 6, or 12 hours. The last lap does not need to be a complete lap, they will use your average time of the last loop from the timing chip to calculate how many miles you completed at the final second.
Laps were primarily tracked by timing chips attached to the bike. They were also manually checked at the half way point of the large loop at the top of a short steep climb. The hill slowed the riders enough that the timekeepers had no problem checking the bike numbers as we rode or walked by. The primary timing location also had cameras filming to help with any disputes that may crop up.
If it all works out, I think this may be the best loop counting option I have seen at a UMCA event. I say 'if it works out' since we weren't given the results at the end of the race. So here it is Monday morning, two days after the event and I currently still have no idea how I have placed in this event.
The 8 hour drive to get there from Indiana:
I was not looking forward to the long drive. I know it sounds crazy to some, but I'd much rather ride my bike for 12 hours then drive any vehicle for 8 hours. I so much look forward to self driving cars, I for one would go to events farther away if my van took me while I slept in the back.
The drive wasn't as bad as I had imagined with the exception of one driver that I had encountered (we really need self driving cars now!) I was peacefully driving at 70MPH (the speed limit) in the passing lane, only a few seconds from passing a much slower car in the right lane. There were no other cars in sight in front of me, there was one car behind me. The driver of the slower car unexpectedly turned on their left turn signal, it blinked once and caught my attention, why would they be doing a lane change? There was no cars anywhere in front of them. The light started to blink a second time as the front of the car actually started to turn into my lane. This is not a drill! The car wasn't trying to make a lane change, it was actually made a full blown left turn, so now it is fully broadside in front of me and I'm merely seconds away from T-boning a car at 70MPH on the Interstate. I slam on the brakes and pull quickly to the right. My Ford Transit-connect wasn't intended for such hard braking turns. I think I was on two wheels for a second or so. I barely miss hitting the car as it pulled towards the Interstate medium. Now the back end of my van was about to scrape the car so I pulled to the left and managed to somehow miss the car completely, but now the van is out of control swerving left to right. Luckily there are no other cars in front of me and I'm in the middle of two lanes which gave me plenty of time to gain control before I would have crashed off the Interstate or into other cars. Not sure how it happened, it was so fast, but I finally gained control of the van without it flipping over or crashing into anything. I have now pulled into the slow lane to recuperate. it was a good 10 seconds later when I started to ferociously honk my horn at the car that I could see in my rear view mirror is now long behind me and sitting in the Interstate center medium waiting to make a U-turn into the traffic heading the opposite direction using an emergency vehicle U-turn area. I have no idea how the car behind me handled all this, he passed me and then pulled in front of me to turn off the Interstate. Later I thought I should have followed him to see if he may have filmed or had other thoughts as to what had just happened. Other then that one very short incident, the 8 hour trip was completely event-less and I don't think I'll be as discouraged by long drives at any future events.
Arrival at the PNC Sports Complex:
The Google map app expertly guided me into the correct area, as evidenced by the event signs along the road with arrows pointing the way to the event starting area. It is around 7:00 Friday evening , the night before the big event that starts at 8:00 in the morning. It's early enough that I decide to drive the clearly marked roads to check out the road conditions. I was pleasantly surprised at how smooth and pot-hole free the roads looked, from a car perspective. The largest obstacles were some muddy spots from trucks and tractors that could be washed off with a good rain. There are a lot of short steep hills plus the one long 100+ foot hill that wasn't as steep, just long. The course has lots of beautiful countryside including three covered bridges, meandering creeks, wooded areas and small towns. One of the better if not the most beautiful UMCA route that I have been on (not that I have ridden a lot of them).
My plan was to sleep in the back of the van the night before the event and grab a hotel afterwards to clean up and rest before the drive back. I have parked in the event parking area, it is now pouring down rain, with any luck all the rain will be finished long before the 8:00 morning start time.
Morning of the race:
I got in a good 5 hours of sleep before getting up and found that I was no longer alone at the starting area. Organizers were prepping the start line and registration areas getting ready for the big event. The PNC complex has a restroom close by, so no porta potties were required at the starting area, this is great, it makes changing into the biking clothes a bit easier. Unfortunately there were no showers that could be used after the race, at least not that I had seen. I thought that I would be the only recumbent, I was wrong, I did see one other, an acquaintance that I have meant last year at the National 24 hour challenge (sorry, I'm terrible with names). He said there were a couple more signed up, one for the 6 and one for the 3 hour, although I didn't see either one of them.
Race start:
The race started with a mass start at a few minutes after 8:00 with the firing of a musket from a civil war reenactment soldier from a local event or club. Once the musket went off, the official timer started and we were off! The start was thankfully un-eventful and very smooth. I wasn't in a hurry, I typically take it somewhat easy until the crowd dissipates into their smaller groups. By the time I was getting close to the 30 mile mark, I was riding alone.
The 34 mile loop:
This loop has three covered bridges, which are a little bumpy but not dangerous for bikes with narrow tires like some covered bridges I have seen. There are three railroad crossings the first two are very smooth and safe to ride over but the third one looks terrible if you stop and look at how large the gaps are, but as long as there is no traffic and you can hit the rails at a 90 degree angle they were easy enough to cross. Traffic was very light, there was a couple of intersections in the small towns that were troublesome since the cross traffic did not stop. Since I'm on a recumbent and my head is back from the front of the bike I can't see around the buildings as well to see if there is oncoming traffic, until the front of my bike is almost in the street.These were some of the best and smoothest roads I have ever ridden on for a complete double century. I don't mean just some of them, they were all great roads. They had signs warning of 'loose gravel' over a few miles, it did look like there was some loose bits of gravel, but if it weren't for the signs, I never would have noticed it. The markers for the turns were great, with only one exception. It was fairly obvious when it was time to turn. that one exception was quickly fixed. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, this course has a few of hills.
The night before I had noticed a large and very dead snake on the road, it was actually on the right hand side and would have to be carefully steered around to avoid this obstacle. Now on my bike, I see a couple of vultures up ahead working over the dead snake. One vulture flew off, while the other grabbed the large dead snake and flew off straight down the road requiring more height before it could fly over the trees. It looked surreal with the snakes stiff body appearing to re-animate as it moved very snake-like side to side as it was being carried off, similar to what I would imagine a zombie snake would move and look like. Since the vulture was apparently having problems gripping and flying off with its meal, I started to think that perhaps it would drop the large dead snake square into my lap. I have seen videos of hawks dropping live snakes on people but never a vulture dropping a dead one on a person. I didn't want to be the first, so I started to slow down a little to give it time to stay ahead of me. I then started to think of all the little dead snake bits that were most likely showering down on me, and since I'm riding a recumbent, my smiling face was pointing straight upwards. I stopped smiling and slowed a little more and then was thankful that the vulture finally flew off over the trees to the side of the road still tightly gripping its fresh meal.
On the first loop it looked like the organizers forgot to mark when the long loop turned back into the 7 mile short loop to the starting area. (this was quickly fixed by the time I finished my second loop with large signs and road marker arrows) This problem was made worse since a mile down the road after the turn is missed you are right back on the large loop with the signs and markers making it look like you are still on the correct course. I became suspicious when I saw the "Hot Strava Segment ahead" sign, I remembered it from earlier in the loop. and wondered if they had two of these 'hot segments' or is this the same sign? Turned out it was the same sign. I turned the bike around to go back when a large group of riders came past, I asked are they on the first lap, they said yes. So I turned around again to follow this group surely they know were they were going. I then started to see some landmarks that I seem to recognize. Both myself and another rider are now convinced we are going the wrong way, she saw a street sign that she recognized. We both turn back and then wrongly turned towards to the starting area by following the starting area 'exit road', instead of the starting area 'entrance road'. After have a couple of riders hollered at us that we are going the wrong way, we again head back out and search for the starting area entrance road. We finally found the red short loop marker signifying where the correct turn off was. It is not uncommon for me to get lost at these events.
The 7 mile loop:
The 7 mile loop was a lot simpler with only right turns, no covered bridges, railroad tracks or flying dead snakes to worry about. On paper I was concerned since we could only do three large loops. I was worried that the small short loops would become boring after the first couple of times. Boy was I wrong, the short loop had plenty of great scenery and some nice downhills that really made this a fun and never boring loop, even after repeating it 16 times. It also felt very safe with only light traffic and right hand turns with no blind corners at these turns. The only cautious area was during a fast downhill section that had a blind curve and a culvert that I always slowed down for, watching for oncoming traffic but even this was a fun and exhilarating portion of the ride. Oh, almost forgot, this short loop also had a couple of hills.General notes:
I never stopped at the halfway stop area on the long course, so I can't say much about it, except it seemed to have plenty of volunteers and snacks from my perspective as I rode by. I only stopped three or four times to grab a new water bottle or more snacks. Somehow I didn't feel the urge to stop even once for a bathroom break.The area where you turn around after passing the electronic lap counter was only as wide as a regular street and it had a tall curb on each side. This can make it tricky for longer bikes to get turned around and restart their lap.
Over all this was a fantastic ride with almost perfect weather for this inaugural event. The temperatures were in the 60's with 100 percent cloud cover all day with a strong wind from the North. I only noticed the wind during the last two miles while heading into the starting area.
I really liked how the ride was organized, kudos to all that created this event and to the volunteers that helped this go smoothly.
Click here for my Strava ride details It shows 213.7 miles with a total time of 11:59:23, but some of it was extra bonus miles that won't count in the official finish time. I'm happy I could pull off a hilly double century under 12 hours, especially considering I'm 20 pounds overweight and had enough tools and equipment on the bike that it weighed in close to 30 pounds (including three 28 ounce water bottles). That is a lot of extra weight to pull up the endless amount of hills.
I am planning on updating post this as I get some pictures and the final results from this great event.
