Date: Saturday September 16th
Start: Vacaville
Total Time: 12hrs 37 minutes (with 3 tube changes)
Route: Vacaville to Fairfield (via a Hwy 80 frontage Road) to Napa (via Mt. George) to Lake Barryessa (via Mt. Howell) to Lower Lake (via Knoxville Road) to Lock Lomond (via Cobb Mountain) back to Vacaville (Via Cardiac Hill) with a total distance of 201 miles and 13,000 feet of climbing.
It’s 4am and my alarm yanks me away from the support vehicle for my 4 year old son in a European road race. Only he was grown up and racing as an under-21 pro. Not often does the alarm wake me the morning of a 200 mile ride. I am usually up 5 minutes before it goes off. That was great night sleep but I didn’t really want that dream to end.
By 4:30am I’m in the car headed to pick-up Scott after having performed my ritual of hot tea followed by cold water and a 20 ounce bottle of Perpetum. The ritual helps ensure all systems are go when we hit Vacaville at 5:45am.
4:45am I arrive at Scott’s as his garage door is closing after moving his bike outside with Scott no where to be seen. I see an opportunity to have some fun so I quickly pack Scott’s bike in the van and go get Scott. Scott makes certain he has all of his stuff and we head to the van when I ask him “Where’s your bike?” As Scott begins to wonder if he’s really awake and before he hyper-ventilates I give-in and tell him I already threw it in the van.
5:45am we arrive in Vacaville at the registration area. It’s plenty dark outside. The parking lot is already full but there is no one around with a bike. Clearly everyone has heeded the advice of the ride organizers and left between 4:30am and 5:30 am to get their light-aided riding done during the morning. My ride time last year was a good 8 minutes less than 13 hours and there is expected to be about 13 hours of daylight, so my foolish friend and I plan to leave at first light.
While obtaining our registration packets I run into Paul McKenzie, who is decked out in full Cliff sponsorship. Paul tells me the top riders are planning to leave at first light, around 6:15am. While Scott and I were ready about 6am we decide to stick to the “first light” plan and try to ride with the 6:15 group.
About 6:20 am our group of about 8 rolls out of Vacaville. In less than 3 miles we are alongside Highway 80 headed to Fairfield on a road that is shared with the Foxy’s Fall Century. I’ve been on this road at least 5 or 6 times but this has to be the first time without a head wind. It’s also the first time I notice the road is mostly downhill as we roll along between 25 and 30 mph.
In our group is Graham, who will be on the Furnace Creek 508 in 3 weeks, Jim Frink, a brother-in-law of Steve Rex, Paul McKenzie, who captained Cat Berge ahead of me on Devil Mountain in May, Ken Holloway, who just does BIG rides like Paris-Breast-Paris and California Gold Rush, Scott, myself, and Jenny and Craig, who normally ride a tandem together but find themselves on singles because their tandem hasn’t recovered from it’s crash on the Terrible Two in June. All of us have encountered each other before so we chat about Craig and Jenny’s accident, about Graham’s choice of shorts with extra air-conditioning for a 200 mile ride, about members missing from our ranks, and about future plans.
The group stays together through Fairfield and along the rolling hills but loses Craig and Jenny to a flat before hitting Mt. George at 20 miles. As we climb Mt. George I mistakenly let Graham set the pace. I quickly realize I should have kept the tempo because Graham waited for no one and the group of 6 fractures immediately. Realizing I didn’t want to be at the back I close a big gap to stay with Scott and Paul. Even keeping pace with them is a bit above my ability because I know Paul is at least 20 pounds lighter than me and I only had about 2 weeks in early May where I could keep up with Scott on a hill like Mt. George.
The descent into Napa is nice but the effort to close the gap back to Graham is hard enough to hasten recovery. I realize the full potential of the mistake I made on Mt. George during the run into the first rest stop at mile 36 when any decent effort causes my legs to burn more like mile 20 of a marathon than mile 30 of a 200 mile ride.
The first stop is so quick I didn’t realize I should have ditched my knee warmers until we were clear of the stop. A mile or two later and Graham is setting the pace that provides very little margin for recovering from my effort up Mt. George. Scott is looking like he could hang with these guys all day and I’m having a hard time staying on the back after any rotations through the front of the paceline. Thinking Scott would possibly join me and ruin his ride if I dropped off, I figure it would be better to totally blow up and then tell him to stay with the the group. For about 10 miles I just kept my head down and hoped for recovery while dreaming of a flat tire.
At mile 50 I hear an extreme evacuation of air from a tire but it isn’t mine. Luckily for me, it was Scott’s front tire. Scott changes the flat and Santa Claus shows up in the support vehicle with a floor pump, Scott. Now we are on our way with the Paul, Jim, and Graham off the front. At this point we have not passed many riders though our pace to the 50 mile flat has been 20+ mph.
Shortly we come upon Howell Mountain which takes us by Scott’s college campus and some winery George Bush stayed at when he flew into Napa. This climb is a little more tame because I have told Scott of my issue from Mt. George and he repeatedly eases off the pace to keep me on his wheel. On this climb we finally start to pass people, though they don’t seem like the type who will finish. The descent down to Berryessa is wild and wrought with people who seem to go slower downhill than we do uphill.
At mile 70 we reach the second rest stop, ditch our vests, arm warmers, and leg warmers. It is here that we begin to ride through the 5am’ers. No doubt we are not as fast through the rest stops as the three riders in front of us but before 2 miles beyond the stop we have certainly passed everyone who was at the stop when we arrived.
Leaving Lake Berryessa starts the 30 mile climb up Knoxville Road. It’s not the best road by any stretch of the imagination but it’s got zero traffic and the potholes are mostly encountered below 18 mph instead of at 40 mph on some downhill. My legs are starting to feel a lot better thanks to Scott pulling me for the last 30 miles but the initial intensive effort up Knoxville Road quickly set them back on fire and we have to take it a bit easier for the last 10 miles on Knoxville.
The top of Knoxville finally comes at 100 miles and we cruise down into lunch, where we find our leaders who leave about 5 minutes after we arrive. Between mile 60 and mile 107 we have essentially ridden by all the early start riders. Most of the passing comes near rest stops which Scott and I agree are not places to rest but rather just refuel stops. We know that spending too long at a rest stop will mean a longer warm up after the stop and makes the 200 mile ride feel like a series of six 33 mile rides.
Leaving lunch we head up and over Cobb Mountain on very nice pavement. Pavement like this causes Scott much chagrin because his full aluminum bike prefers the true feel of the road. In fact earlier on Knoxville Road Scott was feeling very sorry for me on my carbon-ti bike (”if you can call it a bike”, Scott says) because I was “truly missing out” on the full experience the road has to offer. I guess Scott is right. Though I may never dream of riding Knoxville Road on an aluminum bike, knowing Scott is suffering, washes a bit of the pain in my legs away.
After Cobb Mountain we descend into Butts and Pope valleys without much climbing left for the day. These roads are to be truly appreciated by an aluminum framed bicycle. They are stricken with potholes like few others. Luckily for Scott the pace is swift enough to experience a full appreciation for the road and again remind me of what I am missing.
Before the station at mile 160 and even though Scott is loving the road to it’s full potential, he experiences a brief period of “the bonk.” To solve this problem he downs a quick Cliff shot then attempts to chase it with a Powerbar shot. In Scott’s words:
“Unfortunately the warm packet spurted over my leg, pants and bike in a nasty, adult-film sort of way. Not only did I waste part of the vital benefit, I used half my fresh water to rinse the mess down my leg and into my shoe. Not sure where it went from there.”
The final climbs of the day take us back up to Lake Berryessa and over my college stomping grounds as we peak Cardiac Hill. This climb goes slow and we are passed by 140 lbs Wade who actually missed our start time by about 2 minutes. Wade’s light body and even lighter 16 lbs full carbon bike don’t go downhill as fast as our 200 lbs setups. So, we catch Wade and ride to the finish where we find Paul and Jim only 20 minutes and Graham 45 minutes ahead of us. We give Wade his 4th place and Scott and I take 5th and 6th.
Curt
