2013 N24HC

Eric Winn

Zen MBB Master
To echo Jim Parker, " This is the ride report from my FIRST ever 24-hour event. ", except, uh, we didn't quite end up with 24 hours to ride, only 21 hours - more about this further down.

Unlike Jim, my goals and achievement were somewhat less lofty - grin.

My goal was to complete at least 200 miles and then play it by ear to see how much more I wanted to push. I'm older than Jim and Maria (but not by much) and have been overly sedentary for several years so I'm still building my base. That is my story and I'm sticking to it!

I drove over to Hastings, Michigan on Thursday, June 13 with my girlfriend Laurie who was doing her FIRST ever 24-hour crewing for me. We decided to stay at the Adrounie House Bed and Breakfast which is 10 miles from Middleville and just about in the center of the 117.6 mile long loop. Don and April Tubbs are the owners and truly marvelous hosts accommodating Laurie and I coming and going at very early hours and coming back in the middle of the night for a bit of rest - more about that later.

alt="Adrounie House B&B"

I wanted to arrive on Thursday so I could drive the long loop that afternoon, rest and register on Friday, and then ride on Saturday-Sunday. So after getting settled in with Don and April's help off we went to Middleville to find the Thornapple-Kellogg Middle School.

Finding the school was a bit confusing as there were something like 4 schools all clustered near each other on W. Main Street/Green Lake Rd and they were all prominently named Thornapple-Kellogg Elementary, High School, Middle School, etc. After first pulling into the high school parking lot, I realized my error and found the entrance to the Middle School just west of the high school, recognizing some of the landmarks from the photos in Jim's blog and the photos from the N24HC website.

Since this was Thursday, there was nothing setup and few people in sight. After studying the map for the long loop I found where the start went down the back driveway out of the middle school through their bus barn and started up my Cyclemeter app to track the route while driving it.

Unfortunately we just missed the time when the school system closes off the two gates where the back driveway passes through the bus barn. I paused Cyclemeter and then drove back out the front and around to the other side of the bus barn to pick up tracking as close to where I left off as I could. On the other side we ended up meeting and chatting at length with 61 year old Chuck Knott, a long time 24-hour challenge rider who would end up reaching 2039.1 miles with this year's 24-hour challenge, his 5th one.

Chuck had just gotten back from doing some practice rides on the 23.7 mile loop. He got stuck on the other side of the bus barn, just missing the cutoff for the gates closing and was getting ready to ride back around on the road to the front of the school to rejoin his wife Claire. Chuck was very kind and patient with me pummeling him with questions about how things worked and how fast he usually rode, and so on. Later, Laurie ended up sitting with Claire at Checkpoint 4, located at the middle school. BTW, Chuck ended up placing first in the Male 60-64 age bracket and 4th overall with 393.6 miles.

After saying goodbye to Chuck we spent almost 3 hours driving the long loop. I was very glad I did as it made it much easier on the actual ride as I knew exactly where I was on the entire long loop.

alt="Ride With GPS drive data"

After getting back to our room, I was checking emails and Facebook and saw the news about the accident with Maria's RAAM follow vehicle, literally 9 minutes after it was posted. I quickly scanned through Facebook, Cruzbike.com, BROL, etc looking for more information. I sent Jim a text offering Maria the use of my Vendetta if they wanted it. I then saw the post on the Cruzbike forums from Mike Cash and called him and gave him my number and also told him I would be glad to help. I was up very late looking for more information on Maria's status and ended up finally going to sleep sometime after 1am.

We slept in on Friday and then went over to the school around 1pm, periodically checking on news about Maria.

You are allowed to start setting up after 12pm on Friday. Most people bring tents and position them close to the circular drive at the front of the school where Checkpoint 4 is located. Laurie and I wandered around and visited with some of the people setting up asking questions and introducing ourselves.

Rider packet pickup was scheduled to start at 5pm along with a spaghetti dinner but they started handing out packets around 3p so I went ahead and picked up my packet. I was assigned rider number 133:

alt="My rider tag"

Laurie and I ended up sitting with Chuck and Claire at the spaghetti dinner Friday night and met a few other people and had a really good time. One of the people we met was Pascale Lercangee who was extremely upset when I showed her the Facebook photo of Maria's bashed in RAAM follow vehicle. Pascale considers Maria one of her heros/role models and was having a hard time keeping her composure at the news. At this point Maria's status was DNF and many of us were sad and disappointed for her and her RAAM crew.

Laurie and I packed it in for the night, got everything set aside for the morning, got up at 5am or so and drove over to the school about 6am where I pulled the Vendetta out of the back of my Chevy Equinox and quickly put it back together and then did a quick test ride around the parking lot.

When the horde of people started gathering at the start I went and found a hole about midway in the pack or perhaps a bit further back thinking I should start off slow and steady. BIG mistake. I should have jumped in on the front as I ended up freewheeling a lot the first 1.5 miles, pedaling only a little every now and then until the tight grouping of people in front of me started spreading out. After the turn on to Adams road, I was able to start safely passing people. I was averaging a little under 16 mph in this stretch. Next year, I'm jumping on the front of the start and starting out fast to stay out of the crowded start.

Me on the left shortly after the start. I passed a few people along the driveway exiting the school in a few gaps like this but then hit a mass of bikes just as we entered the road:
2013_N24HC_Eric_Winn_Start.JPG


It was still crowded but I was pedaling at a comfortable pace for me and steadily started passing other riders. The police were at all of the intersections inside of Middleville and were waving us through. I was coming down the hill on Main Street getting ready to cross Highway 37 when the light changed and the police officers had stopped actively waving us through. I slowed down to about 12mpg before they finally waved us on through so I came down to the river and across the bridge where the bagpipe band was playing as riders came by.

Me waving at the bagpipe band:
alt="Me waving at the bagpipe band."
2013_N24HC_Eric_Winn_Middleville.JPG


I don't know if it was having to slow way down at the intersection or I was just not positioned on the bike right on the small climb out of Middleville but I was having a hard time breathing and ended up having a hard time getting up that darn hill. Kind of weird because that had never happened to me before. A DF rider next to me asked me why I was huffing and puffing so much and I told him I guess I hadn't trained enough or was getting too old. I think it was just nerves and sitting wrong as I made some adjustments on subsequent hills and got back to my normal effort levels.

I felt really good as I pulled into the turn into the Lakewood Middle School parking lot, the location of Checkpoint 1. I had averaged 18.4 mph for the 30.2 miles to the school driveway, steadily passing other riders with only a few passing me. Laurie was there and handed me a peanut granola bar and a chocolate milk that I asked her for which I downed while she was refilling my water reservoir. My stop time was 4 minutes and 40 seconds which also included getting my ticket punched for the Checkpoint.

Here I am at Checkpoint 1. Laurie is behind me getting ready to refill my water reservoir. Disclaimer - some of that belly bulge is due to several Clif bars in one pocket and my iPhone and external battery in the other pocket of my jersey. The rest is just me
embarrassed_smile.gif
:
alt="Me at Checkpoint 1"
2013_N24HC_Eric_Winn_Checkpoint_1.JPG


The next 20 miles to mile 50 still felt good but toward the end of that stretch I started feeling and hearing a kind of a clunking through and around my pedals. It was pretty light and hard to really pin down at first. My average speed at this point was 17.1 mph. As I continued to Checkpoint 2 the clunking became louder and more pronounced, especially on hill climbs and it felt like I was slowing down and it was getting a harder to pedal.

The clunking was getting more pronounced on the last couple of hills before Checkpoint 2 so I tried to ease a bit and just hold a steady pace. I knew at this point I had a problem with my bottom bracket. This is the same one that I had left in the first boom and slider that I had managed to get stuck. I kept the BB installed as I tried pulling, tapping, hanging on the handlebars, etc to protect the BB threads and then moved this BB into the replacement boom and slider Cruzbike sent me. Coming into the 24 hour I had put about 400 miles on the Vendetta and had not had any problems so I thought it was going to be OK.

Fortunately, I had packed the car with my repair stand, tools, and the spare bottom bracket I had ordered back when I knew I was going to be pounding on the stuck slider and boom. Also fortunately I had Laurie crewing for me and she was there at Baseline Rd Methodist Church for Checkpoint 2 with the car waiting for me. As I pulled up I told her I had a problem and would need to repair the bike.

I popped the stand out, set it up, clamped the boom into the stand and carefully took things apart and replaced the clunking bottom bracket with the brand new one. I lost a little extra time because I had neglected to pack my bicycle grease so I walked over to one of the bike mechanic trucks and borrowed a tube of grease so I could re-grease the BB housing threads and BB cup threads. I finished reassembling everything, checked to make sure shifting was still good, while eating and drinking a bit during the course of the repair.

I ended up being stopped for 1 hour and 6 minutes. Not a lot of fun watching all the people I had passed pull in and shortly pull out again while I was slowly doing my repair. I did a short test ride and confirmed the pedals felt smooth and fast again and headed back out.

From mile 50 to Checkpoint 2's mile 67.6 I had averaged 16.4mph. The road was pretty crappy for about the next 5 miles or so past Checkpoint 2 so I was going a lot slower and averaged 14.9 mph for this stretch.

Unfortunately at mile 71.9 I discovered something went wrong with my external battery as my RFLKT display stopped responding and when I pulled my iPhone out of my jersey pocket to check on it I found the phone totally dead. From this point I had no feedback data so I just rode.

I met Laurie again at Checkpoint 3 at the Delton Library, mile 92.2, at 2:41pm where I paused a little longer because I was getting a headache. There had been some very light showers but hardly enough to even speckle my riding glasses. I took my helmet and riding hat off and took an Advil and then resumed at 2:59pm. As I took off down Delton Rd I began to feel a lot better.

I got back to Checkpoint 4 at the Middleville Middle School at 4:24pm and took off and did the 23.7 mile loop twice with a short break in between finishing the second iteration at 7:55pm bringing my total to 165 miles.

At this point my knees were feeling a little achy so I took a long break, ate some sandwiches and drank some more chocolate milk and confirmed that knocking out at least 5 of the 7.5 mile loops would bring my total to 202.5 miles.

At this point both I and my crewchief lost track of my in and out times but I started knocking out 7.5 mile loops while it was still daylight and did three without needing my lights. Sundown was around 9:22pm so I think I finished my first three loops around 9:45pm or so. I felt like I was taking these pretty fast and I was consistently passing other riders. I took another short munch break and then headed out and knocked out two more 7.5 mile loops bringing my total to 202.5 miles.

On the last 7.5 mile loop I rode, I botched shifting out of my small front ring on the little hill coming up Bender Rd to Green Lake/Main Street and had to stop and fix the chain.

Here I am during one of the two 7.5 mile loops I did in the dark:
alt="Me at Checkpoint 4 doing 7.5 mile loops"
2013_N24HC_Eric_Winn_Checkpoint_4.JPG


By now my knees were aching even more - I think I pushed too hard during the 23.7 mile loops. The hills were oriented just right to run through them like a roller coaster and I was having a blast powering down the hills and coming up and cresting the next hill top without having to slow much at all. I had also pushed pretty hard earlier to finish the 117.6 long loop after my hour plus mechanical.

Anyway, I walked into the school cafeteria with Laurie to get a hot dog and some chips and ate leisurely inside the cafeteria. When we walked back outside to the bike my legs were pretty stiff and my knees were still feeling achy. By this point we were hearing announcements over the loudspeakers that weather was heading in but the rain was expected to not hit us until about 2am.

By now it was about 12:30am or so. I decided to take a short nap in the car and planned to try and knock out some more 7.5 mile loops until 8am rolled around. I had plugged my dead phone into the car to charge earlier so I set an alarm to wake me in 30 minutes. Before my alarm went off Laurie was calling me telling me it had started to rain. I went back to the bike and started checking the weather report and also listening to updates that were being announced over the loudspeakers.

At first the rain was light but we could see lightning and hear thunder getting closer. As we approached 1:30am the rain picked up considerably and the lightning was much closer. We were getting soaked so at this point I decided I was good with reaching my goal of at least 200 miles so Laurie and I packed the bike and our gear up in the downpour and then walked back in to go ahead and turn in my rider sheet.

After turning in my sheet, I got my 200 mile pin and Laurie and I headed back to the B&B for a few hours nap time. We didn't get back to the B&B until almost 3am and slept about 3 hours until about 6am when we got up and went back to see if anyone was still riding. When we got to the school we learned the race had been suspended for about 3 hours from roughly 1:30am to 4:30am due to the lightning but then resumed.

We watched the last riders finish up and then did the rider/crew breakfast provided by the local Middleville McDonalds and watched the awards ceremony.

Pascale took the overall women's distance with 339.9 miles and also won her 45-49 age group bracket. It was fun seeing our new friend Chuck win his 60-64 age bracket with 393.6 miles and end up having 4th highest overall miles.

Overall I had a great time and plan to do this again next year where I hope to be a lot more competitive. The miles folks racked up were pretty impressive considering the event was curtailed by 3 hours.

I can say the Vendetta performed admirably outside of my one mechanical problem. Nutrition was not a problem for me and even the knee issue was probably manageable but I've grown a bit more cautious as I've gotten older - the old phrase, "live to race another day" instead of falling on my sword for this one race seems to be more of a guide for me these days.

If any of you are interested in doing this event I highly recommend it. It was very well run, the people were all very friendly and helpful and the course was a blast to ride.

From this year's results book there were:
  • 310 riders registered, from 25 states, plus Ontario, Canada
  • 274 riders turned in mileage tags totaling 65,051.8 miles, or 237.4 average
  • 39 riders were females, turning in 8648.6 miles, or 221.8 average.
  • 235 riders were males, turning in 56,403.2 miles, or 240.0 average.
I ended up in an 11-way tie for 60th place with 10 other riders, one in M30-34, one in M35-39, one in M40-44, one in M55-59, four in M60-64, and two other male recumbent riders.

Here is my ride data up until my battery conked out, click the image to go to Ride With GPS for more details:

alt="2013 N24HC Eric Winn Ride Data"



How about some of you other Vendetta and new Silvio 2 owners come ride some more ultras with me?

-Eric
 

John Tolhurst

Zen MBB Master
Wonderful report, Eric. And I

Wonderful report, Eric. And I especially thank you for posting the photograph of that beautiful house.
 

plc2

Member
Nice riding!
I was wondering


Nice riding!
I was wondering what kinds of food were u eating during your ride and how often were you drinking?
I am training for a century this fall.
thanks

Pedro
 
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