znfdl
06-28-2007, 09:02 AM
I am back.
Byron aka Geezer described my intent on the ride quite well as I remained upbeat throughout the tour even though I experienced some problems. This tour should have been called the Elite Headwind Tour, as the headwinds were pretty consisten across the country. Only one day did we have a good tail wind. The second day of the tour, I got cooked in the dessert as it was 106F with a stiff headwind / crosswind. My ride that day finished 50 miles short of the 191 mile goal. That night I decided to help as many people as possible achieve their goal of riding every inch of the tour. This made the tour incredible enriching for me and when I got a comment from Susan Notorangelo that she was very proud of me for constantly helping other riders made me feel incredible.
One rider who was exhausted on the double century day, I pulled him for the final 125 miles at an average speed of over 18 mph to get him in before the time cut off by 30 minutes. The hug of gratitude that I got from him was a great reward for my effort. On other days I would routinely pull a group of riders for 50-60 miles at 19-20mph to give them a break.
These efforts counterbalanced some of the health problems that I encountered while riding the bike, which included severe bouts of Vasal Vagal Syncope. On the fourth day I was climbing and stood up to give my butt a break and I started seeing stars and had to sit by the road for 5 minutes before the episode passed. After my break I started to climb again and had another episode and called it a day. I finally figured out that huge amounts of caffeine would counter balance the dizziness. I guess that I will finally have to schedule my tilt table test.
A mechanical problem I had was when my bottom bracket went south on me and it took 4 days for me to figure out that there was something wrong with it. One day I started to over shift going into the large ring and just thought that my bike needed some adjustment. By the fourth day, my inner chain ring was rubbing on the chain stay. The spindle shifted on me and was off kilter by a little less than a 1/4 of an inch. The bearings also had a fair amount of drag. It is hard to imagine how much extra effort I had to put into cycle those 700+ miles.
Overall, this was a truly rewarding experience and I look forward to the next time the tour is run. I also learned a lot about my body and how I would change my strategy on the bike. I will try to post some pictures and a more complete journal in the near term.
Byron aka Geezer described my intent on the ride quite well as I remained upbeat throughout the tour even though I experienced some problems. This tour should have been called the Elite Headwind Tour, as the headwinds were pretty consisten across the country. Only one day did we have a good tail wind. The second day of the tour, I got cooked in the dessert as it was 106F with a stiff headwind / crosswind. My ride that day finished 50 miles short of the 191 mile goal. That night I decided to help as many people as possible achieve their goal of riding every inch of the tour. This made the tour incredible enriching for me and when I got a comment from Susan Notorangelo that she was very proud of me for constantly helping other riders made me feel incredible.
One rider who was exhausted on the double century day, I pulled him for the final 125 miles at an average speed of over 18 mph to get him in before the time cut off by 30 minutes. The hug of gratitude that I got from him was a great reward for my effort. On other days I would routinely pull a group of riders for 50-60 miles at 19-20mph to give them a break.
These efforts counterbalanced some of the health problems that I encountered while riding the bike, which included severe bouts of Vasal Vagal Syncope. On the fourth day I was climbing and stood up to give my butt a break and I started seeing stars and had to sit by the road for 5 minutes before the episode passed. After my break I started to climb again and had another episode and called it a day. I finally figured out that huge amounts of caffeine would counter balance the dizziness. I guess that I will finally have to schedule my tilt table test.
A mechanical problem I had was when my bottom bracket went south on me and it took 4 days for me to figure out that there was something wrong with it. One day I started to over shift going into the large ring and just thought that my bike needed some adjustment. By the fourth day, my inner chain ring was rubbing on the chain stay. The spindle shifted on me and was off kilter by a little less than a 1/4 of an inch. The bearings also had a fair amount of drag. It is hard to imagine how much extra effort I had to put into cycle those 700+ miles.
Overall, this was a truly rewarding experience and I look forward to the next time the tour is run. I also learned a lot about my body and how I would change my strategy on the bike. I will try to post some pictures and a more complete journal in the near term.