600k

A few of you have asked me how the 600k went, so I thought I'd give a quick post. All in all it went pretty well. 600k is about 375 miles, and the time limit is 40 hours. I was with 1 other guys most of the time, and 1 other guy kind of cat and mouse. For the most part we finished togehter in 34 hours 32 minutes. I finished 3rd a couple of minutes behind the other 2 because I wanted to pull my own way in down the stretch. Not a bad time considering we were in Anna, Il for almost 9.5 hours not pedaling.

Nine or ten riders started in Edwardsville on Saturday at 4am and rode east for about 40 miles, then mostly south in a round about way. We made it to Anna Illinios that day at 6:30, which was 227 miles give or take. This qualifies as my second double century, and we did the 200 miles in 12 hours 15 minutes, which was about 15 minutes faster than my previous double. If you've never been there, Anna is about 15 miles South / Southeast of Carbondale. It gets pretty hilly down there too, so the last 40 miles of day one, and the first 60 miles of day two were fairly hilly. Not as hilly as west county, but hilly enough considering the miles in our legs. Saturday was a pretty good day for biking except that it did get pretty hot from about 1pm to 5pm.

On Sunday we again started at 4am. This meant me and one other guy who stuck together into Anna had gotten about 6.5 hours sleep, plus time for dinner and winding down the night before. Keeping a good pace the first day is a good thing because it allows for more sleep time before you have to get going again. We saw some of the other riders on day two. One group of three had riden about 260 miles on day one, but got to their hotel around 2am, and then only had 3 hours of sleep. One other guy who was in the back of the pack rode straight through, and we didn't see him in front of us until about the 310 miles mark. He looked like hell too, and was moving at about 11-12 mph. Day two wound up being about 152 miles for us due to a couple of small wrong turns. So in the end I rode about 379 miles, even though the ride was only supposed to be 375. Sunday was considerably cooler too. I had a wind vest on all the way until noon, which by that time we only had about 40 more miles to go. I'm not 100% sure, but I think our riding time was right around 20.5 hours, so our average speed on the bike was somewhere around 18.5 mph. The guy I was with most of the time was a real tank. We pulled 50 / 50 for the first half of both days, but by mid day it was starting to be more him than me. By the end of the second day we split up a bit because I told him I didn't feel right following him pretty much 100% of the time. I was fine to ride, and was not having any real difficulties, I just couldn't ride at his pace.

I learned quite a bit about long distance riding too. A race bike is good for speed, but not so good for comfort. It is now 3 days after and the tips of some fingers are still tingeling, but they are almost back to normal. No saddle sores, although my sit bones were pretty worn out. My neck was worn out too, but I could have riden the next day if it had been an even longer ride. I'm pretty sure another bike is in my near future. Probably something with a more upright position, and maybe a steel / carbon frame for more comfort. I also think it will be a triple, and it may even have a rear rack for gear. Too much junk in your jersey pockets really adds to fatigue. Plus starting at 4am and riding through the heat of the day is very challenging when it comes to managing your gear.

The good news is I know I'll do these again next year, and I'm pretty sure Paris-Brest-Paris is still on the radar.

Talk to you all soon,

Mike