The weather for the ride sort of cooperated for us. Considering we had snow/sleet the day before and after, we probably could not have asked for much better conditions. What were the conditions? Well, I'm glad you asked. The temperatures at the start of the ride (well, my ride started from my house when Chris showed up to head to Lake Michigan) were around 35 degrees (my toes were frozen for a couple hours). By mid-day, the highs got to about 45-50 degrees, and I was actually wishing I could take the bib tights off and switch to knee warmers. The sun actually felt pretty good; however, we also had to battle 20-30mph winds throughout, which cooled things down quite a bit. Mr. Weather Man said that the wind should subside around 1pm. This was not the case. It was a slug fest the whole way out to Holy Hill into the wind. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking crappy conditions out, boy you should fly back in. For the most part, we did rocket back in; however, this was after we had put about 50 or so miles into the legs against the wind and hills, so they were pretty trashed. At least mine were pretty trashed.
Most likely thanks to the weather, we had a rather small bunch riding with us. We started with 11, lost 2 on the way out to Holy Hill, lost another on the way back to Lake Michigan, and lost 3 more as we were zipping along Lake Dr in Shorewood, WI to their homes, calling it quits for the day. For those of you for whom math is not a strong suit, that left our merry bunch of riders with 5 guys left to game plan lunch and the second leg. While we were game planning the rest of the day, one of the five decided he was just going to ride south for 10 miles then turn around to go home to get his century in. A noble quest indeed. Another had family duties, since it took us way longer than expected to ride all the way out to Holy Hill and back. Silly wind! Now we are down to three! Yikes!
When we got to the Milwaukee Public Market, our awesome sag crew watched our bikes while we scurried off to find food. My only disappointment with the market was that there was no junk food. I walked all around the market and eventually settled on getting two brats on a bun with sauerkraut, some chips and a coke. I know what you're thinking. Ben, that sure does sound like a lot of food to me. When you are on a 6+ hour bike ride, you burn a ton of calories. It is really important to put the calories in while riding and at stops during the ride, otherwise you are more likely to bonk. Bonking sucks! Bonking on a 6+ hour ride, really really sucks!
The food was definitely needed. While we were sitting there, I zoned out a few times. One zone out was long enough that Brent started waving his hands in front of my face and laughing at me. Oh well. I was work really hard at taking in the calories. My goal was to take in approximately 300 calories/hour. Over the 9 hours we were out and about (both riding and resting), I consumed an average of 230 calories/hour (including lunch calories). To get that many in, I really had to pound the my sports drink, my endurance cubes and Honey Stinger Waffles throughout the ride plus eat as much as I could force down during lunch.
Anyhow, after we finished lunch, the three weary riders (Brent, Jeff and myself) continued our ride. Instead of fighting the wind all the way out to Pewaukee Lake and back, we decided to just ride until we were all over the century mark then split to head home.
Here is my data. Granted it is missing about 3.5 miles over the course of the day, thanks to Mr. Garmin not playing nice with my Speed/Cadence Sensor (battery replaced!).
Some of the group gathering at Lake Michigan prior to the start of the ride:
At a bottle stop on the way back to the Lake:
At lunch with the gang:
After I got home, I began the process of replacing the calories I burned. I consumed half a Dominos pizza, two large chocolate milkshakes (without whipped cream), a Potbelly Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie and some homemade cookies. In total, I consumed over 7000 calories throughout the day; however I needed to consume over 9000 calories to get back to even for the day. My stomach just could not handle any more food. Oh well, I felt that I made a valiant effort at calorie replacement.
Thanks again go to Brent for organizing this epic ride and for the guys who showed up to make it more fun! Hopefully, we can do this again next year!
Happy Training!
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