Mar 27/28 - another for the books

One of the advantages of doing multiples of these silly rides is that I can compare and contrast.

Well, I've done the Central Florida 400k every year since I started this sport and it's the most work, in terms of climbing.  It's more real world, quite frankly, and better prep for rides elsewhere.

The Gainesville ride is very nice, on great roads, very rural (as Jim Wilson said) and provides a glimpse of the rural south.  It seems that there are as many churches as people; many homes are worth less than their  trucks; all dogs are loose and most places have their own, personal, junkyard.

The South 400 is flat, flat, flat.  Saw grass, citrus, some cattle, some cane.  It's a nice ride to see how long you can survive in a paceline :).

Loose dogs are a problem for us and can be a problem for them.  There was a yellow lab on the road, his buddy nosing him.  I felt so bad.  It looked very recent, could have been chasing some of our riders and then gotten hit, who knows.  It's obviously not the dog's fault !

For me, yesterday's ride was the toughest of the three.  That's because a) it was cold to start and end and b) my allergies were acting up, really acting up !  My nose dripped full time and my eyes were scratchy.  They're still scratchy even though I did use drops.  I also got less sleep for this ride than the other two.

I just checked last year's results, because this is the ride that I did last year with Jerry -- 17:28 -- a full two hours earlier.   That would be because the weather was better and we shared the load vis-a-vis any wind. 

Holy crap, the earliest rider yesterday finished in 13:30 ... a woman all by herself.  Holy crap.  The next riders in were 1:15 behind her.  Wow.  There's an even sprinkle of riders completing from there on with the latest finishing at 22:35.  I see that Jim got our times wrong, I think.  I think it should have been 11:33 but he's got 11:43.  It doesn't really matter. 

My curiosity having been piqued, I looked at last year -- 16:01 was the fastest time. 

More HOLY CRAP -- I just checked the results for that female rider and even though she hasn't completed many brevets on the RUSA books, her times are impressive.  This year she did the 200k in 6:32; the 300k in 9:56 and, get this, the last running of Boston-Montreal-Boston 1200k ?  She did that in 49:40 !!!!  BMB is much tougher than Paris-Brest-Paris !!!!

I left here at 12:30 a.m. and got to Gainesville around 3am.  The ride started at 4am and even though I had my jacket and leg warmers in my pack as reserve, I'd put them on before even starting.  Terry was riding and we set out together, with the big group, but soon I dropped off and did my thing which included a couple of bio-breaks since I'd had three large cups of coffee !

By the first convenience store (58 miles), I caught up to a couple of stragglers and left before they did.  By the first Control (76 miles), I caught a group of a half-dozen and left before they did.  At the lunch Control, Terry was there and eating having been dropped by the fast group long ago.  A couple more riders came in while we were there but we left first.  We saw those later on when the route doubled back on itself for short distances.

We finished up around 11:30, which would be 19:30 in elapsed time.  There were still 7 out on the route, which would mean around 20 ahead of us.  We lost at least an hour because Terry was having some mechanical issues -- cleat and saddle -- two of three attachment points to the bicycle (hands would be the other).  He also takes longer at Controls, which is fairly normal, by the way.  I'm the outlier !  We could probably have completed by 10 p.m., give or take, always hard to say.

Terry is good riding company; we've now finished up the 200, 300 and 400 together as well as the 300 in South Florida.  He's back working again, a new contract in place after a few days in Saskatoon and the usual approvals by US Customs and Immigration aka Homeland Security.

I expect to see him at the 600k and he's talking about doing the Sunshine 1200k.  He wants to get a paycheck from this new place -- CSX -- before registering.  

So ... with the 11:30 p.m. finish and getting organized, I hit the road around midnight.  I stopped at my usual Subway but it closed at 11:00.  Rats.  I then stopped at a Kangaroo convenience store and purchased a couple of diet pepsi's, a sandwich and a bag of pretzels.  About 1/2 hour later, getting off I75 at 326, I decided that I needed to rest my eyes for a bit even if I didn't sleep, but I did sleep for 1/2 hour.  I was home around 3am and in bed shortly thereafter, up again at 6am for Mass and to say goodbye to Carol and Allister, who would be gone by the time I got home from Mass.

Back from Mass, I had some toast and went to bed !

Onward !