Two Recommendations

If you ever wondered what it takes to do a triathlon, this video gives you the hilarious behind-the-scenes low-down. Thank you Amanda Lawrence! More of my videos here.

Awesome documentary on city planning. Inspiring section on transportation solutions around the world. (Rent/download it for $4) Spoiler alert: bicycles rule.

Bike Virginia - June 2012

For several years now, David Waldburger of our club has been singing the virtues of Bike Virginia, a five-day cycling tour that takes advantage of the thousands of miles of manicured pavement that criss-cross Virginia from the densely populated areas along the Chesapeake Bay in the east to the more rural areas around the Shenendoah and Allegheny Mountains in the west. We had spurned Dave’s offer for several years, opting in the last three years for the wacky RAGRBRAI ride in Iowa, the mountainous and much less wacky Bicycle Tour of Colorado, and a self-guided circle route through the Adirondacks of New York. This year, Bike Virginia got the nod, and 13 of us traveled to Berryville, VA on a Friday night to join Dave and his extended family at the event.

This year was Bike Virginia’s 25th anniversary, and about 2000 people participated. Unlike the Colorado tour, most of the cyclists at Bike Virginia lived within an 8-hour drive and avoided the airline hassle. The mid-Atlantic states were obviously well represented, but we also ran into a fair number of New Englanders along the way. The majority of our crew selected the camping option, while four chose the more hospitable hotel option. The Thread City Cyclers wore their colors proudly, and with 13 of us attending we were a noticeable presence. TCC’ers included yours truly and my better half Beth, the aforementioned Dave Waldburger, Eric Anderson, Tammy Waleszczyk, Caitlin Roston, Judy & Steve Borrman, Alan Chasse, Bill Penn, Fran Storch, Phil Forzley, and the indomitable tandem team of Lisa Celona and Joe Moreno.

Beth had announced earlier this year her intention to complete a 100-mile ride in every State before she “checks out” and this year’s route, which passed through Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland gave her the opportunity to put a few more century notches in her lycra belt. Each day there were several mileage options, typically ranging from 30 miles to as much as 100 miles. The first two nights we were based on Berryville, VA near the VA/WV border. The tour then shuttled our belongings via trailer truck to Shepardsville, WV where we spent the next three nights before returning to the point of origin.

The organizers did a fantastic job with the routes, sticking mainly to narrow back roads and little used county roads that rolled through a seemingly endless supply of horse farms. Rest stops were spaced at intervals of approximately 15 miles and were well stocked with standard biker-friendly goodies. On occasion, however, we would pull into a church parking lot, where the ladies auxiliary had pulled out the stops with home-made cookies, brownies, soup, and in one glorious case, extra greasy home-made donuts dipped in sugar. Mr. Penn ate four, and a week later his stomach is still trying to digest them. The tour provided us extensive lunch fare either out on the route or back at the start/finish point. In most cases, those who set weight loss as a goal for the week failed miserably.

This part of the world, only a few miles south of the Mason-Dixon Line, was at the front lines of the Civil War, and recollections of the conflict were all around us. Day three, which was titled the “Civil War Honor Loop”, traversed the Antietam Battlefield near Sharpsburg, Maryland, where the combined death toll in a single 12-hour period in 1862 was 23,000. The rolling fields and picket fences were beautiful, but the signs identifying “The Bloody Corn Field” and “Bloody Lane” provided grim reminders of the site’s history and left us all feeling a bit somber. Harper’s Ferry, WV provided another interesting history lesson – the Town’s isolation at the mountainous intersection of the Shenendoah and Potomac Rivers made this an appealing location for the Union to manufacture and store a large percentage of the munitions that it used in the Civil War. The C&O canal passes along the Potomac through Harper’s Ferry, and riders had an option of riding into town via the gravel towpath along the canal for about 15 miles. Those that selected this option were treated to shady conditions with the Potomac River on one side and the canal and its collection of stone locks on the other.

An advantage of riding these major tours is that there are options - you can ride alone or in a group, fast or slow, chatty or non-chatty. Each day is different and you tailor your pace to whatever you’d like that day to be. Sometimes we would ride with each other, sometimes not, and our groupings were different every day. Commonly, others we encountered out on the road would find their pace similar to ours and they would join our merry band for an hour or a day. Angel from Arlington, VA joined our pace line on several occasions. She was training for her first triathlon but had not ridden much in groups and she appreciated our advice on how to work a pace line and how to maintain momentum over short rises. Keith, a local who possessed both greater experience and girth than Angel, joined us on occasion and amused us with his rendition of “Amber waves of grain” as we rolled through the wheat fields. Bill and I responded with our best attempt at John Denver’s Take me Home Country Road - “Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenendoah River”. At other times, the more testosterone-charged members of our band could not help themselves and charged forward as the Colnagos and Pinarellos whooshed by on their carbon wheels. The event is not supposed to be a race, but there is nothing more satisfying than catching a cocky rider on a $10,000 bike, making them suffer, and leaving them in your wake to ponder what went wrong in their quest for fitness.

As was the case at both the Colorado and RAGBRAI tours, the bike manufacturers were at the event in force with their demo tents. Phil, Tammy, and I all took advantage of their offer to borrow top-end Specialized and Trek Madone models for a full day. The demos give you a nice chance for a real test ride, not just a spin around the parking lot.

As the ride wound down on the final day, most of the crew headed home, but six of us extended the trip by driving 45 minutes south to Front Royale, which sits at the north end of Skyline Drive, one of the most scenic and spectacular rides in the U.S. This road, which is entirely within Shenendoah National Park, climbs to the top of the Shenendoah Mountains and then follows the ridge southward at elevations of 2500 to 3800 feet for 102 miles. We drove up to the top of the ridge, passing a couple of road-side black bears, and camped at Big Meadow on the ridge-top at an elevation of 3600 feet. Along the way we drove through the smoke of several forest fires, and in the morning decided to do an out-and-back route going south to avoid the smoke-filled air to the north. Eric A. and I rode ahead of the group and made it 30 miles to the south before turning around. The scenery was spectacular, with tremendous views to the east and west from the top of the ridge. On the way back to our starting point Eric and I spotted a juvenile black bear several hundred yards up the road. As we got closer I looked into the woods for the young bear, which was long gone. What was not long gone was its mother, who much to our surprise bounded onto the road less than 50 feet in front of us. Bear and riders were equally surprised at this turn of events. Eric and I vowed to return another day to ride the entire Skyline as well as the Blue Ridge Parkway which continues several hundred additional miles to the south into North Carolina.

With the Skyline conquered, Eric and Dave Waldburger got in the car and headed north to officiate at a mountain bike world cup race at Mt. Windham, NY, while Beth, Fran, Bill, and I drove on to southwest New Jersey for Beth to snag her third century ride in a week. We parked ourselves in a hotel for the night, waited out a morning thunderstorm, and set out from Burlington, NJ on a course that had been marked just a month earlier for an organized Century ride. One might not think that New Jersey would be a great place for a century ride, but one might be wrong. We had a delightful ride for several hours through farming country, which Bill pointed out looked like Virginia but flattened out. The ride got a little less delightful as the temperature climbed, and by the 80 mile mark we were out of water with no stores in sight and temperatures in the upper 90s. As we wondered which of us would expire first, we passed a bright green lawn in the midst of the empty pine barrens. What we first believed to be a mirage turned out to be three kids playing in their yard with sprinklers and a water slide. We cast aside our New England inhibitions and begged for water. Their parents came out with a tray of frozen popsicles and a pitcher of water and we were saved. Turns out the owner used to live in New Britain and is in a bike club kinda like ours. We made it to back to the car at the 101 mile mark in somewhat delirious shape, and drove out of town under a temperature sign that read 101 degrees. We dubbed the ride 101 at 101 and look forward to never doing a century in weather like that again.

After a long ride home from New Jersey exactly a week after we had departed, and with over 500 miles on our legs, Beth and I were happy to spend a quiet weekend doing laundry, drying out camping gear, and not even considering going for a bike ride. With Beth’s goal of a century in every state still very much intact, we will likely move on to another venue next year, but for those of you looking for an organized ride in some new surroundings without the necessity of getting on an airplane, Bike Virginia is a good pick.

Bash Bish 300K - May 13, 2012

On Saturday, May 13th, Eric Anderson and I returned to Westfield, MA for the second straight year to submit ourselves the Bash Bish 300K Brevet bike ride. In a moment of weakness, Dave Waldburger decided to join us on our little 192 mile excursion. TCC members Steve and Judy Borrman, who have been bitten by the "Brevet" bug in the last couple of years also participated. Brevet rides are not well known and not particularly well attended in the U.S. The sport, which originated in France, consists of really, really long bike rides with spartan support. There is no big party at the end, and the rest stops (which come every 50 miles or so) consist of a jug of water with potato chips and store-bought cookies. There are no markings on the road whatsoever - you follow a cue sheet, and staying on the course is up to you. There is no sag support, there is no emergency bail-out plan. Because of the length of the rides, which can go as long as 750 miles in one sitting, long portions of these rides are typically done in the dark. Why do people do these rides, you ask? No one really knows.

The 300K we participated in would not be considered one of the longer Brevet rides. The series also includes rides of 100K, 200K, 400K, and 600K (375 miles). If you are tough enough to survive all of these, your award is a qualifying spot in one of a handful of 1200K (750 mile) events held throughout the world. The grand-daddy of these is the Paris-Brest-Paris 1200K, an event that draws a few thousand people when it is held once every four years. In the U.S., these rides are sanctioned by the U.S. Randoneurring Association. It is an organization made up of people that put on events like the one that Dave Waldburger and Karen & Dave Etchells participated in last Febuary - 100 miles in upstate New York in a snowstorm. They really know how to have fun.

For this year's Bash Bish 300K, I picked up Eric and Dave at Eric's house in Andover at 1:55 AM for the ride to Westfield. When I left my house it was 48 degrees and clear - it was looking like we'd have a good day with a not-too-cold start. It was not hard to find a parking spot at the start, as only 22 people had signed up for the event, with over 20% of them being from our club. We rolled out of the shop's parking lot at 4:00 AM into the darkness, and quickly settled in with a group of about 8 cyclists. Our combined lights did a pretty good job of illuminating the road, but nevertheless at 12 miles I managed to hit a pothole hard enough so that my water bottle went flying, my rear tire went flat, and my rim took on a new shape.  It was not a good start to the day. Eric and I managed to get the tire fixed, but the rim was so dented that I had to disable my back brakes so that the wheel wouldn't hang up on the brake pads. With my bike rolling, we headed westward on Route 20 wondering if we would see Dave and the rest of the gang again. We also wondered if my dented rim, which had suffered not just the pothole, but also over 40,000-miles of life-time abuse, would last for another 180 miles.  We surmised that Murphy's Law dictated that the wheel would not self-destruct until we were the maximum distance from the start.

The hill up the east flank of the Berkshires on Route 20 is called Jacob's Ladder, and it goes on for a long way, climbing over 1000 feet to the top. We passed Steve and Judy on the climb, both looking good (actually, it was dark, I have no idea if they were looking good). The event organizer had assured us that it would actually be warmer at elevation due to some meteorological phenomenon he was unable to explain; however, when we got to the top of the hill there was frost on the ground and the temperatures were down in the 20s. Eric looked longingly at my chemical-toe warmer equipped booties and long sleeved gloves and noted that the majority of his appendages had been numb for the last hour. After the big climb up Jacob's Ladder, the route drops down to Lee, Mass. on its way to Great Barrington. The route then hooks south and follows the Housatonic River though beautiful farm country all the way to Kent at the 92 mile mark. Eric and I had found Dave back in Lee and we worked the pace-line thing all the way to Kent. We had some lunch in Kent then wound our way over to New York, where Eric took the State line in a flash of speedy bravado. The course then followed the State line northward, returning briefly into Connecticut and then back into New York, where Eric again had two successful sprints followed by several minutes of intolerble self-adulation. At about 115 miles we turned onto the Harlem Valley Trail, a paved rail trail passing through some beautiful country. The trail ends at the bottom of a daunting 1000-foot climb along Bash Bish Falls. The climb features two 18 percent pitches, and continues on-and-off for approximately four miles.  With 120 miles on our legs, it was a tough go. Eric and I arrived at the top of the first long pitch and Dave was nowhere to be seen. A few minutes later we saw him pushing his bike up the last grade with a sheepish grin on his face. Dave Waldburger walking up a hill - now that's something you don't see every day. I promised him I would tell no one - so please make this our little secret. OK? The descent off of Bash Bish was long and rough, and several times I wished I'd had access to that rear brake that had been disabled 100 miles earlier. Eric, Dave and I chugged our way back to Lee, and then lowered our heads for the 8-mile ascent up the western slope of the Berkshires. The last 30 miles or so was a screaming tail-wind aided descent down Route 20 into Westfield, thirteen hours and 22 minutes after we had left. The descent allowed us to regain our pride and return our average speed to just north of the 17 mph mark. Eric's talking about returning to Westfield for the 400K in early June (252 miles). Have I made this sound appealing enough for anyone to join him?

Boston Marathon 2012: A Tale of Woe and Wonder

John Hankins
For the last three years I have occupied myself during the winter months by training for a Spring Marathon. My 3:11 time at the Whidbey Island Marathon in Washington State last April was fast enough to qualify me of the 116th running of the Boston Marathon. The lure of Boston was too much for me, and I signed myself up. I’d run the race three times in the 80s and once in the 90s so I (mostly) knew what I was getting into. I had trained well for the race this year, putting in the miles and the speed work since December on the roads and on the dreaded tread mill.

Optimal marathon weather is 45 to 55 degrees and overcast. Anything hotter than that starts to impact performance and create general misery among the participants. With a week to go before the big race the forecast was looking rosy – high temps in Boston on Marathon Monday of 62 degrees. As the week wore on, however, the forecast deteriorated, with the final version promising a record high for the date of 88 degrees. We started getting e-mails from the race director encouraging us to re-consider competing. He remarked: “For the overwhelming majority of those who have entered to participate in the 2012 Boston Marathon, you should adopt the attitude that THIS IS NOT A RACE. It is an experience.” Approximately 5000 runners opted out based on the weather and the organizer’s promise that anyone that did not run could use their qualifying time for the 2013 version. The other 18,000 of us toed the line.

After 116 years, the organizers of Boston have things pretty well figured out. They start the race in three waves separated by 20 minutes. Each wave is organized into corrals of 1000 runners each that are arranged by your qualifying time. The result is a fairly orderly start, where you can be assured that those in front of you deserve to be there.

The Boston Marathon runs downhill for several miles from the start, and trying to keep a lid on your pace when the adrenaline is flowing, everyone around you is moving along, and you’re going down-hill is almost impossible. Through the first five miles or so I was clipping right along, and although I knew better, I was on that 3:10 pace that I’d been dreaming about; however, the heat started taking its toll, and I backed off my pace a bit. By 10 miles I was still in control and moving along, on track to beat a 3:20. Water stops were coming every mile, and I was slugging about 8 ounces Gatorade at every stop and putting another cup of water on my head.
By 13 miles the temperature had climbed into the mid-80s, and my brain, after consulting with my legs, decided that it would be OK to walk, just a little bit, at each water stop. By 16 miles, the once a mile walks were getting longer, but I was still moving along OK. At Wellesley College we passed throngs of beautiful and vocal young ladies, with several hundred of them holding signs that said: “Kiss me. . . I’m (fill in the blank)”. I decided this was an opportunity that I could not pass up, and I stopped to smooch a woman whose sign said “Kiss me, I’m from Japan”. I’d always wanted to kiss a woman from Japan, so I can report that I achieved exactly one goal at the Boston Marathon this year.

Energized by the rambunctious crowd and the motivational kissing, I and the rest of the crowd ran (mostly) up the dreaded hills of Newton, finishing with Heartbreak Hill between 20 and 21 miles. From the top of Heartbreak Hill it is downhill for five miles to the finish in Boston, starting with a somewhat steep downhill leading off of the summit. For weary legs that have just trudged up the big hill and are now stretching out the stride, there is a high potential for leg cramps – I had not experienced these before at Boston, but this year they came on with a vengeance, with one hamstring seizing so badly that I had to hang on to a street sign to avoid falling over.
I found myself in the awkward position of still having five miles to run but having a left hamstring that went into severe spasm each time I moved my leg. Two cops came by quickly and were ready to bring in the medics. I told them to wait a minute to see if I could work it out. A few seconds after that an angel from heaven, in the form of a woman named Shelly, asked if she could help. She indicated she was a physical therapist and thought she could work this out. We went around the corner into her shady yard and she spent the next 10 or 15 minutes massaging out the spasm in my hamstring, stretching out both of my leg and keeping me from getting back on the course until I was good and ready. When she was done, I was able to get back on the course and to continue at a pace that some would consider a death shuffle, but was not really any slower than any of the folks around me.
The amazing crowds at Boston buoyed me and the other runners for those last five miles. I had duct taped my name to my chest, and was greeted with a nearly continuous chant of “Go John” as I ran it in. More than once, those around me asked loudly “Who the heck is John?” Those last five miles where the battle scene you might imagine, with a large percentage of the field broken down to a walk and people stopped along the way in several varieties of distress.
My 3:49 at the finish was nearly 40 minutes over what I had originally set as my goal. If you’d told me before the race that I would run that kind of time I would have assumed that I would be mightily disappointed. But as I sit here and write this, I’m feeling rather psyched that I was able to pull it together and tough out those last five miles. This was thanks largely to a generous woman named Shelly who was at the right place at the right time and whom I will never be able to thank properly.

Funny

Found this via Tolland Bicycle's Facebook page...

David & Karen: On a Bicycle Built for Two!: Epic! Hardcore! ~ Reactions to our February Centur...

Read all about our weekend adventure, riding our tandem on a century ride in the snow!
(Link will take you to Dave & Karen's blog page: http://www.tandem-team.com)

David & Karen: On a Bicycle Built for Two!: Epic! Hardcore! ~ Reactions to our February Centur...: We did it!!! Epic. Hardcore. Those are some of the words people used upon hearing of our desire to complete a century ride (100 miles) i...

Andover Scouts C&O Rail Trail Adventure (by Bill Penn)

A linear National Park with a 183-year history and extending 184.5 miles from Washington DC to Cumberland Maryland, the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) Canal offers an array of experiences for people to partake. For Boy Scout Troop 124 of Andover Connecticut, the C&O was an invitation and a challenge to try something new: bike-packing, with a goal to complete the entire C&O towpath in 6 days.

The first challenge was practicality: how was each scout to carry a week’s worth of food, camping gear and clothing and not spend lots of money on panniers (bike packs) that may only get used once? After much research, we decided to make our panniers by re-using plastic kitty litter containers: a choice that was economical, watertight, portable and environmentally favorable. For $8.00 of hardware, each Scout converted two kitty litter containers into panniers. Ok, they looked good but would they work? Before the big adventure, our panniers were field tested on a 25-miles bike ride on our May campout. The buckets proved themselves trailworthy, and we learned that minor tweaks were needed.

The next challenge was how to prepare for the physical task of riding many miles, sitting on a bike saddle for many hours a day, many days in a row. The answer is … to ride! So ride we did, together and individually to prepare for the trip.

After all the preparations, the time to ride finally arrived. Our group of nine youth and five adults arrived at the elusive C&O mile 0 at noon. The C&O canal begins in the posh Georgetown Washington DC suburb with the mile 0 marker will hidden at the start, by the Watergate Hotel on the Potomac River. Its quiet waters and narrow path are hidden within the bustle of the nearby shops and traffic but after a couple of miles, the towpath assumes its natural character, sandwiched between the Potomac River and the canal.

Over six days and 266 cycling miles, Troop 124 camped for 5 nights, ate 17 meals together, visited many historical sites, heard many trains, and bicycled past, over or thru 74 canal lift locks, 7 dams, numerous lock houses, 4 tunnels, 11 aquaducts and much wildlife. Here are some of the experiences that we shared for the week:

Bicycling: It does not get much flatter than the C&O towpath: for every mile toward Cumberland, the average elevation gain is 3.28 feet. We also diverted from the towpath to cycling to national landmarks and nearby towns for supplies and meals. We completed the C&O Canal on day 5, 26 hours ahead of schedule – attributable to the Troop’s positive attitude, co-operation and hard work, with good weather and no severe bicycling issues assisting. And where the C&O Canal ends, another trail, the Great Alleghany Passage (GAP) starts. The GAP is a 141 mile rail trail from Cumberland, Maryland to the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and it is not flat. On our extra day we had a new challenge – cycle 24 miles uphill along the GAP to the Eastern Continental Divide. Then celebrate, turn around and bomb downhill to meet our rides in Cumberland.

Camping: Campsites along the C&O are frequent.and include luxuries such as a portolet, picnic table, and potable water, although iodine is definitely an acquired taste. Since 12 of our 14 campers use hammocks we learned that some campsites were not suitable for hammock camping because they only had a handful of very large trees or not enough medium sized trees that weren’t covered with lush vines of poison ivy. Swimming in the Potomac River was a great relief from the heat for two evenings, and also provided much needed bathing experience.

Food: Most of our meals were cooked or assembled by the troop – typical backpacking fare like oatmeal, PB sandwiches and own pasta-based dinners. The four meals we ate out were a treat: not just for the food but the air conditioning. Ice cream was another savored treat during those hot days; per person consumption ranged from 1-2 servings per day.

Engineering: Historical plaques dot the towpath’s route, explaining the river’s dams, the canal’s aquaducts, natural history, geology and the canal’s most impressive engineering feat – the 3,118 foot long, hand carved Paw-Paw tunnel. This tunnel, one of the world's longest canal tunnels, was constructed over 14 years, is lined with ~6 million bricks. Cycling this tunnel was an exciting dark experience, with no light except for our personal flashlights guiding us along the five-foot wide path- the brick tunnel wall on one side and on the other, a wooden railing separating you from a dunk in the canal.

History: US history, as far back as the French and Indian war of the US can be observed at the trail. Our longer historical stops included visits to Fort Frederick (1756), and two key Civil War landmarks: the town of Harpers Ferry and Antietam National Battlefield. As we cycled the battlefield tour, it was difficult to imagine the peaceful setting of the present day: the river, the bridge, and the hundreds of acres of cornfields were the site of the bloodiest single day of battle of the Civil War.

Murphy’s Law influences all and our trip was no exception. Our obstacles included: our overheating vehicle, raccoon thievery of food on our first night camping, chigger bites, a 21 speed bike converted to a single gear by a branch, various crashes, a spoke-popping rear wheel, and a persistent flat tire. Fortunately all obstacles were minor and overcome without losing bikes, participants or impacting the trip’s success.

In conclusion, the leaders were not surprised that the boys completed their goal. They were resolute in their intent, even to the point that on day 4, when offered the choice to ride 14 miles of the paved smooth surface of an adjacent, parallel rail trail, they insisted, ”We came to ride the C&O – that is what we are going to do”. So we completed the C&O, and more. Each day brought new discoveries and challenges and the scouts kept journals during the week. When one of the thru cyclists we encountered was asked about the C&O trail, he blandly stated, “The C&O is just a towpath”. In a very narrow mindset or focus, one could interpret it as such. But like life, the C&O canal is ever changing – sometimes wide, other times narrow, at times wide, some days offering peaceful reflections, other times completely covered with duckweed, and even dry. But like life, the C&O offers experiences that you need to seek out. For us, the C&O Canal offered 184.5 miles of opportunities’ to experience a physical challenge, nature, history, and for Troop 124, a time to bond and memories for a lifetime.