I came sliding into my 54th birthday weekend like Willie Mays Hayes.
Happy birthday to me.
I did myself no favors on the evening of my birthday and woke up tired, bleary eyed, but committed to ride the Smelly Cat 100k course in order to get an ACTUAL gpx route for everyone else to follow as opposed to something sorta relatively accurate stitched together by Dr Mike using his brain and a computer. Once again, I created my own problems.
Burke and Quiz Slut Mike agreed to join me on the ride. I woke up and realized how truly unprepared I was for this endeavor I planned. I'd never tried hooking my Wahoo data acquisition device up to an external battery pack before (like I shoulda done at the Mountain Cat 100), and I discovered a myriad of issues. The cord wouldn't fit with my standard Wahoo mount due to the stem getting in the way. It also wouldn't fit with the K Edge stem mount I took off my garvel bike. It would fit with this Topeak mount I happen to have... but my stem was too wide for me to mount it properly.
And...
Because I was having all kinds of issues with my Wahoo, I'd done a factory reset on it trying to get it sorted... and failed on so many levels. I didn't realize until we were more than eight miles into the ride that I'd never paired the wheel sensor on my La-Z-Boy bike.
Stop. Pair. Continue... and wonder if this ride had any point at all now.
Quiz Slut Mike bailed on us after about twenty miles. Burke and I both started to flag when we hit just about the furthest point out on the ride. We agreed to stop for a beer to debate the rest of our day.
We rolled outta there, and I tried to justify not doing the final three trails on the way back home. Burke has rode seven miles to just get to my house, and it was becoming apparent that the 100k was going to be much more than that.
Two or three things weighed on my mind. Firstly, Burke was already in for fourteen miles more suffering than I was on the day even after he bails on the final suffering. Second, if he can do that, I could/should go ahead and finish the entire route, because... guilt. Third and foremost, this route is pretty tough. I don't anticipate ever wanting to do it again, and because I'm not sure what I need to stitch it together to most produce a Ride with GPS route that most closely matches what we expect everyone to do on September 9th, I better just do it.
I'd told The Pie I'd be gone about six hours. Our total ride time and a very reserved pace was 6 hours 30 minutes, and with all the titty-dicking around and a stop for beer and water three or four times, we/me were/was gone for 8 hours 10 minutes.
And I'll say this. Those final bits of trail... oof. Riders will only be about a mile from my house when they get to Park Road Park... if they quit. If they decide to finish the entire route, there's still ten miles of riding to do. That last trail? Marion Diehl. Bless the hearts of those that rerouted after the most recent construction/destruction, but I'll split the blame with them on the pain that will be incurred two and a half miles of the day.
The actual route itself came out to be way more than the Ride with GPS predicted 100km and was almost nuts-on 69 miles, so...
It's now (more than likely) the Horny Cat 69. It will be a fantastic non-no-drop ride. I highly encourage you to take part this September 9th. Obvs, more details to follow.
It was a good birthday. Duh.
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2 comments:
Happy Birthday. Pairing a wheel sensor to a GPS device... I didn't know that was still a thing. What functionality am I missing on my Wahoo without a wheel sensor? Please and thanks.
You're totally missing mileage on most mountain bike trails. The GPS doesn't ping often enough to catch all the twists and turns. On the road, it's not that big of a deal, but the accuracy is way off on MTB.
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