Conference noted::bicycle

2288.0. "Bat does the Davis Double '92" by SHALOT::ELLIS (John Lee Ellis - assembly required) Thu May 21 1992 17:37

Posted with "Bat's" permission...
    
From:	DECWRL::"cimshop!BUCHANAN%MTVIEW@uunet.UU.NET" 19-MAY-1992 21:22:52.59
To:	ARTIE@uunet.UU.NET, ELLIS@uunet.UU.NET
Subj:	Davis Double

Well another Davis done with.  Next year Artie!  Anyone who can ride Hamilton
and run the Boston marathon should be able to do this ride.
I was hoping that we could make it in under 12 hours but had to settle for
12.5.  We started with 9 and finished up with 7.  One guy (Fletcher) was
recovering from a sickness that he picked up in Mexico, he bagged it at lunch
(110 miles) and rode in the rest of the way with another guys wife.  The other
one (Bob McIntire) just decided that he wanted to ride his own pace so he just
blew through the rest stops and we never saw him again.

Our actual riding time was pretty good, but we were plagued by the normal bugs
like a couple flats, a chain problem and long lines at the bathrooms.  My
cyclometer has a auto-shutoff feature but I forgot to set it so I can only
guess the actual on-the-saddle time at about 10.5 - 11 hours.

The weather was pretty good.  Not "perfect", that would be overcast, no wind
and temperatures about 70.  But as far as the Davis goes this year wasn't too
bad.  It was supposed to be mild, but it got pretty hot if you ask me.  I
checked the newspaper today and it has yesterdays temp in Sacramento as 85, I 
believe that plus a couple degrees more in some spots.  There wasn't a cloud in
the sky the whole day so I think that the road was even much hotter.  At one
rest stop at about 150 miles said to one of the workers that I heard it was
supposed to be cool and she gave me the old "this IS cool, you should have been
here last week" routine.  It was definitely hotter than here in the Bay area. 
I've been there when it was over 100, so I guess I can't complain too much.  I
don't handle to heat very well so this was about my limit.  It's hard to get
yourself to eat at the end of a hot day, so the last 90 miles I just water and
cans of pop and ate just a little fruit.  I had 4 Edge bars in my pocket but I
couldn't possibly get them down.

At the end of last years ride I felt like a million bucks and pulled the whole
group in.  This year I was fading at the end and started to get muscle spasms.
At 192 miles - you could practically smell the finish line - they finally got
to me and I dropped off the back, but the group (and the wheel-suckers we had
picked up) slowed down to about an 18-20 MPH pace and I made it.

We had one bit of excitement (or embarrassment) early on when one of the guys
got into a heated shouting match and was ready to brawl with a couple guys from
Bicycling magazine.  Just about 2 minutes before this thing started up I was
talking to one of them and he said his name was something Drake and he was an
editor for them.  He was riding a red Kestral.  The other guy I didn't get to
speak to but was riding an "Oxford" or something like that, I remember an
article a couple years ago where all of the writers did a piece about their own
bikes and I remember that bike.  We're all riding along and the next thing you
know this guy from our club (Mike Prisbella) and one of the Bicycling guys are
screaming at each other (and I do mean screaming), calling each other all sorts
of unprintable names and talking about getting off the bikes and going at it. 
Actually I think that Mike grossly over reacted but I don't think that Mr.
Bicycling was blameless either.  It was all when Mike took his pull then faded
back and tried to get back into the line.  But Bicycling wouldn't let him in. 
Actually that's how I got to talk to him for a short time, I had taken a pull
and was trying to get back into line so I chatted with him while I tried to
squeeze in, he didn't give me any room so I eventually drifted back a couple
places and someone let me in.  Mike was doing the same thing but he was a bit
more emphatic about getting into the line and Bicycling just as emphatically
told him that he wasn't going to let him that that was HIS place and that he
was NOT going to let him in.  Remember that we're about 45 miles into a double
century and these guys are going for position like they're in the last
kilometer of the World Championships.

Mike, more than anyone else in our group is sensitive about the people riding
next to him.  In our group we all know and trust each other and we all agree
that we'll ride safe and sane, hard but safe.  There were 9 of us, all strong
riders, all wearing the same jerseys, obviously riding together.  Just like a
tandem we pick up a lot of wheel suckers, at some points we must have had over
20 riders hanging on.  We don't mind this at all, but just like if you hook up
with a racing club out on a training ride, sitting on the back is one thing,
but forcing your way into their line is another, and that was the problem.
As I said I think that Mike overreacted.  It's hard to size up someone's riding
skills in just a few seconds, but it seemed clear to me that these guys were
smooth strong riders - they should be, after all they ride bikes for a living.
Well nothing ever came of it, no one stopped and punched it out, we skipped the
next rest stop, and they rode by when we were in the following one.  I caught a
glimpse of them at lunch but never saw them on the road again.  Maybe you'll
see a write up in Bicycling about rude riders on centuries.  Let's see, with
Bicycling, it's now May, it might make it out by about November in their issue
dated February 1993!

BTW - If you do read Bicycling (I read it in the supermarket while my wife is
checking out, 10 minutes cover-to-cover is about what it's worth) check out the
fancy Specialized fold-out advertisement, they use a picture of one of my
teammates from Spectrum.  It's a head-on picture of him diving into a corner in
a criterium and the caption is something like "our amateur team tests out our
products".

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% Subject: Davis Double

    
    John,
    
    Great story.  Thanks for sharing it.

    For the unitiated -- What is the Davis Double?
    
    
    Also, who are these guys who SLOW DOWN to 18 - 20 MPH? That's the speed
    I normally SPEED UP to when I'm on a roll!!!
    
    Denis
    

    
    Yeah, I picked up on that, too: "slowing down to 18-20mph" ... after
    180 miles. Hmmm...
    
    Well, the Davis Double is an annual double century (200 miles) out of
    Davis, California, which is between Sacramento and San Francisco.
    It is, according to Bat and others, not flat but not backbreakingly
    mountainous like, say the Markleeville Death Ride.  Anyone have more
    details?  
    
    (BTW, Davis got a reputation some years back as a bike-friendly down - 
    portrayed, for example, in Richard's Bicycle Book.)
    
    -john

    Posted with Bat's permission.  Thought of posting this under
    "Centuries '92" but it really goes under "Batrides for the Eccentric" :-)

From:	DECWRL::"cimshop!BUCHANAN%MTVIEW@uunet.UU.NET"  8-JUN-1992 12:30:16.35
To:	ARTIE@uunet.UU.NET
Subj:	Ride report, I'm still sore today

I rode the Sequoia century yesterday and it now ranks as the hardest century
that I've ever done.  It easily beats out the Grizzly Peak.  In fact I'll go so
far as to say that I think that it's bordering on the irresponsible for a club
to make such a route without giving some options to avoid some of more severe
climbs.
The route was about 106 miles with well over 10,000 feet of climbing.  There
was not an extended flat spot until we came back down into Saratoga at mile 92.
Until this point everything had been up or down.
The route went like this, from Foothills College went over Ellena, Purressima,
Arastradaro, Alpine and Portola to Old LaHonda Rd.  Old LaHonda was the first
major climb.  We turned south and rode skyline down to Saratoga Gap/route 9
were we turned right.  At Waterman Gap we took route 236 through Big Basin
Park.  Just before 236 comes back out onto route 9 at Boulder Creek we turned
right on Jamison Creek Rd.  What a bitch of a climb, 1500 feet in less than 3
miles and we're less than half way through.  From there we took Empire Grade Rd
over to Felton-Empire Rd for a long, steep and very fast decent into Felton. We
crossed route 9 and then took East Zayante Rd up to Summit.  If you've never
been on this road it's another ball-buster.  From the top of East Zayante we
just kept on climbing across Bear Creek Rd (only about 1/2 mile) and then onto
Skyline which keeps on climbing for several more miles.  The lower portion of
Skyline, where it's a small winding road has a few short but very steep
sections, just what you need at this point in the ride.  Skyline then opens up
but keeps climbing at a more steady rate, but by this time 3 more miles of
steady 5% is still tough. A couple false summits and then the decent to
Saratoga gap, down into Saratoga and then about 12 miles, mostly flat (flat,
thank the Lord) back home.
I hadn't officially entered and had ridden over to the start so I bailed out
where the route passed my house.  We are all pretty good riders, I was dragging
very badly at the end but we still kept a pretty decent pace and my time for
the 98 miles was 7:32!  It takes about 30 minutes to get back to the finish so
an 8 hour century!  I got home at about 2 PM and I saw riders going by more
than 4 hours later.  A 12 hour century can't be much fun.
We had been warned so we were prepared.  We all sporting our low gears, one
super climber had a 39x24, three of use (including me) had 39x26 and one smart
guy had a 39x28.
As I said we are all pretty good riders and we were tired.  I can really see
many of those spots were the more casual or less experienced riders would
simply blow all to pieces.  We were joking that someone would blow up and call
the police and sue the club.  I can only imagine that some of those climbs
later in the day must have been a very ugly sight.  Just try walking up a 12%
grade in Time or even Look cleats some time.

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% Subject: Ride report, I'm still sore today
    

    Bat imagined that few readers would be familiar with the roads
    on this century, but I thought the description is worth it all,
    even to the unfamiliar.
    
    E.g., "Skyline" is a part of CA hwy 35 running north-south roughly
    on a line from Santa Cruz - San Francisco on the ridge of mountains
    between the Pacific Coast and Silicon Valley.
    
    Imagine a club's held being liable for putting on too hard a century! :-)
    
    -john

I'm thinking about doing Les Portes du Soleil again a week on Saturday 
(185km, 4400m deniv). Remembering what I felt like last year, I should have
sued them then.


Rod

    This sounds like a great ride.  I know the area roughly and I can vouch
    that some of the climbs are pretty tough.  Very glad that I wasn't
    doing it ?
    
    Rod:  How long does the Portes take? Sounds like only a shadow easier
    than the Marmotte.  I look forward to the write up...

I wrote up last year's P du S in 1819.20. Having just reread it, I see that
I took (cough) 10:45. Oh well, maybe I'll do better this year. I'm in the
throes of a nasty cold right now, so I'm doubtful for an event this big which
is only eight days away. 


Roddy