I’ve mentioned my love/obsession
with cycling before in my blog. I also enjoy being able to set new goals
and challenges for myself. On Saturday my cycling buddy (John) and I went to
Chattanooga to ride in the 3
State 3 Mountain Challenge. The ride is a fairly large 100-mile long bike
ride that, as the name states, covers three mountains (Aetna Mountain, Sand
Mountain, and Lookout Mountain) in three states (Tennessee, Alabama, and
Georgia). My guess is that there were at least 500 cyclists participating. It
was a very well organized ride with rest stops along the way (at 24, 53, 82,
and 85 miles). Those rest stops are essential as they provide an opportunity to
get some food and water. On a long ride like this one, it is important to get
in enough simple carbs (sugar) to keep up with the amount you burn while
riding.
Part of the challenge of the ride was just getting there as
it was in Chattanooga which is a bit over seven hours from where we live in
Raleigh. In the space of 36 hours, we drove almost 900 miles and pedaled 100. Suffice
to say, I’m fairly tired and cannot vouch for the contents of this blog entry!
As always, I used my Garmin Edge 500 to gather an extensive array of data
from my ride. If you look at that page, you can see a lot of information. On
the upper right is a map of the ride. The Edge 500 includes a GPS which is
constantly monitoring its location. When I upload that data to the Garmin Web
site, it can draw the route on the map based on those data points. The Edge 500
uses a wireless protocol (ANT+) to communicate with a heart-rate monitor I wear
around my chest, a detector on my rear wheel that also measures speed in case
the GPS has trouble contacting the satellites, and a detector on my pedal that
measures how fast I’m pedaling (cadence). Down the left side of the page is a
bunch of summary information. Beneath the map you can see graphs of my speed,
elevation, heart rate, cadence, and the temperature. If you click on the "Player" button above the map,
you can replay the ride and watch my heart rate go up (and my speed go down) as
I climb the three mountains.
There are a few interesting things in the data I’ll point out to give
you an better idea what the ride was like. The maximum speed of 97.6 mph is
just plain wrong. For some reason, the Edge 500 occasionally gets spurious
readings. My maximum speed was in the low- to mid-40s. It took a lot of braking
on the downhill sections to keep it that slow. In fact my hands got sore from braking. You can’t brake continuously lest the wheels lock up or the
brakes overheat. So, you have to do things like braking for two seconds followed
by coasting for two seconds. The downhill sections on a ride like this can be
harrowing and an amazing adrenaline rush. At one point the ride organizers painted
on the street, “Slow Caution Dangerous Curve.” That was enough to make me brake
a bit harder. The set of ambulances on the hairpin turn waiting for someone to
not take the warning seriously made me brake even harder still.
If you look at the temperature plot, you can see that it got
fairly hot at a few points on the ride. Sadly, one of those points was
on the toughest hill, Lookout Mountain. There was little shade on that hill and
after 85 miles of riding, it was especially hard. (Once I climbed it, the need
for rest stops 3 miles apart—at the top and bottom of the hill—became apparent!)
If you look carefully at my speed at about 5 hours and 15 minutes into the
ride, you will see that it drops to under 3 mph. At that point, the grade was
18% and I could no longer pedal. I had to get off and walk for the final .3
miles of the hill. Lots of folks were walking. Behind me I heard someone fall
down and saw them lying on the ground. Apparently, the bike was going so slowly
that the person tipped over.
As the slow speeds show, the final 15 miles after that point
were fairly miserable. I was totally exhausted. John was a good friend and rode
those miles with me. We got showers, ate some mediocre lasagna, and drove 7.5
hours home. I arrived home exhausted, but feeling good.
The obvious question is, why do I do this? Even a couple of
good friends that I cycle with called me crazy when I showed them the data from
the ride. Why I cycle is a different question and I discussed that in my
previous cycling blog post. Why do I push to do hard rides like this one when
from most perspectives it is not fun? I don’t have a simple answer. Maybe I
like having cycling friends think I’m crazy. More importantly, I think it
something about setting tough but possible goals and accomplishing them (or at
least getting within .3 miles of accomplishing them). If there is no risk of
failure, then what is the challenge? I don’t really know for sure. But, I’m
looking for the next challenge. Maybe the Mountains to Coast ride
across NC in the Fall?
I enjoyed reading about your experience at 3 State! Great job!
ReplyDeletePerhaps you'd be interested in mine as well: http://dannyblogstrong.com/cycling/centuries/3-state-3-mountain/
We rode it the same year!