The Ultimate Challenge bike ride
Total time: 5h 51m (including all stops); Place: ??? (not officially timed; its a ride, not a race)
What a fun, awesome day! The Ultimate Challenge is a 100+ mile road bike ride that follows the same course as the 'queen stage' (stage 5) of the Tour of Utah. Here's a link to the course profile: http://vimeo.com/45668230. I've been looking forward to this ride for a while as its a key element in my Lotoja training and would give me an idea of how my cycling conditioning and training is going. Several experienced cyclists have told me that this is a good preparatory ride to do for Lotoja. Though only half as long (Lotoja is 206 mi.), the course is more challenging because of all the vertical climbing the latter half of the ride (Alpine Loop, Sundance, Little Cottonwood). Although I was very excited, I was nervous at the same time. I had no idea how my body and legs would handle the late climbs, especially Little Cottonwood. In the past month or so, I've done a handful of Little Cottonwood training rides where I'd leave straight from my house just a couple miles away and head straight up. I know how hard that ride can be when your fresh, let alone after you've already ridden ~95 miles!
Overall, I was very pleased with the result. I consider myself to be a relatively strong 'climber' and I've always thought that the uphills, if anywhere on a cycling course, are where I have the opportunity to differentiate myself from the average cyclist. That was certainly confirmed today (read on).
This year, it worked out that they did the ride on the same day the pros are riding it. They started us riders in stages between about 6:45 and 7:30 AM and they cut the pros loose at about 11:15. As I mentioned yesterday, I thought it was weird they would do that because I thought it could cause issues when the pros caught up to the slow riders. It actually worked out pretty well and it was cool because there were tons of spectators along the course waiting for the pros (especially in Little Cottonwood Canyon) and their cheering and encouragement was a nice bonus.
I got up around 5, got ready, had a nice bowl of peanut butter/maple oatmeal, and got the door about 5:50. The drive up to Kimball Junction was smooth and I got there with plenty of time to spare. It was pretty cool up there this morning and I had not brought any warm gear intentionally. So I passed some time in the car listening to some tunes. I was assigned to start with the 3rd wave scheduled to go at 7:20. I made it over to the start line with not much time to spare, 7:20 rolled around, and they sent us off right on time. Our group of about 100+ riders rolled out slowly and I quickly found myself mid-pack in the 'peleton'. Right where I wanted to be; spinning easy, drafting behind other riders, conserving my energy for the challenging climbs to come later. I had no intention of trying to be superman early and blow-up before the 'real' riding started. I wanted to conserve energy and be taking in calories and water regularly. At about the first mile mark, we passed through a cloud of fog that sent chills through our peleton. It passed quickly. The first several miles passed uneventfully. I was glad that group was reasonable and didn't try and go gang-busters out of the gate. Sure, there were a few teams of guys working hard on the front end, but the pace was very manageable and as a result, our big group didn't get too spread out until the first climb.
The first categorized climb of the day is at about mile 10 or 11 on the northeast side of Jordanelle. It's not very long, maybe a mile and half, but has a decent gradient. Our group quickly began spreading out. I geared-down and just spun nice and easy with a quick cadence. I passed a bunch of riders and didn't really feel worked at all from the climb effort. At the summit, the course immediately goes down again on a fairly lengthy descent into Kamas. I latched onto a couple of guys and we buzzed down the hill. Before I knew it, we were coming up on the first aid station/stop at mile 19. Mother nature was calling, so I decided to make a quick pit-stop. I'd say less than half of the folks in my group in front of me at that point elected to stop at that station.
I was quickly back on the road and started working with a few guys to bridge up to a bigger group of riders up ahead of us. This part of the course going through Kamas and Francis was mostly flat with a few minor rollers. As the course veered back west, I found myself in the middle of solid pack of riders and was content just to draft behind them. The course went down again for a bit and then the second semi-major ascent up the south side of Jordanelle began. Again, the group splintered and I found myself up towards the front working with a couple of the stronger climbers of the pack. We hit the summit and then a juicy descent down into Heber. We rode into town to a park where the second aid station was (about mile 36). I filled my bottles, ate some fruit, and refilled my food stash with a few Nature Valley bars for later on. I hit the potties again and was off. I was hoping to again get in with a good pack of guys, but for whatever reason, many of the others who had also stopped were slow to get going again, and I was riding alone. I didn't really want to ride alone. At that still early stage of the ride, I wanted to save energy and just work with a pack. I wasn't too worried though. I figured I'd just ride smooth and relatively slow and a group would soon catch me and I could then latch onto them. That didn't happen as quickly as I thought/hoped it would. For miles 37-50, I was basically riding alone. I caught one older dude at about 40 who was pretty good and we took turns pulling for the next couple miles around Deer Creek Reservoir. There was a good size group just up ahead of us that I wanted to catch, but I wasn't willing to expend a lot of energy to do it. We hit a hill on the south side of Deer Creek and the older dude I was riding with dropped back. I passed a few of the stragglers from the group head. The course headed down again and over the dam and into Provo Canyon. I passed the 50-mile mark and finally, a group of guys caught up to me. I worked myself into their pack. It wasn't long and we reached the Sundance turn-off and the 3rd rest stop (~mile 55). Again, I hit the potty, filled my water and EFS (they had EFS!), ate a couple things, and replenished my onboard food supply. This is where the fun begins...
Immediately we were on the Alpine Loop, the first 'major' climb of the ride. Again, I hunkered down to my lowest gear with the strategy of spinning as easily and steadily as possible doing all of pedaling from the saddle (plan was to do no out-of-the-saddle pedaling until Little Cottonwood!). My legs were still feeling great. Right away I started picking people off right-and-left, lots of people. No need for teamwork going up the hill. I didn't have a team. Let's just put the hammer down and put some distance on as many people as possible! It didn't take long to reach Sundance then Aspen Groove. I was feeling awesome and I was just kicking butt all the way up the hill. I must have passed a 100 people and not one of them passed me. Was I going too fast? Was I using up all my mojo on this the first big climb and not have anything in the tank for Suncrest and LC? The thought crossed my mind, but I knew I wasn't overworking. I reached the top of the loop still feeling great. There was another stop, but I still had plenty of fluids and decided to just keep going. Most people must have stopped, because from the top of the Loop all the way to the Alpine rest stop at mile 75, I was all alone. Descending is not my strong suite and I figured some fast groups would catch up to me on the blazing descent down AF Canyon, but it didn't happen. And there was no one a head of me insight. I knew people were up there, but I couldn't see them.
I stopped at the Alpine rest stop, which was a big major stop as it was an intermediate finish area for those riders who only wanted to go 75 miles. I filled the bottles again, ate a little, restocked, and hit the restroom. While at the stop, some riders from behind caught up. To my surprise, many just passed right through the station without stopping.
I left the aid station and headed south for a couple miles to the turn-off to go up Suncrest. From here on out, the riders were much more spread-out. Nothing like the density of riders that were on the Alpine Loop. Again I geared-down and slowly but steadly spun my pedals going up the ~4 mile Suncrest climb. I'll admit, a little fatigue was beginning to set in, but I was still feeling pretty darn good, probably thanks to riding the first part of the race conservatively and my stick attention to eating/drinking at regular intervals. Legs still had a good amount of pep and I continued to pick people off going up the hill. No one passed me. At the summit, I think there was a stop, maybe not. I didn't pay much attention. I felt good and had plenty of liquids so I pressed on. Coming down the Draper side of Suncrest was fun as usual. As the terrain flattened out, I caught up to a few more riders and they hooked onto the back of me. Then once on 1300 E, we caught up to a few more. I drafted with them for a little while until we got to the turn-about just before 12300 S. Then I dropped all of them on the little climb up to 12300 S. We turned right onto 12300 S. heading east. I don't know what road it turns into, but it winds north and we rode it for awhile until we made another right on 11700 S. I think that road turns into Wasatch Blvd. There's a pretty nasty ~1-mile climb that can catch you off guard if you're not expecting it. Fortunately, my work-buddy Aaron (who had done the UC a couple years ago) had cautioned me about it and I went and rode it on Wednesday. So I at least knew what to expect (a nice little teaser before the climb up Little Cottonwood!). I passed some more folks going up that climb. Once you crest that climb, it relatively easy with just a couple rollers the rest of the way to the turn-off to head up Little Cottonwood.
Now at Little Cottonwood. The final showdown! About 5 hours had elapsed since I had started. I couldn't help getting there and feeling a sense of home-court advantage. This is my home turf! Afterall, I run the initial stretch between the traffic light and the electric sign almost every other day. I believe there was an aid station at Bell Canyon parking lot, but both of my bottles were about half full. I figured that would be enough to get me the few remaining miles to the finish. The real canyon climb starts at the electric sign where the north and south forks of Little Cottonwood Road converge. The spectator crowds were getting more dense. The sun was out in full force now and it was hot. Some folks were handing our bottle water. Nice cold water. I grabbed one from a girl, took a big swig and dumped the rest on my head and down my back. I zipped my jersey nearly all the way down and unlatched my helmet strap. Not so much out of necessity, but more or less because I wanted to act like those Tour de France riders when the hit the final climb of an epic mountain stage!
Game on. I'm tired, but feeling much better than I envisioned I would. To this point all my pedalling had purposefully been done from the saddle for the sake of conserving energy, but for this climb I would definitely be dancing on the pedals out of the saddle. Similar to the previous climbs, I hunkered-down to the granny gear and tried to find a decent rhythm. The legs definitely didn't have the pep they do when I do this climb on relatively fresh legs. But I knew they had enough juice to get me to the finish. The riders were very spread out here and there weren't very many. Although I have no way of knowing/confirming, although I started with wave 3, I think I may have caught up to and passed many of the riders in the 1st and 2nd waves over the course of the who ride (mostly during the climbs, especially Alpine Loop). The only reason I think that is because of the sparseness of the riders around me. I don't suspect, however, that I caught many, if any at all, of the Cat 1-3 guys who had started before our three open waves. I'm sure those guys are just too good and easily stayed ahead of us more pedestrian riders.
Open to finish this post later... | 