George's Weblog

Day off the bike today, will have to ride long tomorrow!

Took the day off for Christmas. Instead of riding I'm feeding the underprivileged. A great way to spend Christmas day!

Once again the holiday season is upon us. That means crowded malls, visits with friends and family and yes of course, the Rapha Festive 500!

The Rapha Festive 500 is a Strava challenge that helps you get off the couch and keep fit during some of the shortest and often coldest days of Winter.

12/24/13 - Rode with Suburban Cyclists from Perkasie up to Lumberville General store for about 40 road miles. Average temperature was 34 degrees, not a bad day for riding overall.  Nine riders showed up for the Christmas Eve ride. 

It was a great idea to pick up my rider packet on Friday night rather than wait until Saturday. Instead of waiting in line in a mob scene of riders, Gail and I enjoyed a meal while we were in Lambertville. The food was excellent at Tortuga. 

I was immediately impressed with the custom race numbers for the event complete with rider name.

The weather was great for the 2013 L'Enfer D'Hunterdon (Hell of Hunterdon). The sun on our backs and reasonable temperatures seemed to make the miles slipped by. Not everyone emerged unscathed however. Each gravel segment was marked by riders with flats on the side of the road, either on the segment itself or afterwards when they realized they were losing air.

It was impressive to see 550 riders all lined up for a mass start. Fortunately they let us go in waves of maybe 75 riders at a time. I was in the second wave.

There were lots of fast riders in there, some riding in teams and occassionally solo. It was nice to be able to sit in with a like-paced group for a while especially on the faster road segments. Mike Rowe and I maintained a pace of about 17.4 up to the first aid station. There were lots of people to ride with so we had some help maintaining the pace. Often on the gravel segments and climbs the peloton would break apart and regroup in some new fashion later on. I did end up solo into the wind for a while which I'm sure decreased my average speed quite a bit. This was on the segment leading up to the second aid station.

Overall the event was very professional. Sram provided support and was carrying lots of spare tubes and tires. Of course most riders carried their own stuff. Sram even has some nice S-Works bikes on the roof but not sure anyone ended up riding them.

Afterwards there was plenty of beer and pasta in a room full of sweaty but friendly bikers. Another nice touch was the custom beer glass we got to take home.

Our pace slacked off toward the end, Mike was pretty beat and I didn't mind taking it easy the last few miles. I missed a little bit on the computer when we started but here's the ride.

This ride is definately worth a return trip. We'll be looking for it again next year and registering early.

I've gone through several iterations of thinking in my planning for Hell of Hunterdon on March 30, 2013. Originally I was going to ride it like a race, using the lightest and fastest equipment I could come up with. I'm sure there will be lots of other people doing just that. I've got my carbon Opera Canova and some Torelli Bormio clinchers that are really strong. The only thing left to pick out would be tires. I didn't think I had any that were specifically geared toward gravel and were wide enough (at least 25 mm and maybe 28). I looked at getting some Vittoria Pave tires which are really made for cobblestones  but I read that people were using them for racing on gravel.

We did a recon ride of the course on March 3rd. It was an impromptu ride that I learned about on Facebook and I just showed up. There were maybe 6 of us. Although I didn't know what to expect I decided not to take my Opera since I had it outfitted with Boyd carbon wheels and 23mm Vredstein tires. Instead I brought my Cannondale CAAD8 and my commuting wheels (Mavic Aksium) with Continental Gatorskins 28mm (not hardshell). I was afraid that the wheels would be too heavy and it would be hard to keep up with the other folks. Luckily the pace was moderate and I had no trouble with the route at all. One rider was sporting Pave tires and was also a pretty good climber. I thought again about getting a pair just for the event.

When I learned that some of my friends from SCU were also riding the HoH I decided to ride with them instead of racing. That meant that I wouldn't be pushing the pace, instead I would turn it into a fun ride and I wouldn't have to worry about going over the handlebars on fast gravel descents and breaking my bike, collarbone or worse.

It looks like the weather will be pretty good this year. I'll be wearing my full International Christian Cycling Club kit since it should be warming up nicely during the day.

So I came full circle on equipment. I'll be using my aluminum Cannondale CAAD8, Mavic Aksium wheels, Gatorskin 28mm tires. Another good thing about the Cannondale is that the water bottle holders are aluminum and will hold the bottles much better than the carbon fiber ones on the Opera. I'll probably stick with the same setup when I ride sweep on the Fools Classic on April 6.