Some words about my weekend are in order. Okay, a lot of words. A group of teammates entered RAIN, the Ride Across Indiana. This was my first attempt at the jaunt across the state from the Illinois/Indiana border to Richmond, IN on the eastern side of the state.
Because of work obligations, I was going to have to leave EARLY Saturday morning to be there by 5am St Louis time. Adding to the fun was getting an early wake up call from work early Friday morning, that resulted in 4 hrs of sleep that night. Friday night I went to bed at about 7pm so that I could get something close to 6hrs of sleep before getting up at 1:45am. Unfortunately, I didn't exactly hit the pillow and fall asleep. I would guess that I didn't get any sleep until 8pm. Again, I got a call from work. This time at 12:30. Two nights in a row of about four hours sleep followed by a three hour drive in the dark. Perfect!
The drive went okay but I did start feeling a little drowsy toward the end. The whole drive there was one burst of lightning after another illuminating the cloudy skies. It was an ominous scene and one you don't look forward to when you will be straddling a metal bike for many hours. Despite the threatening skies, there was never a drop of rain. Once I reached Terre Haute I grabbed a quick cup of coffee for a caffeine boost and drove to the hotel to meet the others.
We drove a couple miles down the road, unloaded the bikes, and put in a few miles warmup as we rode to the start. A light rain began to fall during the ride to the start. We arrived a few minutes before the beginning of the ride. There was a big crowd of about 1,100 crowding the entire road. Since we came from the opposite direction, we reached the start line and had nowhere to go so we put ourselves right at the front of the pack. That worked out nicely.
So, we set off on our 160 mile trek on wet roads, with a very light rain and lots of spray from the wheels of others. It was not all that bad really. People behaved themselves and were not doing anything crazy. After all, it is a ride and not a race. Still, there was a brisk tempo. Maybe it was a little more nuts if you started about 800 people back.
The organizers had four(?) feeding stations along the route. What became obvious about the people that started up front is that a large number of them completely ignored these rest stops. Our group of five fit that description. We had two people doing handups so we could avoid having to stop for food and drink. The attempts at feedings proved to a be mix of comedy and horror at the same time as riders used all sorts of "musettes". Some were using real musettes. Plastic shopping were a less than ideal but cheap and popular choice.
The most humorous sight I saw was the infamous mesh bag. As we entered a feed zone, I glanced to my right and saw this black mesh bag being held by the support person. The bag seemed to be about 2.5-3 feet long and was weighed down with a massive quantity of food and liquid. That was funny enough but then the rider grabbed the bag. Not only was the bag insanely long to start but it was stretchy. When the bag was grabbed, even at a slow speed, the bag stretched even more and looked like something Santa would carry. How the guy didn't crash I do not know.
The horror began in the first zone when some guy in a red kit got tangled up with his bag and took a clumsy endo into the pavement. Beyond that one crash, everyone stayed upright but people really need to practice grabbing bottles. I can't count how many bottles went bouncing along the ground as the result of a bad handup.
Handups from moving vehicles were specifically mentioned as not being allowed. That, of course, does not stop some fools thinking they are Wim Vansevanant and can grab bottles from their "team car" with 400 other people around them. Some folks are just stupid.
Slowly, but surely, the lead group of riders got smaller and smaller and people stopped or got tired. The weather cleared up as we got past Indianapolis. The sun came out, the temperatures rose and it became really nice day. While it wasn't a race, we did get into some paceline situations when field whittled down to 40 or so riders. We were even echeloned all the way across US40 as the winds blew from the south. Probably not the safest thing to do but it was going on.
Of course, I had no odometer and had no idea where I was or how far we had traveled until I saw a sign saying 34 miles to Richmond. On one hand I was glad to see the sign and equated it with being not much less than a ride to Prairie du Rocher. When I saw that, I knew I would finish if I had to limp to the finish. A while later I saw a second sign that said 31 miles to Richmond. That was not good because those three miles felt like they took a long time.
Between getting stuck in the gutter in the echelon, the slow passing of miles, and maybe a little lack of food I had to let go of the lead group after about 130 miles. I set my own pace from then on. One that would get me to the finish. I still managed to catch a few others who popped off a little later than me. They mostly sat on my wheel as I pulled them along. We then caught David from the team. He was cramping but was fighting and still was willing to take a few turns at the front.
Those final 30 miles seemed to take forever but we eventually reached the finish at Earlham College. Not counting the tandem riders that finished ahead of everyone, I was the 28th or 29th guy across the line in 7hr 17min. David finished with me while Trent stuck with the lead group and finished in 7:06. Mike and Bert had a couple flats and came in about an hour after me.
All in all, it was a pretty nice ride. It got better as the riders thinned out and the section that was not on US40 was the nicest. US40 was not bad, though. I didn't like the way we took over the road at times and it made me uncomfortable. For the most part we were behaved, though. That is a long ride, though. RAIN is not something that I always wanted to do but I am glad I did. It was an achievement of sorts that I can look back on at some point.
Because of work obligations, I was going to have to leave EARLY Saturday morning to be there by 5am St Louis time. Adding to the fun was getting an early wake up call from work early Friday morning, that resulted in 4 hrs of sleep that night. Friday night I went to bed at about 7pm so that I could get something close to 6hrs of sleep before getting up at 1:45am. Unfortunately, I didn't exactly hit the pillow and fall asleep. I would guess that I didn't get any sleep until 8pm. Again, I got a call from work. This time at 12:30. Two nights in a row of about four hours sleep followed by a three hour drive in the dark. Perfect!
The drive went okay but I did start feeling a little drowsy toward the end. The whole drive there was one burst of lightning after another illuminating the cloudy skies. It was an ominous scene and one you don't look forward to when you will be straddling a metal bike for many hours. Despite the threatening skies, there was never a drop of rain. Once I reached Terre Haute I grabbed a quick cup of coffee for a caffeine boost and drove to the hotel to meet the others.
We drove a couple miles down the road, unloaded the bikes, and put in a few miles warmup as we rode to the start. A light rain began to fall during the ride to the start. We arrived a few minutes before the beginning of the ride. There was a big crowd of about 1,100 crowding the entire road. Since we came from the opposite direction, we reached the start line and had nowhere to go so we put ourselves right at the front of the pack. That worked out nicely.
So, we set off on our 160 mile trek on wet roads, with a very light rain and lots of spray from the wheels of others. It was not all that bad really. People behaved themselves and were not doing anything crazy. After all, it is a ride and not a race. Still, there was a brisk tempo. Maybe it was a little more nuts if you started about 800 people back.
The organizers had four(?) feeding stations along the route. What became obvious about the people that started up front is that a large number of them completely ignored these rest stops. Our group of five fit that description. We had two people doing handups so we could avoid having to stop for food and drink. The attempts at feedings proved to a be mix of comedy and horror at the same time as riders used all sorts of "musettes". Some were using real musettes. Plastic shopping were a less than ideal but cheap and popular choice.
The most humorous sight I saw was the infamous mesh bag. As we entered a feed zone, I glanced to my right and saw this black mesh bag being held by the support person. The bag seemed to be about 2.5-3 feet long and was weighed down with a massive quantity of food and liquid. That was funny enough but then the rider grabbed the bag. Not only was the bag insanely long to start but it was stretchy. When the bag was grabbed, even at a slow speed, the bag stretched even more and looked like something Santa would carry. How the guy didn't crash I do not know.
The horror began in the first zone when some guy in a red kit got tangled up with his bag and took a clumsy endo into the pavement. Beyond that one crash, everyone stayed upright but people really need to practice grabbing bottles. I can't count how many bottles went bouncing along the ground as the result of a bad handup.
Handups from moving vehicles were specifically mentioned as not being allowed. That, of course, does not stop some fools thinking they are Wim Vansevanant and can grab bottles from their "team car" with 400 other people around them. Some folks are just stupid.
Slowly, but surely, the lead group of riders got smaller and smaller and people stopped or got tired. The weather cleared up as we got past Indianapolis. The sun came out, the temperatures rose and it became really nice day. While it wasn't a race, we did get into some paceline situations when field whittled down to 40 or so riders. We were even echeloned all the way across US40 as the winds blew from the south. Probably not the safest thing to do but it was going on.
Of course, I had no odometer and had no idea where I was or how far we had traveled until I saw a sign saying 34 miles to Richmond. On one hand I was glad to see the sign and equated it with being not much less than a ride to Prairie du Rocher. When I saw that, I knew I would finish if I had to limp to the finish. A while later I saw a second sign that said 31 miles to Richmond. That was not good because those three miles felt like they took a long time.
Between getting stuck in the gutter in the echelon, the slow passing of miles, and maybe a little lack of food I had to let go of the lead group after about 130 miles. I set my own pace from then on. One that would get me to the finish. I still managed to catch a few others who popped off a little later than me. They mostly sat on my wheel as I pulled them along. We then caught David from the team. He was cramping but was fighting and still was willing to take a few turns at the front.
Those final 30 miles seemed to take forever but we eventually reached the finish at Earlham College. Not counting the tandem riders that finished ahead of everyone, I was the 28th or 29th guy across the line in 7hr 17min. David finished with me while Trent stuck with the lead group and finished in 7:06. Mike and Bert had a couple flats and came in about an hour after me.
All in all, it was a pretty nice ride. It got better as the riders thinned out and the section that was not on US40 was the nicest. US40 was not bad, though. I didn't like the way we took over the road at times and it made me uncomfortable. For the most part we were behaved, though. That is a long ride, though. RAIN is not something that I always wanted to do but I am glad I did. It was an achievement of sorts that I can look back on at some point.
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