South Jersey 600k report
My final PBP qualifying brevet
I’m not anxious this time. After 1100 kilometers in three races over the last month and a half, I have a routine down and I’m not intimidated about the cycling. I have new riding partners and friends and I gave my bike an overhaul the night before.
I’ve kept from calling these events races but the more I think about it the more I realize that it is a race. The opponent is time and fatigue, not my fellow riders. To me this makes it an even more valuable race since working together is something that’s encouraged, not cheapened by a team with one hero and a few domestiques. The history of randonneuring is older than the Tour de France. While Paris – Brest – Paris was once a race against your opponents, it is now a race against time. The organizer of this whole PBP qualifying series, Laurent Chambard, told a friend of mine that randonneuring “is the only sport that you don’t have to be that good at and your friends still think you’re a hero.” I don’t believe him completely, there are skills involved and they are diverse but his words are true. Anyone that finishes is a hero.
I start the evening before the race with fresh pasta and red wine courtesy of Grant. We sit outside of Dave’s house on the Jersey shore. The weather is warm and comfortable and the pasta is delicious. The pasta was made this morning from flour and a pasta machine and it is still soft. It’s edible raw. This is the first time I ate fresh pasta but certainly not the last. We have to start at 4 AM again but we agree that the race would span two days, so the total amount of sleep from start to finish is very important. Falling asleep at 9PM on a weekday is very difficult. Grant and I manage to get settled on guest beds at 9:30PM. Dave doesn’t get to sleep until 11PM.
The alarm rings at 2AM. Only 4 hours later for me. I jump directly into my clothes, clean up, eat and check the packing list. Everything is in order and the bikes are loaded into the car.
We’re early. Check in, bike and rider inspection, waiver, brevet card and magic pills. Part of what I like about this riding culture is the old-timey magic potion style. Some things have been modernized but it’s still the same old stuff, get water, get salt, balance them and go forever.
We start in the second field cause we weren’t at the front for the first. This is good since the three of us were the last ones out on the 400k and we ended up finishing a whole hour behind our predicted time. We’re off and rolling through the pre-dawn air. Our field is nice. A true peloton of about 30 riders. Unfortunately, this peloton scares easily. The slightest dip, bump, approaching auto or turn brings the pace down. Annoying.
I push up to the front and roll around for a few minutes with people I don’t know. The suddenly Grant passes me in the drops and yells “Lee, go!” Dave is behind him leaving enough room for me to get on his wheel. That’s it, we break away at a steady 21mph. It was a cocky move, especially since there’s absolutely no reason to break away from the field in a race like this except to amuse oneself. Of course this turns out to be our riding style and it’s keeps things interesting. Sprinting into a three person pace line with 1 mile pulls whilst carrying 30 pounds of gear is hi-larious! Only 355 miles to go.
The morning is nice. The first 100k is the same route as the last stretch of the 400k. Mentally this feels great since I had a hell of a time getting through this stretch last time. Now that it’s easy I chill and take in the scenery. The first checkpoint is 75 miles out at a park in Basto Village. We chill and eat a big breakfast. Chat it up with some of the first field who’s already getting ready to leave.
Then we’re off to Salem, the most depressing town in NJ. It is located next to a tributary off the Delaware river. It’s blight is complete. 12 noon on a Saturday and I see three people in the town square. Burnt buildings and storefronts, abandoned lots, rickety houses. Every person living here is bored to death. Cynical. And on top of that the pizza shop that is our lunch checkpoint sucks. Yea! I’m assuming Salem is a victim of changes in shipping routes or methods involving the Delaware river. Perhaps the NJ turnpike caused it’s demise. Perhaps the whole interstate system of highways and trucks made it’s infrastructure of rail and ship obsolete. Whatever it was the casualties of Salem don’t seem happy about it.
The sucky-ness of the pizza shop hits me 15 minutes after we get back on the road. This is where the route splits from the 400k and we continue on through Salem and over to some more abandoned shipping docks along the Delaware. I can’t pedal faster than 19 mph because of the lump of grease in my stomach. But that burns off in about 20 miles. The next checkpoint is 61 miles away and we are now in the hottest part of the day. It’s all and only farmland. The few buildings that we pass are abandoned or locked up. Direct sunlight everywhere. Swimming in humidity. I’m drinking steadily every 5 minutes. After 30 miles all three of us are out of water. 48 ounces in two hours. There’s nothing, no market, no fountains, no gas stations. Then we find the strawberries. That’s nice to have. Early season strawberries aren’t too sweet but they give a nice pick up. Then the second oasis arrives as I imagine dehydration and it’s effects.
I already have a short headache, so slight but I’m in tune with every part of my body so I get worried. My heart rate is high, we’re taking short pulls to get there faster while not burning out. Then I see sprinklers on a lawn. Lots and lots of sprinklers. I’m too exhausted to sprint up to the front and signal everyone to stop. I can’t drop off the back cause I’ll lose my group. I resign myself to the fact that I’m the only one who saw the sprinklers and push on through dehydration row. Then our newly found 4th member drops his water bottle…like a magic psychic message from me to him. We all stop to pick it up and I promptly jump into a total stranger’s lawn to play in the sprinklers. The other three notice this and it hits me that they truly didn’t see the sprinklers while we were rolling. They get excited and there we are, four grown men jumping through lawn fountains in rural New Jersey. It was rad.
On the way out we’re refreshed and water is refilled. Riding into the night is easy after stocking up at the gas station store that is the last daylight checkpoint. On the road we feel good to have completed half the ride before dark. One and a half hours later the sun sets as we pull into the atlantic city coast with a wicked cross wind. I start to feel like I’m going to lose it. I can’t take any pulls and I’m struggling to stay on the last rider’s wheel. Cross winds are blowing me over into auto traffic. I don’t have time to put arms on so I’m cold. It’s about 65 degrees but the wind is coming off the ocean so it’s particularly chilly. I fight it out and we take a break at the beach to put arms and legs on and warm up. I enjoy the salty air and the nighttime beach.
Then our route turns north and the crosswind becomes a tail wind! We get blown up the coast to complete the last 35 miles at an unusually fast pace this far in. These miles are the most fun of any night riding I’ve done. The road cuts through the many beach towns south of atlantic city. It’s too early to have drunk drivers and it’s just late enough for the streets to be lively. This is a inspiring break from the bleak hot desolate miles of the afternoon.
We roll over two large bridges, I climb them with new found lightness and there’s the last checkpoint for today; The Harbor Inn Motel at Sommer’s Point. It gets pretty weird here. We just rode 245 miles, it’s about 10:30PM and all I want to do is eat and sleep. Our organizer is there and volunteers are walking up and down the hall with food. This whole hotel has been taken over by sweaty bike racers. We fill out a form that specifies what food we would like for dinner and breakfast and how many hours we would like to sleep. We take the maximum alloted, three. We shower, eat and get to sleep at 11:30, expecting a wake up call at 2AM to eat and get on the road at 3:30. I could hardly sleep at all. This hotel ended up being a big waste of time for all of us. The constant stream of the slower riders coming into the hallway kept me awake. A false wake up call did so again. Grant’s alarm was an hour early and he kept hitting the snooze button. Then we realized our wake up call had past and we didn’t give a fuck. Back to sleep. Finally, at 4AM someone comes into the room and wakes us up with breakfast. We are now two hours behind our plans with no more sleep than if we followed them. I eat, get dressed and stretch out. Muscles haven’t tightened up too much yet. I’m tired as hell and the weak coffee didn’t do a thing.
I have this stage programmed into GPS. I get my legs back after leaving town and do my first and last pull of the day. It’s long, about 15 miles in the front but it takes everything out of me. Dave is feeling similar. We stick to the back after I’m done. Grant, as usual keeps the cadence high on his fixed gear and we all follow. I’m falling asleep. I have to spin my legs faster than normal to keep my heart rate up so I don’t fall alseep but my legs are tired so it hurts to spin that fast. Our pace has dropped from around 19 to around 17. Then it drops to 16 a few hours later. I’m thinking it’ll be a great idea to take a short nap while on my bike. That idea fails after about .5 seconds of closing my eyes when I almost ran into t ditch. We make it through the bleak landscape of burnt pine barrens and arrive at Lucile’s Country Cooking for breakfast at 8AM. I break and eat sausage. It tastes terrible but I felt like I needed it. I smoke a few drags from a cigarette, stretch out and feel refreshed again. We’re off on the road for the last 100 miles!
Things get real silent and painful at this point. I just want to finish but I know it’s going to be a long time before I do. We get to a gas station and there are already a bunch of riders sitting outside eating snacks. I go inside and Dave disappears. When I come out I look for him and discover he’s snuck to the back of the building and fell asleep. He wakes up and we continue for what feels like an eternity of only 35 miles to the last checkpoint before the finish. I felt like a troll with lead boots climbing up steel wire. Graeme Fife wrote that. Well said.
Rolling into the final checkpoint I get all happy. The thought of only 35 more miles to go is a great feeling. It’s again at a gas station so we get the usual snacks and start chatting it up. When it’s time to go we roll out, sleep deprived and dedicated and just keep pedaling. I tell myself that each crank rotation makes us closer to the end. We all drop pace to about 15, so drafting is kind of pointless now. It start raining a little. I actually have my rain gear and I’m happy to use it. As we roll into the finish line, it’s 3:20PM. I don’t care what place I’m in. I’m just standing there delirious.
My conclusions from this ride are significant. I need to learn to lack sleep and still perform. I need to learn how to eat right even though my body is telling my that home fries, pizza, eggs and sausage are a good idea. I need to get my legs and arms stronger so I can keep pace without the threat of bonking. Otherwise, this ride was well worth it. I’m done with Jersey for now.