200K

I have two sets of wheels for my current bike: the wheels that came with the bike and the wheels from my old bike. The wheels that came with the bike are a little wider and have 32mm tires with tread on them. The other wheels have 25mm tires with no tread.

I switched to the wider wheels after falling twice on the way to work one day when there was a little bit of snow on the ground. Idecided to switch back because I wanted the narrower wheels for the 200K this weekend. I switched them last weekend so that I would have time to deal with any problems during the week. You never want to make a change to a bike's configuration right before a long ride.

When I went out to the bike on Monday morning, I saw that the rim on the back wheel had failed. Part of the rim had separated and was curling out from the wheel. Rims do eventually wear out and the back wheel has several thousand miles on it. The front wheel had the rim and spokes replaced after the accident so it should still be in good shape.

I put the wider wheels back on and had Helen take the bad wheel to Maplewood Bicycle to be rebuilt. It was not going to be ready until after the 200K so I just planned on using the wider wheels.

The start of the 200K was at 7:00am on Saturday. It was about 40 at ride start with a southeast wind of about 15 mph. The route heads generally south and east so we expected to have a headwind on the way out and a tailwind on the way back. Rain was expected that evening but I was hoping to finish the ride before that.

I was a little chilly before the start but we warmed up once we started. I stayed with the front gorup at the beginning but I knew that I wouldn't last long. After one turn at the front I wasn't able to latch back on the end. This made it harder because the route was still heading east and I had no one in front of me to protect me from the wind. I had to work a lot harder and took my jacket off a little while later.

A couple of other riders caught up to me later and I rode with them for a short while. I lost them when I stopped in Pocahontas (mile 24) and they didn't. At mile 30 the route turned south but this didn't help much the wind. In some stretches I was struggling to maintain 12mph. At mile 36 the route turn towards the west and I was treated to a tailwind for three miles. I was able to travel at 20-25 mph for this stretch. Then the route headed south for 12 miles towards Breese.

In Bresse, at the first checkpoint (mile 51) I met Scott. I rode with Scott during large portion of the 400K and 600K back in 2007. He was on a fixed gear bike for the 200K but said he would use a geared bike for the longer rides. I ended up riding with him for most of the rest of the day. For the next 18 miles we were heading either south or east. When we headed south, I was having trouble keeping up with Scott since he is so strong. When we headed east we had a tailwind it was easy because the lack of gears limited his top speed.

At mile 69 mile made the last towards Okawville. This meant 9 miles heading southeast; almost directly into the wind. I soon realized that I would be able to keep up with Scott so I let him know that I would see him when I got there. When I finally reached Okawville (mile 78) I was pretty tired, but I was pretty excited to no have to worry about the headwind any more. Also the MotoMart in Okawville is my favorite convenience store in the world. It was about 1:30 so I called Helen and told here that I expected to finish around 5:30. After resting and eating, Scott and I got back on the road.

The first 10 miles out of Okawville were retracing our steps. the wind that was in our face was no at our backs. It almost felt like we were cheating but we earned that tailwind. After that we heading mostly north, but with the occasional section heading west. The wind seemed to be coming more out of the east than the south, but it was never headwind. We stopped and ate again in New Baden (mile 92).

We made the turn onto Fruit Road (mile 115) around 4:30. Now we were heading west for the last 10 miles we a tailwind the whole way. It felt like I could coast the rest of the way. Scott told me I did not have to slow down to stay with him but I didn't feel the need to push my speed. I enjoy riding with someone else.

We reached the final checkpoint at 5:14. That's a time of 10:14. My bike computer showed 8:31:31 rolling time and a distance of 128.06 miles.

I think I did pretty well considering that this was the first ride of more than 50 miles since the MS-150 in September 2008. I am not as fit as I was in 2007. I need to work on that to be ready for the longer rides.