A Hot 400K - Great Lakes Randonneurs - June.30.2012
Despite my difficulty dealing with riding in hot weather, I decided to go ahead and ride the 400K on the weekend of the last series offered by GLR in 2012. I had a new bike to try out, and the forecast did not look that bad, plus I had a few tricks I wanted to try after suffering riding this 400K in the heat three times in 2011.
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| WI Wheat Field |
Weather was fine for most of the morning - the early morning sun was obscured by clouds, and at one point the whole sky was overcast. The wind seemed to be coming from different directions, and at least it still contained some whiffs of cool morning air.
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| IL Stunted Corn |
About 35 miles into the ride I spotted a rider off to the side of the road looking unhappy. It was Ron Selby on an Alex Meade. I'd talked briefly with Ron the night before. Turned out that he had broken a spoke on his rear wheel, on a wheelset he had just built himself. He was planning to just ride back to Delavan because he didn't think he could ride the distance on that wheel.
I arrived at the first control in Kirkland around 9:40 where I mixed up my first two-hour bottle of Infinit. The clerk was nice enough to not require the minimum credit card charge, nor charge me for ice when I filled up my camelback with ice and water. I was hoping that 50 oz of ice water would help me deal with the heat, and relying largely on liquid nutrition would keep me fueled and avoid nausea. I've had good results using Infinit and brought enough many little 1-hour bags of the mix, along with some Gatorade powder.
After leaving the control I passed a large number of bicycles outside a restaurant in Kirkland, apparently a popular riding destination for those in the Rockford area. Kirkland also has a working sawmill.
I was also trying to pace myself and not over-exert in the heat. By 11:00 the clouds were gone and it really started to heat up. Riding to Oregon you spot twin cooling towers from quite a distance and they come in and out of view. I took pictures of these instead.
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| Homemade "Steamroller" |
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| Field of Goats |
When I got to Oregon it was around noon and felt like the sun was frying me. The control, like all controls that day, was oriented so there was no shade, you had to stop and park your bike in full sunshine. Inside the control I chatted with a guy who for some reasons was eating multiple bags of popcorn. He said he was a disabled trucker. I topped off my bottles, filled the Camelback with ice and water, and also filled a sock with ice, all while I got the definite feeling the clerk was giving me the evil eye (and muttering to himself) for using so much ice. I then wrapped the sock in a bandana and tied it around my neck. This was my last and final trick to help me deal with the heat. I grabbed an egg salad sandwich and headed out. On the way out of town you pass by the Rock River. 
This looked like a one-man operation, but there must have been someone in the barn, where it would have been even hotter.The stretch between Oregon and Brodhead is 60 miles, with no controls, but a couple of opportunities to stop for food. Somewhere before Pecatonica I caught up with Mike Hauptman from Rochelle, IL. He seemed to want to ride alone so I continued on to the Subway at Pecatonica, where he came in a few minutes later. After getting the hairy eyeball in Oregon, I bought a bag of ice instead of raiding the Subway machine, and made a mess of trying to break off ice chunks to fit in my bottles and Camelback. Of course the workers said, why did you do that, you could have all the ice you want for free....
Mike looked pretty hot, and was doing the 600K. I talked him into using my other sock to ice his neck, but he seemed skepical. I left him there and continued on, found out later that he DNFed just before Brodhead. By the time I got to Brodhead it was later than I had planned, around 5:20, and I was really tired, and hot, and not feeling that great. I was shocked to see how salty I was.
There was so much salt my jersey was actually stiff. I ate some Fritos, and had some tomato juice, and took a nap in the shady but still hot asphalt. Ended up leaving about an hour later.
It was not far to the next control, only 15 miles. I grabbed a brat there for the salt and continued. That leg was hillier than I remembered, but very scenic, and it was dead calm. Still tired, at one point I just stopped and lay by the side of the road, absorbing the stillness. I was having lots of shifting problems - phantom shifts to the inner ring, and also hunting on the rear cassette, and on one hill I was so frustrated I simply stopped riding and walked to the top, just for a change. Got to New Glarus around 9:40, pretty close to the closing time of 10:00PM. I was feeling much better now, as the sun was gone, and it had gotten cooler, and there was only 75 miles left to ride, with just a few hills.I had convinced myself that the hills were pretty much over. Well that was not quite the case. And I had another issue - in addition to my shifting problems, my saddle had become very uncomfortable. As I rode along I noticed that I tended not to stay seated for very long, and instead would stand on the pedals. After analyzing the situation, I came to the conclusion that my saddle was very painful to sit on. Now how could this be? Well the bike I had been using since 2008 had developed cracks in both chainstays on the recent fleche ride. Shortly after that I purchased a new Velo Orange frame and fork. Since the Terry saddle from the old bike was very old and worn out I simply replaced it with what I thought was an new equivalent Terry saddle. Apparently I was wrong. On the fleche I had swapped out the broken bike for my aluminum commuting bike, which also had a Terry saddle, and I did not recall any discomfort on that ride. But I had a different, new Terry saddle on the Velo Orange. So maybe the two saddles were not the same - I would have to figure that out later.
Meanwhile I pedalled on, doing the old pedal, pedal, pedal. coast routine - standing on the pedals while coasting. It was a very nice night, a bit of a tailwind, and a murky almost full moon was hanging in the sky.
I got to the next control in Oregon, IL around midnight and was pretty surprised to find four other riders there - and they said that the tandem - Paul Danhaus and Jenn Dixby - had "just left". Three of the riders were hanging around outside waiting for one other guy to recover enough to get back on the bike. He was recovering in the cool of the BP station. These guys were all doing the 600K - Kurt Giesa, Richard Hall, Brian McGuire, and Ted Durant (the guy inside). They all groaned when I said I was doing the 400K, and said I was practically done. True. Nonetheless they left before I did, and after eating some microwaved Campbell's soup I was riding up Cty-A with a Pepsi in my hand. It tasted delicious in the cool of the night, but you have to be careful on the bumps that it doesn't spray sticky pop everywhere. I started thinking it might actually get too cool - I had nothing but a rain jacket - but it really was still pretty warm except in the low spots. After cruising through Edgerton with just the drunks out, I got to the last control and caught up with the four riders again at Carl's Shell. . They left shortly after I arrived, and I stretched out on the concrete sidewalk and fell asleep. One of these times someone will end up call 911 on me. I woke with a start and found that the moon had set and it had gotten cooler, especially going down the hill from the control to cross the Rock River. After Milton there was quite a bit of bumpy road, which I was not looking forward to. But it was getting close to dawn, so I settled into a nice pace and watched the sky lighten as I headed east. It's a nice time of day, with the birds singing and all. As usual I was very happy to see the lights of Delavan as I pulled in around 5AM.
