Sub 5 Hour Century Ride Recap - 8/28/11

During a prep ride for the 9/11 Sub 5 Hour Century six members of the Evanston Bike Club today broke the five hour century mark. Bob, Cons, Herb, Ian, Felix all rode the 100 mile route in under five hours with a group of other riders and finished in approximately 4 hours and fifty four minutes. Martin beat the entire group across the finish line by at least a couple of minutes.

We went out to Hampshire this morning for 3 circuits of the 33.5 mile course that we will be riding on during the event. The temperature was moderate, between 60 and 80 degrees during the ride, and the wind was between 8-11 mph.

The good result was based on an average moving speed of 21.3 mph and only 12 minutes of stopping time. The very short breaks between circuits definitely led to a couple of misadventures as the riders that weren't ready to saddle up on time had to work their tails off to get caught up with the group. One of our members ended up completing a circuit without his helmet, which got left behind. The course starts out with a long gentle descent, and catching up to the peleton required a pace of at least 30 mph on this section of the course.

There were about 30 bicycle riders at this training session from across Northern Illinois. Gary and I were also part of the EBC contingent (Gary had to leave after completing the first two circuits due to a family commitment). All things considered, the 30 of us held together fairly well

So how did our group of EBC'ers celebrate accomplishing this goal? Afterwards, we went to Wendy's. We're definitely going to have to work on our celebrating.

Link to Felix's Garmin Data:

Link to Con's Garmin Data

Sub-5 News

http://www.sub5century.org/news/training-nutrition-and-the-pre-ride-reception/

Ride for Sunday 8/28/2011

Dear All,

We are going to do another Sub-5 Century Course ride for this Sunday.

We should meet at the Hampshire High School Parking lot at 07:45 and be ready to start at 08:00. We will do the entire ride (3 laps) and try to minimize the breaks between the laps in order to see how it will affect the total ride time. Bring plenty of drinks and food to drink/eat on the bike and during the breaks. This most likely will be our last long ride before the actual event, so make effort to come for it. If you are planning to join us, send me an email so we can look for you.
Felix

Rides for Saturday and Sunday 8/20 and 8/21/2011

On Saturday 8/20/2011 we will start from Panera Bread in Wilmette at 07:00. We will do 45-60 miles with one snack stop in the middle. Pace 20+ mph.

On Sunday 8/21/2011 we will do the Sub-5 Century Course ride. We will start at 08:00 from the Hampshire, IL High School Parking lot. We will do 3 laps (total 100 miles) with two short water/snack breaks between the laps. Bring plenty of fluids and snacks to eat on the bike and during the rest stops.

If the weather is bad I will post a cancellation on the EBC listserve on the morning of the ride:

http://groups.google.com/group/ebclist/topics?gvc=1

8/13/11 Ride Recap- 85 Miles to Barrington Hills

We had a good 85 mile training ride today on the Cuba Road rollers and the hills in the Barrington area. Seven of us were on the ride: Bob, Clay, Cons, Herb, Ian, Martin and me. It's probably a good thing Herb was on the ride, because he was the only one of us that really knew the route. He navigated flawlessly.

We maintained our target pace of 22-23 mph for the most part on the flats on the trip out to Barrington Hills, and on the way back with the wind at our backs had a number of stretches of 24-27 mph. While the results from Cons' Garmin indicate that our average speed was 19.1 mph, that is due to all the stops and the hills. We were pretty close to the pace we need to be at for the Sub 5 Hour Century.

I have now worn my event jersey twice, and ended up on the asphalt both times. I assume it is just bad luck and not any sort of omen. Last week, leg cramps temporarily disabled me. On today's ride, we were stopped at a light, and the cyclist next to me lost his balance and took a slow motion clip fall into me. I couldn't get unclipped, and went down like a domino. The whole thing happened in such slow motion that no damage was done, and we all got a good laugh out of it. Bob even congratulated the other rider on his successful technique for breaking his fall.

I broke off early from the ride to head home. I happened to cross paths with Hugo on Sunset Ridge Road., who was out for a training ride. He is regaining his fitness, but being sensible about not over doing it.

Saturday 8/13/11 Ride

Saturday we will do a ride starting at 7:00 am from Panera Bread in Wilmette to the Barrington Hills area. Plan is to go 80-90 miles. Pace on the flats will be 22-23 mph. Limited stops. This is a training ride for the Sub 5 Hour  Century. If there is lightning or heavy rain in the forecast, ride will be moved to Sunday,

8/6/11 Ride Recap - Training Ride on the Sub 5 Century Course

On Saturday, Bob, Clay, Cons, Felix, Herb, Ian, Martin, and I headed to Hanpshire to test ourselves to see if we could ride the 100 mile course of the event at pace. We were joined by Jim Duran, a cyclist from Palatine who rode in the event last year. The previous week, we had done 2 circuits of the 33.5 mile route. However, due to stops for flats on the first circuit, a missed turn on the second circuit, and a decision not to go for a third circuit on a hot and humid day, our results from the 8/1 ride did not provide a very good indication of where we are in regard to being fit enough to make the sub 5 hour pace on the September 11 ride.

Prior to the start of the ride, Felix handed out jerseys that were custom designed for the event. They are very distinctive and bright, making it easy to pick out our group from a long distance. However, this delayed us a bit, and we ended a hitting the road at 8:20 rather that at 8:00 am. Given that the temperature was perfect at 8:00 am and in the mid '80s at midday, the late starting time probably cost us a bit.

On the first circuit, we missed a turn and went so far off course that we decided the best thing to do was simply to keep going and then double back once we hit 16+ miles. The group easily maintained pace on the first loop. Once back at our starting point we pulled out the maps and GPS's and figured out where we had gone wrong. Our navigating certainly was not helped by the paucity of street signs in this rural area.

The second circuit was a bit tougher as the sun became brighter, and our navigation was not perfect, but at least this time we only went about a mile out of our way. We were able to maintain the pace for the entire circuit.

Our group did really well on the first half of the third circuit. We were able to keep up our 22 mph pace. However, after about 85 miles, the hot weather started to take a toll on us. Clay, Cons, and Martin all finished with a flourish, but the rest of us struggled a bit. Ian and I had the most problems due to leg cramps. Despite 4 bottles of Gatorade and 4 more of water, the knots in my legs tightened up to the point that I was unable to finish the ride. Ian struggled through the pain and was able to complete the ride. However, the rest of the group made it to the finish in a really good time considering the draining aspect of the heat and humidity..

So how did we do? We took much longer breaks than we will be able to take at the actual event, but had planned on doing so. In regard to weather, we caught a break in not having any wind to fight against. However, the heat and humidity made the conditions on the 3rd circuit really challenging. Given that we still have another month  to train for the event, our group should do pretty well if the wind, sun and rain are favorable.

The results for the ride from Felix's GPS can be viewed here.

7/31 Sub 5 Hour Century Training Ride Recap

Cons, Felix, Herb, Martin, Rich, and I drove out to Hampshire for a training ride on the Sub 5 Hour Century course. The following is the summary of the ride from Rene, the organizer of the event, "Another good ride yesterday with 16 folks completing the first lap despite 5 flats from 2 (unnamed riders)and 13 completing the second lap with no flats. We were just under 21 miles per hour as measured by half a dozen Garmins ... still some dispute over elevation".

We all did well on the first lap of the 33 mile route. I think heat stress kicked in about mile 50 during the second circuit of the course. While we decided against going for a 3rd lap, our group performed well on a nasty little hill about 3/4 of a mile from the finish. Martin exploded up the hill with Cons right behind him, and the rest of the EBC group gave chase. We left all the other riders in our dust. It was a tough climb after 65 miles under a hot sun on a humid day. The highlight of the ride was hearing  one of the other riders as he wearily got of his bicycle after trying to chase us down on the last mile of the course exclaim, "you Evanston guys are brutal".

We finished off the day with a nice lunch at the Wild West Steakhouse in Union.