I was eagerly looking forward to the challenging new 2012 Boston 300K
\nroute that Jake designed, knowing full well that my odds of finishing
\ninside the time limit were probably 50\/50. A week before the ride, I
\nbrought my oldest road bike out of retirement. It is a 1993 Trek
\n“sport touring” bike that proudly displays a factory decal “ALUMINUM”
\non the top tube. I rode my first century and first 200K on this bike,
\nbut in recent years, it has seen little use. Its wheels and pedals
\nhad been scavenged, and apparently the internals of the RSX STI levers
\nhad seized up. [This bike originally came with down tube shifers. I
\nhad replaced them with the RSX levers in 1997.] So to bring this bike
\nback into service, I scavenged my touring wheels from one bike and
\npedals from another bike. And I installed new bar end shifters. This
\nis a 7 speed drivetrain 30\/42\/52 + 12\/28. The front fork is cushy
\nsteel, which I thought would be good for absorbing all of the bumps
\nthat were advertised on this route. I also installed a known “good”
\nsaddle, because I knew the old saddle on that bike was no good for
\nlong distance. I also added a second layer of bar tape, which
\ninstantly transformed these bars from my least comfortable to on par
\nwith my most comfortable. $12 and 12 minutes well spent!<\/p>\n
As a shakedown ride, Sara and I set out the next day from our doorstep
\nfor a 145 mile ride southward down the coast of Maine, with an inland
\nreturn route. A few respectable hills on the course. The bike
\nperformed flawlessly. I had apparently nailed the saddle location, no
\nadjustment necessary. Bars just needed to be lowered about a little.
\nThe new levers are indexed for 9 speed so I was using friction shift
\non the rear for the first time since the 80’s. I actually liked it.
\nNo clicky clunky noise, and no cable settling to worry about.<\/p>\n
So after a busy work week, I tossed the bike on the roof and drove to
\nmy hotel in Burlington in time to get some sleep before the start. I
\nwas happy to see a decent turnout for the ride. Jake did the
\nannouncements and we were off. I started about 30 seconds behind the
\nmain bunch, and I last saw that cloud of taillights maybe on Virginia
\nRd (mile 1). I have started too hard on a few occasions. I’ve
\nlearned to watch that group pedal away. However, the disappearance
\nusually takes a LITTLE longer…<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, I was feeling good and making good speed (for me) on the
\nway to the first control (mile 22) and had gained a good amount of
\ntime buffer. I leapfrogged a few other riders on this section. The
\nrain had started in earnest well before the control, so the cue sheet
\nwas encased in a ziploc. I also (for the first time) had a Garmin on
\nthe bars with maps and turn by turn directions. I did not spend any
\ntime at the control. I did not need to warm up, and I was good on
\nfood and water. The most memorable happening on the way to the first
\ncontrol was at about mile 16 when Jon D nearly ran over a NKB.
\nNocturnal Kamikaze Bunny.<\/p>\n
Having not spent much time at the control, it took a while for the
\nleapfroggers to leap past me again. I was still pleased with my
\nprogress and the fact that I was building time buffer that I knew I
\nwould need later. It seemed that the “real” hills started at about
\nmile 40. I was getting up them OK, but as I was passing through a
\ntown at about mile 48, my legs started telling me that maybe I was a
\nlittle behind on electrolytes, and that I was possibly vulnerable to
\nan onset of The Cramp. I’ve only really been attacked by The Cramp on
\nthree occasions. And none of them were hot days. I can’t explain it.
\nAnyway, I decided that I would stop as soon as I was off the main
\nstreet. The next turn was a right turn onto Cushing St, and given
\nthat the main street was somewhat of an uphill, I had some hope that
\nCushing St would provide an easing of the gradient. As I steered the
\nbike onto Cushing St, that hope was instantly crushed. Like a penny
\non a train track. Perhaps the steepest hill so far? So my ample
\nsupply of stubbornness kicked in, and I decided I would take a brief
\nbreak only after beating Cushing St into submission.<\/p>\n
THE INCIDENT
\nAs I was standing and cranking my way up Cushing St, I started hearing
\nan occasional tick from my drivetrain that seemed new but it was only
\na minor distraction. I kept pedaling, but I was pondering whether it
\nwas once per crank rev or once per chain cycle. Before I came to a
\nconclusion, the chain came off the inside chainring. I managed to
\nunclip and stay upright. Now the correct thing to do at this point
\nwould have been to examine the drivetrain and figure out (1) why the
\nchain would suddenly come off the inside chainring and (2) what was
\nthe source of that ticking noise. But what actually happened was that
\nmy powers of denial kicked in, and I refused to believe that I had an
\nimminent chain failure, and instead I quickly put the chain back on
\nthe chainring. I then did a downhill start to get clipped in, did the
\nU turn, and on the first or second pedal stroke there was a Very Bad
\nSound from the back wheel and some resistance to pedaling above and
\nbeyond just gravity.<\/p>\n
From the sound, I had a pretty good idea what had just happened.
\nAgain I managed to unclip and not fall over. A quick glance confirmed
\nmy suspicion. The rear derailleur was no longer attached to the
\nframe. It had been relocated to a location between a reak rack stay
\nand the back wheel.<\/p>\n
My first reaction was crap, I didn’t even make it a third of the way,
\nand I have to somehow get a ride from here back to the start.<\/p>\n
My second reaction was crap, I didn’t even make it a third of the way,
\nand I have to somehow get a ride from here back to the start.<\/p>\n
Starting with my third reaction, my rando “training” managed to break
\nthrough. How am I going to get to the next control? Am I walking or
\nam I riding? The derailleur is probably only bent, but that is moot
\nbecause the hanger is snapped off. So at best I have a single speed.
\n(Or maybe a two speed). I have a chain tool. And ordinarily (if I
\nweren’t riding a 20 year old bike with a 7 speed drivetrain) I would
\nhave a super link, or at least a special connecting pin. But I have
\nneither. So I moved the bike into the grass and set to it. It seemed
\nlike the question was going to be — can I achieve reasonable chain
\ntension without the derailleur? And the answer was going to be either
\nyes or no, and I wouldn’t know until I tried. So as the rain
\nintensified (and I shivered for the first and only time all day) and
\nthe mosquitos were having breakfast at my expense, I broke the chain
\nat an easy-to-get-at link which was 6 or 8 links from the failure, and
\nremoved the derailleur.<\/p>\n
I forgot to explain exactly what failed. When I installed this chain
\nseveral years ago (yes, in hindsight I should have replaced the chain
\nwhen I brought this bike out of retirement) I vaguely remember
\nbotching the job such that an outside link slipped off the special
\njoining pin. (This was one of the last times I installed a chain
\nwithout using a super link.) This was during an event, so I fixed it
\nin the field by pushing the outside link back onto the pin. The chain
\nnever gave me any more issue. And it survived last week’s 145 mile
\ntest ride without issue. So back to the failure. What happened was
\nthat the outside link slipped off again when I applied my massive
\nquads to the Cushing St problem. That was the ticking, similar to the
\nnoise that a time bomb might make. And presumably that’s what caused
\nthe chain drop “warning shot” which I Denied. The killshot was when
\nthat outside link caught on the pulley cage of the derailleur and
\ntried to pull it around my 28 tooth cog. Luckily, it appeared that
\nthe chain had stayed away from my spokes, so no weakened spokes.<\/p>\n
Back to the repair. Given that I was shivering, and my blood loss to
\nthe mosquitos was becoming significant, I did not think too hard about
\nwhat gearing I would want in my single speed. I figured I had to
\neither choose a middle gear which would allow some reasonable
\nefficiency on flat terrain and cause a lot of walking up hills, or
\nelse I had to choose a very low gear so I wouldn’t have to walk up
\nhills. Given the number of hills on the route, I opted for the low
\ngear, specifically small chainring (30) to second to largest cog (24).
\nThis also resulted in a darn near straight chainline, which seemed
\nlike a good idea with a weakened chain. It took me a while to figure
\nout how to reuse a standard chain pin. In hindsight it was pretty
\neasy. Just don’t push any pins all the way out of both outer links.
\nWhen I was nearly finished a kind person from across the street
\ninvited me into his garage to use whatever tools he had. It was also
\nwarm and flat in there (so I could turn the bike upside down instead
\nof crouching) so I gladly accepted his offer. He was a very cheerful
\nfellow and he showed me one of the signs he had recently painted. It
\nsaid “All Days are Good. Some are Gooder than Others.”<\/p>\n
So I was lucky, the spacing between crank and cassette allowed for
\nenough chain tension, perhaps just slightly too much, but it appeared
\nto be workable. The repair probably took an hour, but I didn’t worry
\nabout the clock until I pedaled to the top of Cushing St. The chain
\nhad held for a couple hundred yards of a steep hill. Maybe I’ll be
\nable to pedal to the control. Hey, what time is it? Maybe I haven’t
\nblown the time limit yet. Sure enough, I should be able to get there
\nbefore closing.<\/p>\n
Now for the bad news. Given my 30\/24 gear ratio, my top speed on flat
\nterrain is now 9.3 mph. Well technically maybe 11 mph but that was
\nnot a sustainable cadence for me. So clearly flat terrain was now The
\nEnemy. My climbing speed was not going to be much different than it
\nwas before, nor was downhill coasting. But flat roads were going to be
\nmuch slower than they would be ordinarily.<\/p>\n
Now some (maybe all) of you may be reading this and thinking — what a
\npansy! He should have gone with the middle chainring and the 14 or 16
\nin the back. I know that people do these courses with 42\/15 single or
\nfixed drivetrains. I know I am not capable of that. I continue to be
\nin awe of people who are capable of that. I heard there was a single
\nspeed (by choice) rider out on course, and I am curious what gears
\nthey used.<\/p>\n
Given the mix of terrain on the way to the 54 mile control, my average
\nspeed actually didn’t seem to be affected that much, though it is an
\nexercise in patience to coast along on a slight downhill at 10-11 mph.
\nI arrived at the control with 7 minutes to spare. To my suprise,
\nmost of the leapfroggers were still there, plus the two riders that
\npassed by while I was repairing my bike on Cushing St. One rider was
\nwisely abandoning due to signs of hypothermia. Conditions at this
\npoint were 45 degrees (about 10 to 15 below forecast) with heavy rain
\nand some wind. I left the control at exactly 1 minute past the
\nclosing time. Next control was 28 miles and I had to average a little
\nbetter than 9.3 mph to get there before closing.<\/p>\n
This was the real test of (1) can I achieve better than brevet pace
\n(9.3 mph) with 30\/24 gearing and (2) is this chain, with a weakened
\nlink and slightly over-tensioned, going to hold? Again, much patience
\nwas required when coasting on the slight downhills. There was a bit
\nof a steep wall about 3 miles before the control which seemed like a
\npretty good test of the weak chain link. Much torque was applied. No
\nchain failure. I got to the 82 mile control with 13 minutes to spare,
\nso I had gained 14 minutes! Which I promptly squandered at the
\ncontrol. I believe I left right at the closing time. The next leg
\nwas 14 miles, and the voluinteers at the control passed along a rumor
\nthat it was easy and predominantly downhill.<\/p>\n
And so it was, at least for the first 7 miles. Another rider had left
\nthe control slightly after I did, and he passed me. I didn’t see him
\nagain until Dick’s Bike Shop (mile 117). About 7 miles into this leg
\nthere was a hill. Not a short hill. About 1\/3 (?) of the way up it,
\nI was thinking, hey, I’ve still got a chance of finishing inside the
\ntime limit (midnight). Two seconds later my bike barfed its chain
\nonto the ground behind me. A perfect line of links sitting flat on
\nthe pavement, all looking at me and laughing.<\/p>\n
I immediately knew what had happened. Again I managed to unclip and
\nstay upright. My first thought was crap, nice job, now you have to
\nget a ride back to the start from 89 miles out instead of 48. Plus
\nit’s 7 miles uphill to backtrack to the previous control, which will
\nbe torn down anyway, so no point going backwards.<\/p>\n
My second thought was that it was time to take Mark S up on his kind
\noffer of sagging me to the start from wherever on the course, no
\nmatter how late into the evening\/night. I dug my phone out and
\nverified that it had no service. I have to admit, at this point I was
\nonly considering how to get to somewhere that I could place a phone
\ncall. Had my brain been on straight, I would have coasted down the
\nhill to a spot where I could safely repair my chain, and then
\ncontinued on to the control. But in reality what I did was to assume
\nthere was no way I was going to make it to the control inside the time
\nlimit. So I walked uphill (maybe 15-20 minutes?) alternately cursing
\nand laughing until I found a flat spot where I could safely work on
\nthe bike. There’s a really nice creek running down the left side of
\nthat road. I highly recommend getting off and walking up that hill so
\nyou can see it. This was an opportunity to change the gearing, but I
\ndecided to keep the 30\/24 gearing. The repair probably took 20
\nminutes or so. Then I had a bite to eat. It wasn’t completely
\ndownhill to the control (mile 96) from there, but it was fairly easy
\nand I arrived only 20 minutes outside the time limit. Who knows,
\nmaybe I could have made it on time, had I not prematurely mentally
\nblown the time limit. It was only the second strike, afterall. But
\nsomething had happened during this second repair. Some say his heart
\ngrew three sizes that day (it was really just his brain shrinking) but
\nthe Garshaf realized that even though the time limit had just slid
\npast, nothing had really changed. The NERDs down in NERDville were
\nstill waiting for riders to come in, and there was still plenty of
\ntime to at least get much closer to the finish. If I had to stop and
\nrepair the chain every 40 miles, so be it.<\/p>\n
I had left the repair site (mile 89.x) at the next control’s closing
\ntime, and it took me 20 minutes to get to the control. So that was
\nit, I had officially blown the time limit. This was a farm store, and
\nthe woman there was extremely nice, and she tempted me with her
\ncar+bikerack+offer to drive me wherever I needed to be. Thirty
\nminutes earlier, I would have accepted. But that would have been
\nWrong. I didn’t really need her help. I was OK on warmth
\n(temperature had soared all the way up to 48 though it was still
\nraining) and I had plenty of food and water. Legs seemed fine. I was
\nonly missing a rear derailleur hanger. So I called Sara and gave her
\nthe status update. She is one of us, so unlike a normal wife, she
\nactually understood why I was continuing.<\/p>\n
I found this next 21 mile leg to Dick’s Bike Shop to be harder than
\nany of the previous legs. I’m not sure if it really was, or if I was
\njust fading. Looking at my leftover food after the ride, it looks
\nlike my calorie intake was not what it should have been. (A chronic
\nproblem of mine, which I’ve been doing better with, but when riding so
\nclose to the time limit, it’s hard to keep the food flowing.) I
\njoined up with another rider at mile 100 and we rode together the next
\n17 miles to the control. I had left the previous control 47 minutes
\nafter the closing time, and I arrived at Dick’s Bike Shop about 71
\nminutes past closing. This was the first leg that I lost time without
\nhaving a mechanical to blame. Perhaps this was partly because the
\ntime limit had been blown, so the urgency was gone. On this leg, I
\ndecided that if the Petersham control volunteer (Walt, mile 124)
\noffered to sag me to the start, I would accept. Otherwise, I would
\npress on to the finish, relying on Mark S to bail me out if necessary.
\nMy decision to abandon was partly because I wanted to be done, and
\npartly to not keep the ride organizers and volunteers out any farther
\npast midnight than they already were going to be. (Though I suspect
\nthat they would have supported my decision to tough it out, had my
\nstubbornness been unsurmountable.) I think if stubbornness had won
\nout, I would have finished sometime around 2am (two hours outside the
\nlimit).<\/p>\n
Unfortunately (dammit!) Walt prevented me from reaching the Petersham
\ncontrol (mile 124) by parking his warm dry car at about mile 121.
\nThis was the site of abandonment. (I will curse it appropriately next
\ntime I pass it.) I broke down into tears. Walt and the other
\nabandoner had to physically lift me into the car. Just kidding! I
\nwas glad to see Walt, and I happily stripped the bike and climbed into
\nthe car. We then drove the rest of the course (stopping for coffee
\nand some pretty good chili at the Petersham store), arriving back at
\nHanscom at about 9:00 or so, just one or two riders still out on
\ncourse. I was showered and sleeping in my warm hotel bed before the
\ntime limit expired. I hope Walt, Jake, and Emily were home too.<\/p>\n
Some additional observations \/ random tidbits…<\/p>\n
The people at all three stores were really nice. (Tweedo’s, Diemand,
\nPetersham) I wish I could have spent more time at all of them.<\/p>\n
As I was pedaling along at top speed of 10 mph or so, a squirrel
\npassed me. I thought that was uncalled for.<\/p>\n
I need to check the Garmin to see if the auto pause feature can be set
\nto trigger at something less than 2 mph.<\/p>\n
I thought the course was awesome, though granted, I saw the final
\nthird of it from a car.<\/p>\n
I think I was passed by a total of 3 cars all day. Some nice scenery,
\nthough some of it was obscured by fog and the other 90% was obscured
\nby water droplets on my glasses.<\/p>\n
I liked the sand trap on one of the dirt sections. After the surface
\nhad transitioned to be a little more hard packed, I looked down at my
\ncue sheet for a second (my bad) and when I looked up I was headed
\nstraight for the sand box which spanned the entire right hand side of
\nthe road. The bike stopped and I fell sideways. I felt like a
\ncartoon character, but I thought I rolled well, and somehow I got both
\nfeet unclipped either before or during the fall. Fortunately the left
\nside of the road (which I fell onto) was much harder packed, so I
\ndidn’t sink in too far. I laughed pretty hard. Clearly an earlier
\nmuch more intelligent rider had dismounted and walked trough the sand
\ntrap. You could see the footprints. It’s too bad there weren’t any
\nriders after us — I left an interesting impression in the sand trap
\nfor them to interpret.<\/p>\n
I think this will be one of my favorite \/ most memorable rides. I
\nshould frame the control card.<\/p>\n
I’m very grateful for Walt’s kindness in sagging me to the finish, and
\nthat’s two bottles of bourbon I owe him now. (Dammit!)<\/p>\n
After the second chain incident, I was afraid to stand on the pedals.
\nThis probably didn’t help my climbing speed.<\/p>\n
So my single speed was maybe a two speed. Perhaps I could have
\nremoved the rear wheel and moved the chain from 30\/24 to 42\/12. But
\nthis would have been a less straight chainline, and it would have only
\nbeen useful on very gentle terrain. I never tried it. The time
\npenalty for switching gears seemed too high.<\/p>\n
To my friends in North Carolina, I’m sorry to have let you down. Such
\na disgrace. I DNF’d while wearing a NC rando reflective vest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some Days are Gooder than Others A Boston 300K Ride Report I was eagerly looking forward to the challenging new 2012 Boston 300K route that Jake designed, knowing full well…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ner.bike\/nersite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ner.bike\/nersite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ner.bike\/nersite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ner.bike\/nersite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ner.bike\/nersite\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ner.bike\/nersite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":716,"href":"https:\/\/ner.bike\/nersite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions\/716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ner.bike\/nersite\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ner.bike\/nersite\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ner.bike\/nersite\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}