DGlenday

(Let me know if this has already been discussed in one of the other threads, and I'll read about it there...)

Just wondering if anyone here is planning to ride the n24hc?

I'm planning to do it - this will be my first time, it will hopefully be the longest distance I've ever ridden (though I've done some pretty decent rando rides), and will be my first 'race' of any sort in 25 years.

Allegheny Jet

Good luck Duncan. A 24 hr race is well beyond my comfort zone. A few of my riding buddies have done Calvin's Challenge and followed up with the 24 hr race. I don't believe any are in this years race.

Don't forget to post a race report.

DGlenday

Thanks. Yes, I'll post a suffering - er - a race report.

DGlenday

Race Report

My Garmin 500’s battery failed after 260 miles, so the remainder of the ride is not shown in Strava. (I bought a Gomadic charger which is supposed to provide external power to the Garmin. It did not work!)

Here's the Strava link to the segment recorded by the Garmin ... https://app.strava.com/activities/60917572

Successes:
- Rode 297.5 miles in 20 hours at an average of 18.4 mph
- Rode a 6:30 hour century
- Immediately followed by a 6:16 century
- I.e. a double-century in 13:46 - finished in daylight
- Rode a 23-mile loop at 18.8mph (about the same as my club’s weekday training rides) … three times, after having ridden 117 miles
- Completed a total of 297.5 miles (but only 293.7 of these miles counted because they don't count bonus miles for wrong turns!)
- Finished 26th overall out of a field of 310
- Settled into a nice rhythm in the late afternoon - and was able to knock out 18.5mph laps with heart rate ticking over at 135, all the way through midnight. Dunno how that worked, but it was nice!
- For randonneurs - in brevet-terms this ride's equivalents were a 200km in 7 hours, a 300km in 11.5 hours, a 400km in 16 hours

Not So Successful:
- Rain and storm winds messed me up for about an hour of riding around 1:00 to 2:00am
- Thunderstorms closed the course for several hours
- Biggest failing - my stops were too long and too frequent
- I *JUST* missed making 300 miles in the 20-or-so hours available - and I felt I needed to hit 300 to leave the event with a solid sense of accomplishment (I was actually hoping for 350)
- With more intelligent stops etc., I coulda gone well into the 300s

Many lessons learned - chief among them was that I knew I hadn't trained properly for the event. With more focused training, a full 24 hours, and better course planning, who knows...

Esteban58

That seems pretty damn impressive to me. Well done!

Allegheny Jet

Very nice job!!! I don't understand why they would stop a 24 hr beatdown ride for a few thunder storms?

Racer Ex 

That's a pretty long ride

And an impressively high finishing position.

LAJ

Very well done. It takes a certain breed to knock stuff like that down.

shovelhd

20 hours at 18.4? Holy crap.

sarals 

I'd bet you could do a "normal" road race at well over 20 MPH! Strong, strong work - congratulations!

Cleave

Hi DGlenday, regardless of the average speed, 20 hours of riding solo without any sleep is a good ride/race. 2-3 hours of racing or a century is plenty of time on the bike for me these days.

VanceMac

I just assumed that he was referring to moving time avg speed... which is fairly common. Either way, your delivery fails the test of pedantry.

AzTallRider

Dude. It wasn't an error. We all knew what he meant, and it was an impressive ride. Get your head out of your anally retentive math and read enough here to understand the culture a bit before posting your craptastic analysis. Either that, or just go away.

shovelhd

28mph is a sprint on a mountain bike.

AzTallRider

Gnosis - can you tell which one these two guys you sound like?

shovelhd

[h=2]pe·dan·tic[/h] [puh-dan-tik]

adjective 1. ostentatious in one's learning.

2. overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, especially in teaching.

sarals 

Data is a cyclist?

DGlenday

OP here:

Many thanks for the kind words about the ride. It wasn't as hard as I'd expected, until after the rain. When the roads were wet and the temps were cool, I didn't have the right clothing - and felt cold enough to make the last 40-or-so miles extremely difficult.

Regarding the "average speed" issue: Forgive me, Gnosis, for I have sinned.

I am extremely familiar with basic math, but thanks for the lesson anyway. I meant - but failed to specify - that my moving average speed for the 297.5 miles was 18.4, which everyone else understood and which the Strava link spelled out - and which I felt pretty good about. I also mentioned that my biggest failing was stops that were too long and too frequent, which obviously impacted my total distance and my (absolute) average speed. Everyone is on the same page now, and I will not exchange any further discussions about it.



On a slightly different subject:

My objective this season was to get through the 24-hour.

Check.

I now plan to focus on shorter-distances / higher-speeds for the rest of this year, and will train with the local velo club. And I then plan to start competing either late in this season or early in the 2014 season.

So I hope to start contributing to this forum more frequently in the not-too-distant future...

sarals 

Duncan, I hope to hear more from you! And, yes on the shorter races. I think you'll do very well there.

chasm54

The stopping time - or lack of it - is pretty crucial in these extreme time-trials. A few years ago I rode an event with a guy who the previous year had placed fourth in our national 24-hour TT championship. He had covered 480-something miles at an average, obviously, of almost exactly 20 mph. I asked him how much rest he had, whether he slept at all. He looked at me as if I was slightly simple, and said that if one was organised with regard to food and drink (he ahd a support team to hand him them at feed stations) there was no need to spend more than fifteen minutes off the bike. In 24 hours! Different breed.

Not to diminish your performance, Duncan, which is miles (!) in excess of anything I'd attempt. Great effort.

Allegheny Jet

Duncan, I understood your moving average speed from the get-go. I am looking forwards to your journey into racing now that its started.

sarals 

+1

LAJ

Until Gnosis parks his ass on a bike for 24 hours, his math is meaningless.

shovelhd

Booyah.

reef58

I am feeling inspired OP Good job