hamster

That sucks man ... hey, at least no broken bones. Maybe you can still make it to white mountain. Training could be a problem though. If you can't make it, call the organizers and you might get a credit for next year. And I can take over your motel registration.

BTW, this is why I try to keep blinkers on (front and rear) even in daylight. And I've been wearing a helmet cam pretty regularly since I saw a near-miss caused by a car that ran a red light at an intersection 30 feet from me.

PhotoJoe 

Sorry to hear it, Lesper. Heal quick!

Any thoughts on what their insurance is going to buy you?

Lesper4

i want a super sex evo red but that is much more then what ma caad 9 5 is worth. we wil see how things play out as i have never experienced this before.

hamster

They'll have to pay for bodily injury as well.

Genaro

Aw man! Wha a bummer. Hope you heal up fast. Any ideas on what you're going to get ?

Lesper4

Hamster, I go to the specialist on Friday (and my LBS today) so I see no reason that I can't transfer my room over into your name. As for the ride even if my shoulder healed I still have no bike or riding in so I guess this will have to carry over till next year.

TrojanHorse

Here I thought you were still riding the solvang double - sorry to hear about your incident Lesper!

If you like, I'll bequeath my "supergimp" title to you since I appear to be cycling again.

hamster

I guess I'll have to carry the torch. I'm done with Solvang and Eastern Sierra, registered for White Mountain and DV Fall, on the wait list for Dead of Winter, and inquiring about volunteering at Solvang Fall.

hamster

Looking at White Mountain route profile and wondering what the heck I got myself into. The last 1500' of climbing up White Mountain are 9% grade and I'm sure that being at 9000' does not make it any easier. Time to break out the 42/28 crank again.

Weather wise, if weather stays the same as it is now, looks like it will be in the 50's or maybe low 60's to the top of the big climb, then high 80's to low 90's during the Nevada portion.

Biker395 

The climb is long, but it's not terrible. There are some steep sections, too ... but they don't last long.

The White Mountain Double is about:

1. The epic White Mountain Climb.
2. Aerobarring it through the desert.
3. The Boonies.
4. The smoothie stop.
5. The long slog to the bottom of Montgomery Pass (the pass itself is no biggie).
6. The generally headwindy ride to Bishop via Highway 6.

Wish I could do it this year, but I gotta move the son unit into his college dorm this weekend. I'll be doing this on Saturday instead:

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/3327108

Have fun!

Lesper4

You can join me next year once I am healed up.

hamster

Do people actually bring aero bars on this? I've been thinking about it but I'm unsure if I want extra weight during the climb.

Biker395 

IMHO, they are worth the extra weight for a ride like this. There are LONG sections of the WMD that are flat and can get pretty windy. Maybe not if you think you'll be pacelining a lot of it.

Rick@OCRR

Anyone else riding Knoxville? I'll be there! This will be Knoxville #10 for me. Quacks rock!

Rick / OCRR

hamster

Managed to misplace a piece of my 42/28 crank (some kind of spacer, not sure about the proper term, basically a 5 mm thick washer that keeps the left arm at fixed distance from the frame.) Not even sure how it got separated from the crank because I only took it off two months ago, put everything into the parts box, took the crank out of the parts box yesterday, found everything but the spacer. Thoroughly tossed the room. Nada. Coming to the end of my wits. Looks like the choice is between reverting to compact and buying a second identical crankset on the way to Bishop ($90 @ Jenson USA).

Weather forecast:

Bishop, 4 AM: 60 F
168/White Mountain Road, 6:30 AM: 53-54 F
Top of the climb, 7 AM: 48 F, 8 AM: 55 F
Boonies, 2 PM: 86 F

TrojanHorse

Just bring your crank to Jensen on the way.. see if they have the bit you're missing.

Installing a new crank the night before a double... um, not a fan but i'm sure you're up to it.

hamster

I'm not sure if I'm up to that myself ... really wanted to do a test ride before packing everything. Still have to mount aero bars and adjust FD. At this point it seems easier just to slap the compact back on and to try climbing white mountain in 34/32.

Lesper4

Temperatures look great I am sure you guys will enjoy the ride! Good luck to everyone!

Biker395 

From Boonies to smoothies .... have a great time!

hamster

16:25. Triple crown here I come!

Lesper4

Great job!

hamster

I'm going to say that WMD is definitely harder than ESD. There's more climbing (I got 9900' in ESD and 11600' in WMD), climbs are steeper and the back half is harder. Last climb of ESD is 1500' and it ends at mile 133, last climb of WMD is 2600' and it ends at mile 149.

I started in the first group at 4:00 and was at the top at 8:07. Never found the missing piece of the crank so I did it with the compact. 28/32 would have helped but not a whole lot. The first climb is pretty steep on average and it frequently kicks up to 10-11%. Plus, you can't really go above FTP (well, you can, but it's probably not a good idea.) There's a lot of mashing and a lot of out-of-saddle pedaling. I averaged 65 rpm and 77% FTP through the bottom half and 63 rpm and 72% FTP through the top half.

Once I got enough circulation in my fingers to be able to grip the brakes (it's pretty cold near the top), it was a fast drop back to 168 and then even faster drop down from the pass and it was warm the rest of the way.

Aero bars were a good idea in principle, but I concluded that I wasn't trained to stay in aero bars or in the drops for long periods of time. Already by Boonies it was hard enough that I was trying to rotate (1 mile in the drops, 1 mile in aero bars, 1 mile on the hoods). And I was running out of energy. I made sure to eat a 500 kcal dinner and a 400 kcal breakfast and to maintain the nutrition schedule (1 oz gel + 1 bottle Perpetuem per hour), which definitely helped compared with my previous doubles, but the "epic climb" alone burnt somewhere around 2400 kcal and mashing up the mountain probably didn't help either. Tried to paceline with a couple of groups but fell off after a few miles because it was too hard to maintain effort.

After the smoothie stop at mile 123 there's a short straight and then a long, slow climb up to Montgomery Pass. Would not be particularly hard with fresh legs, but I was pretty spent. As far as I could tell, so was everyone around me. (For a change, there were still some people around me and lots of people behind.) I managed to place 35th/59 on the Montgomery Pass Strava segment, averaging whopping 120 W and 128 bpm.

Got to the top of Montgomery Pass in 13:15 and things were looking good for a sub 16 hour finish till I hit the headwind halfway between Benton and Bishop. I was too tired to put out any power or to go in the drops so I just crawled along to the finish line. Final result, total time 16:25, moving time 14:39.

General conclusions. For the first time, instead of the general "this totally sucks" feeling for 1/2+ of the route, I had specific feelings of "wrongness". I was out of energy halfway through, but that appears to be reasonably normal for people at my performance level. I had neck and back pain that prevented me from any position other than the hoods. I'll try to address that by weight training in the gym and simply riding in the drops/aerobars more often. I had pretty substantial foot pain, looks like either my shoe soles aren't stiff enough, or my current pedals (eggbeaters) don't have enough contact patch area, or it's simply one of the things that needs getting used to. I need to consider swapping to large platform pedals for the next double (DV Fall).

jmX

Nice ride report. I train in aerobars about 50% of the time and can hold it for hours on end now....when I first got them, not so much. Maybe try riding in them a lot over the next 6 weeks in prep for DV...it can get really windy out there too.

See you out at the DV Fall double. I've not even a century in 16 months now, so attempting a double next month is gonna be rough. We'll be out there suffering together

hamster

There aren't many flats around here. It's pure luck that I even have aero bars. Their best use here is along the PCH, which is ~1.5 hours away by bike (one way) from where I live. But you're correct that DV can get windy and it's flatter than WMD. (I rode the Ultra distance last year, which is the same as the Double distance minus ~50 flat miles.)

One thing I did not mention above is saddle pain. If you did not try even a century in 16 month, that's something you might want to address while there's still time.

Lesper4

Thanks for the report Hamster. From your strava you had 2 centuries in the last 3 months and a few rides of 60+. Do you think more century rides would prepare you better? Also WMD has like 7,000 ft in the first half? I don't recall if any of your rides where stacked like that? I know you do a done of miles but it is a little different when you are in the saddle all day? From your pictures I cant wait till next year. I should be in even better shape too on a better bike.