A new first for me: Took part in my first fixed gear double century. Route was the Solvang Spring Double. Had a great ride, saw a lot of familiar faces from the double/brevet/ultra circuits, and finished really strong.
Had a late start due to forgetting my ride number at the hotel. Finally rolled out at 5:40am. It was cold out and I was definitely happy to have brought shoe covers, wool socks, full finger gloves, knee warmers and my Assos Robocap.
Managed to run into a tadem at the first red light and rolled with them til the first turn. Then a pack of about 12 of us made the journey to checkpoint 1. They dropped me within 6 miles of the stop as my gearing topped out with a 71 gear inch. This would be the case the rest of the day.
Hit checkpoint 2 at mile 85. Things had warmed up considerably and I dumped the knee warmers and toe covers and swapped gloves and helmet liners. 2 friends from Oakland that were rolling their first double century rolled in just as I was gearing to go. Saw Vlad Luskin and we rolled the next few miles together. Then a train flew by on Hwy 1 and I yelled to Vlad and his buddy "Jump on it!". Didn't see him the rest of the day. Pretty much rolled solo for the next 10 or so miles to the Morro Bay "secret" checkpoint where they tagged my number.
Lunch was at mile 118 and then back on the road. Next checkpoint was at 145 with the final rest stop being at mile 178. I felt good enough to blow through stop 4 though and rolled the 60 mile stretch straight through to the base of the last climb.
Refueled, said hi to some friends and then off to hit the final portion of the ride. Everyone had been warning me about the climb up Drum Canyon. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as I was expecting and I crested well before I thought I would. MISERABLE bumpy descent.
Time trialed the last 6 miles to the finish. Finish time was 6:40pm. Exactly 13 hours from when I started. Bested my best personal double time of 14hrs. 15 mins on the DVF (had gears on that one), didn't suffer any cramps, no mental meltdowns, and did it all on a 50x19! It was also very cool to have a cheering squad along the way too. "Go fixie dude!" was the call of the day. One guy rolled by and yelled out, "You definitely got MORE!". I replied, "Well, not brains or gears!"
What a great first double for 2009.
