200k Brevet, Satellite Beach, FL - 11 January 2004

Jutta's first 200k

 

Facts Ladyspeed:

Distance: 122.2 Miles 196.7 km Riding time: 8:08 h   Total time: 9:35 h   Average speed: 15.0 mph 24.2 km/h

 

Facts Ridehard:

Distance: 136.1 Miles 219.0 km Elevation (climbing): 400 ft 122 m Riding time: 8:41 h   Total time: 10:30 h   Average speed: 15.1 mph 24.3 km/h

 

Ride report:

It started out on Saturday early in the morning, when the Tandem we wanted to meet, instead of sharing the cold road decided to continue sharing their warm bed. There must be some kind of medication or drugs involved, since they were talking in a language that doesn't fit to insane people: First it should not rain, than cold temperatures were of worry and finally the wind blew it away. Somehow they managed to jump of the infection list and became a "DNS" (did not show) rating for the 200k.

With temperature forecast of 44 F in morning and the days high of 60 F in Satellite Beach, Jutta now somewhat worried was looking for medication to get cured too. But our house is "clean" and does not carry any of this medication, so she went and showed up at the ride start. By the way a total of 37 riders showed up. In a nutshell I have to say what a great ride it was. The weather was much better than anticipated. The lowest temperatures in morning we had was 52 F and within 2 hours we were at 60 F. The days high actually was 69 F (while riding). During breaks in the sun it actually went over 70 F. So the only real problem we had throughout the ride was, that we were overdressed. What was left was the wind and we had lots of it and therefore I was able to leave my jacket on all day. We headed out south (tailwind) for about 4 Miles to get warmed up. After that we headed out north for the next 40 Miles into the headwind. This was tough since the wind continued to pick up on strength and at the last Miles we were directly at the ocean without any protection from houses or trees. So we kept the speed at 11 to 12 mph. The next 55 Miles went south (tailwind) and we enjoyed cycling. In Sebring Jutta had difficulties on the last 7 Miles on the 107 Mile ride and again this time any Mile over 100 was though, since the last 25 Miles we had to go into the wind again. I was pulling the group, that was ahead of us and which we caught (Barbara from Gainesville: did the whole series last year and cycled 1100k in Paris, Linda: successfully finished PBP and two guys who did their first 125 Miles ride ever) at speeds between 10 and 12 mph. Most people in the group had somehow a energy drain and suffered into the head wind.

Jutta overall did very well and successfully finished with the group of the experienced ladies. The total time was 9:35 hours (including breaks) for this ride and this is 5 minutes faster than my first 200k last year. We managed to come in with day light. The ride was a little short and Jutta ended up only doing 197k and she didn't want to cycle extra loops (Mitch syndrome). But with only a short pit stop to the first control (at Mile 44) and no stop to the next control at Mile 79 she cycled like a real Randonneur. In addition with all the wind this was a very good ride and time.

I actually went back out with the bike to help another woman to manage to come to the finish (while is was dark now) and ended up with a total of 136 Miles (my longest ride this year :-)).Overall 34 out of 37 riders finished.