Yesterday I rode the Great Pumpkin Ride out of Warrenton, Virginia. As is often the case, I get a bit stressed out in the days before the ride. For one thing, I could see that the weather forecast called for temperatures in the high 30s during check in time, around sunrise. The temps were predicted to rise into the low 60s by mid afternoon. How would I dress for this? I decided to ride The Tank which is not the greatest bike for hilly terrain. Would my legs hold up? Would there be long lines at check in? At the porta potties? At the food tables at the pit stops? Ack!
I decided to drive to the ride in time to check in at 7:30. No problem. I went to bed around 11 p.m. I woke up every 45 minutes or so, rolled over, and hoped for some serious sleep. Didn’t happen. I finally left my bed 10 minutes at 5:20. Ack!
After a quick breakfast – Corn Chex atop a banana and a handful of blueberries with a cup of green tea – I put The Tank on my car rack and got ready to roll. Did I mention it was going to be cold? My windshield was iced over. I had to go back inside and find a scraper. Ack!
Window scraped, I set off for Warrenton about 10 minutes later than I had hoped. Fortunately traffic at 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning was nonexistent. I arrived in Warrenton at 7:15, parked, and headed to check in. There was no line. I used a porta potty, no line again, and found a spot in the rising sun.
I was actually pretty comfortable despite the temperatures in the low 40s. I had on a long sleeve base layer, a t-shirt, a wool blend sweater, and my riding vest, all paired with long, wool blend socks, a pair of bike shorts under my warm, long bike pants. On my head I had a mid-weight skull cap and a buff. I had a lightweight pair of lobster gloves for my hands.
While I waited for the start I noticed that the usual epically long lines never materialized at either check in or the porta potties. Weird.
Just before 9, riders started to amass at the caboose where the ride was to begin on a rail trail. I expected a safety speech followed by a air horn. I looked up and saw the riders in the front rolling out. Then I heard church bells ringing. This must be it. Off I went in the midst of the throng. The throng seemed considerably smaller than in the past. More road for me!
After a bumpy mile on the rail trail we switched over to two-lane country roads for the next 60 miles. The entire ride is a series of small ups and downs. During the first 15 miles we lost 500 feet of elevation but overall we’d climb 2,487 feet on the “ups”.
I rode past dozens of farms, sheep, cattle, dairy cows, a horse or two. The corn and soybeans had already gone to market. There was not much in the way of fall foliage. I guess that will come in a few days. About the only vivid color was the green grass on the sod farms around 45 miles into the ride.
My wife had convinced me to bring snacks to avoid the long food lines at the pit stops. There were none. There was plenty of food – pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin grilled cheese, and the usual non-pumpkin fare. I’m not a fan of pumpkin so I stuck to bananas, M&Ms, a half a donut, and some Gatorade. I also ate some cookies and a Clif Bar from my snack bag.
At the second rest stop, with temperatures in the high 50s, I removed my t-shirt layer. At the last rest stop about 45 miles into the day, I switched to shorts that I had stashed in my trunk bag. I was perfectly comfy the entire ride.
Aside from what appeared to be a much smaller number of riders than in years past, the biggest change was the fact that most of the roads on the course had been recently paved. This, and the lack of wind, made for licketly split riding. I was shocked to see my average speed in the 14 to 15 mile range for the first 45 miles. At one point the course descends a long windy hill to a bridge at Kelly’s Ford. In years past this was a scary, bumpy ride. In fact a couple of years ago a rider in a bg group of roadies wiped out at the bridge across Marsh Run. With the smooth new pavement I tore down the hill. At the end of the ride, my bike computer said my maximum speed was 49 miles per hour. If this was accurate, that’s the second fastest I’ve ever gone on a bike. (It was probably bogus, but computers are always right, aren’t they?)
My worries about The Tank handling the hills were for naught. There were a handful of times when I maxed out my legs near the top of a climb, but mostly I hill hopped, bombing down one hill and using the momentum to get over the next. No worries. Unlike last year, I had no mechanical issues.
One of the things I dislike about event rides in the country is the behavior of riders in clusters. Typically, they zoom past you without warning which is really dangerous. I only had one instance of this happening this year and it involved only one rider, a MAMIL (middle aged man in lycra) apparently trying to show his bikey bona fides. Otherwise, riders riding in groups were great about giving a warning and passing with plenty of room. Sometimes on rural rides, the locals in cars get annoyed at being delayed by riders – excessively fast passes, honking horns and such. Not this year. Well played, y’all.
The last ten miles of the ride features a regain of 300 of the 600 miles from the first ten miles as we returned to the finish at the caboose. I struggled to maintain 12 miles per hour along this stretch but made it to the end in decent shape. I expected to take at least 6 hours to do the ride but finished in 5 1/2 which included about 30 or 40 minutes at the pit stops and here and there along the road.
All in all I am pleased with how The Tank and I performed. I was pretty tired last night but I did a 30 mile recovery ride today and lived to tell this tale.
Big thanks to the organizers, volunteers, and local law enforcement folks who made for a well run event.
Next up, the Washington Area Bicyclists Association Cider Ride in two weeks.
And a Final Note: during the first Cider Ride I helped an exhausted college student find her way over the last five or so miles to the finish line. Her name is Katie. The other day Katie put her bike on an Amtrak train and headed to New York City to do the NYC 100 mile ride. Yesterday she parked and locked her bike, went into a restaurant and had brunch. While she was inside, a fire truck ran over her bike. Dead bike! Ugh. She filed a police report in the hopes that FDNY will pay for the bike. Fingers crossed. She planned to find a rental bike and do the ride. Good luck, Katie!
