Davis Double - DONE! - Triple Crown Winners

Sorry for the delay on this...been kind of busy

Well we lucked out with the weather! 57F as we set out on the 200 mi ride and a high of about 90F by the last climb at mile 136. Compare that to the 105F temperatures of last year and we were lucky!

We had the company at the start of Phil and Jeff from Cycle Folsom and we started off at about 5:30am - just as the horizon was starting to lighten. We were in a good sized paceline for about 15 miles but as the pace started to climb to 22-24mph Lisa and I decided that we would dole out our effort at a slightly slower pace. We saw Phil and Jeff at the first stop ( about 23mi) and left before they did... and never saw them again - since they must have passed up on one rest stop and went on ahead. We saw them the next day at the Tour of California Stage 1 and they indicated they completed the ride in 13 hours - Well Done!

We made good time averaging 18+ on the flats and Lisa was nice enough to wait for me at the top of the climbs :). After a stop at that base of the 7 mi climb to Cobb we headed up the biggest climb of the day- the grade was mostly in the 8-10% but a few sections of 14% grade and the rising heat made me drop off the pace and come in to the rest stop a mile from the top a handful of minutes behind Lisa. Lisa had an advantage over me though since she had her sumo wrestler thumb puppets to take her mind off the steepness, and heat :) ...Lisa was waiting with a coke for me :)

The next two climbs were not bad but the temperatures were climbing and Lisa struggled to take in food. As well as we started south after mile 145 we had a bit of a headwind but luckily it was flat of slightly downhill for most of the remaining 50 miles. Since we were out of the climbs and back in my element ( the flats:) I did a fair bit of the pulling as Lisa was beginning to feel the lack of fuel.

We took a few extra minutes at the 2nd and 3rd last stops and but rode by the final stop (only 7 miles from the end). We ended up in the dark by the time we finished but were pleasantly surprised at our on bike times - about 13hr for Lisa and 13:15 for me (due to the slower climbs) giving us an average over the 203 miles of about 15.6mph - an improvement over the Solvang Double and Camino Real...

Now I think we will give the double centuries a rest and do a few of the other things that we have been neglecting as we trained to do the 3 doubles :)

Regards

Ron and Lisa

Fund Raiser for Conner Ellison's RAAM ride

On Saturday May 8th A number of Cycle Folsom Riders rode a version of the French town Loop from Folsome to EDH to Shingle Springs and back via Deer valley Road. The ride was organized by By Conner and his Family and Friends for Team Donate Life and Conner's planned Race Across America Ride coming up this summer.

Conner is an amazing athlete already at 12 years old with a Liver disease and a mission to spread the word about organ donation and the motto for the ride was "Are you stronger than a 6th Grader !?"

For more information check out:
www.teamdonatelife.com/6thgrader/6th_grader.asp

I unfortunatley was not feeling very strong and had to really buckle down to finsh the ride. Lisa was fortunately riding strongly with Kevin but that left me watching them dissapear up the road and plodding on on my own for maybe 66% of the ride..

Anyways a great Cause and a fun Ride...

GO CONNER!!

Caption contest

Phil and I were supposed to lead the Biking 101 Beginner's Ride on Sunday but did not have any takers so we rode the Lake loop together with a few other friends :)

So far these are the suggested captions for the picture from the Cycle Folsom Crew...Steve W as usual snowed us under with suggestions till we gave up :)

Enjoy - feel free to add a caption in the comment section !

Caption Suggestions:

1. ON YOUR LEFT!!!
2. The LAST time Phil gets to set up the paceline...
3. BIKING 101 rider getting “pipped” at the line by two geese
4. Beak Quiet!!
5. Blowing by a couple of old Geesers.
6. Honkies on the right!
7. Pardon me, I think someone in your pace line is losing chunks of rubber off their tires; it’s all over the path back there.
8. South? No, this path heads east.
9. Pardon me: do you have any Grey Poupon…for my foie gras?
10. BIKING 101 rider getting “pipped” at the line by two geese
11. Yes, we do own the road, human!
12. Biking 101 imprinting – ducks out of water.
13. Goose Up!
14. "Hey Phil, is that Lance Armstrong riding on the other side of the bike trail? I told you we should have taken that route instead!"
15. Damn Canadians!
16. SINGLE FILE EVERYONE...GEEZE!
17. OK you beginners ... first thing is you are gonna need bikes!"

Ron

Tour de Cure - Perfect Weather!!!

The event was a fund raiser for the American Diabetes Association and by the look of it there were over 300 participants so a good success.

Along with 7 other Cycle Folsom Riders and a couple of other we headed out from HP Roseville about 15 min after the first pack. A nice paceline formed and we ramped up the speed over the first 20 miles to about 19mph. After the first rest stop, the climbing began and a few of us decided that, given that we have been on the bike only once or twice in four weeks, we would not be keeping up with the faster Cycle Folsom team mates.

Tour De Cure organizers set up a very lovely route, on mostly rural roads with very little traffic and fantastic scenery. The ride had an early 2 climbs shorter climbs in the 8% range to take us to Far West reservoir. Then after the second rest stop, followed by some steeper climbs ( up to 15%) of Crater and Bald Hill for over 25 miles as we neared Applegate.

Most of the final 35 miles were down hill or flat thought Bowman Road hit us with some 12+ % climbing to keep us humble.

Our lack of riding over the past couple of weeks showed as we faded a little on the flat run in to Rosevill and missed the 6 hr goal by 9 minutes but with an on bike average of 16.25mph for the ride.

Post ride we enjoyed some burritos from Chipotle to help recover...now we turn our sights to the Davis Double in 2 weeks time...

Better get some miles in before then!

Ron and Lisa