A stoker's view of the 2005 Sunrise Century in
Clarkville, Tennessee.
Last year I rode with Fredia Barry on a tandem bike we
borrowed from Les Wooldridge. It was my first tandem
ride, but I enjoyed it so much that I later purchased
a used tandem. On last year's ride, the studly tandem
couple Robert and Wendy led a group to finish the
ride in 4:01:13. Obviously the challenge for this
year would be to finish it in less than four hours.
To assist riders in breaking the 4 hour mark and to
ensure safety, the ride organizers decided to offer
some limited support to the lead peleton. Basically
they would provide three motorcycle marshals and a
SAG vehicle.
A few weeks before the ride I contacted Travis Werts,
a bike racer and employee at the Gran Fondo Bicyle Shop.
Since he is both the stronger and a better cyclist, he
agreed to captain (ride the front position) our century
ride. Travis added a new stem and an 11-tooth cog, but
otherwise made no adjustments save the saddle height.
Just before the ride, Charles (SAG guy) asked for someone
in the fast group to carry a receive-only radio, so he
could issue instructions to the peleton. A few people
pointed to me, the stoker on the tandem, so I got elected.
The radio was actually of limited usefulness, because
I had limited success in verbally conveying anything
to the other riders.
The official century ride started at 7:00 am, but was
delayed a couple minutes so the riders who hoped to
establish a course record could depart first. I think
we had approximately 100 riders who opted to try riding
with the fast group. Over the radio I could hear some
concerns from the marshals if they could handle such
a large peleton. Within a few miles, however, 40
riders quickly got dropped off the back. The first
few miles were hard for me because of the fast pace
with little or no pre-ride warmup.
We took a couple of long pulls on the tandem, at one
point overtaking a motorcycle marshal on the right as
we urged him to speed up. We had no bike computer
on the tandem, so I just used my wrist chronometer
to estimate our distance (1 hour ~ 25 miles). At one
point during the first hour someone said our average
was 29 mph.
After the first hour things seemed to settle down into
a routine. I was riding close to my limit, actually
somewhere above my normal thresehold, but Travis was
smoothly in control of the tandem. Often he would have
to ask for more power: especially up a slight incline,
to bridge a short gap, or just as we would pull the
front of the peleton. I now have a better appreciation
for being in the stoker's position. I couldn't see
directly in front, so I couldn't judge when to apply
power without the verbal cues from Travis. More often,
probably, I was just getting lazy or mentally distracted
and needed Travis to remind me to keep up the effort.
Somewhere before our course midpoint the agreed to
take a brief roadside bathroom break. People started
moving again before everyone was ready. Our tandem
took longer to get up to speed and had to work a bit
to get back on the peleton. Travis, who had reluctantly
worn a Camelbak, took the opportunity to hand it off to
the SAG car.
Charles had detailed information about the course and
would communicate to me throughout the ride, e.g.
upcoming turns, elevation, etc. During the second
hour he mentioned that it might appear that we were
going slow, but were gradually gaining elevation. Not
having a bike computer meant that we didn't really
notice. At the 50 mile mark Charles mentioned that
we were about 5 minutes ahead of schedule. However,
he was probably basing his estimate on an even time
split and I wasn't sure if we'd maintain this pace
throughout the ride.
I learned some new things about riding a tandem with
a group of very fast bikes. We had to work hard coming
out of the turns, especially around sharp corners.
Fortunately, we had the motorcycle marshals ahead to
block the intersections and indicate which direction
to turn. The tandem requires a greater turning radius,
so if we were in the front this was less of an issue.
At any rate, as the ride progressed Travis got comfortable
and more aggressive with taking the tandem through the
turns.
Another issue was the hills. It's true there aren't
any real hills on the Clarksville Century, but any time
we were going upward on the tandem, our bike + rider
weight of almost 400 pounds would be a a temporary
disadvantage to fast single riders with less than
half our total mass. It was slightly annoying to have
someone whip around us and create a gap after we'd
just been pulling them. Travis was vocal about this
on more than one occassion. This was especially
galling as we were studiously working through the
paceline even if it meant that we had to slow down
or (horror!) even tap the brakes on the downhill
side.
Not far from the 50 mile mark we were riding a fast
4-lane highway. Initially we rode on the shoulder, but
with the rumble strip and bits of debris Charles radioed
that he'd block the cars from behind so we could take
the lane. This was on a slight incline and some riders
were getting aggressive and wouldn't ride single file,
i.e. moving too close to the center line. The radio
was trying to get me to move everyone to the right
because traffic was passing us at 65 mph. One rider
refused, arguing with me ... while the radio kept
telling me to have him move over.
As mentioned earlier, having instructions sent to
the peleton via radio wasn't very useful and did
have one unintended side effect for Travis. Every
now and then he would turn his head and I would
simulataneously yell out instructions to the group
directly in his ear. Sorry, Travis. ;-)
It was during this slightly inclined section that we
lost a bunch of riders. Between the 50 and 70 mile mark
the peleton would suffer more attrition as riders would
start to fade. The constant effort would gradually wear
out the riders. If a someone dropped off the peleton for
a moment, it would be unlikely that they could expend
enough effort to rejoin.
By the 3 hour mark I think we were down to eleven
bikes. Charles radioed that we were 8 minutes ahead
of schedule. At one point Travis and I were spinning
our pedals like crazy and I noticed the chain had
dropped into the middle ring. Travis was having
problems getting it back into the big ring. If he'd
not managed to get back in the big ring, we'd been
dropped from the peleton.
During the final hour of our ride we were passing
the slower 48-mile riders. For the most part the
motorcycle marshals were attempting to get them out
of our way by encouraging them to single file, but
being inexperienced riders they didn't always get
the idea.
At 3h 30m into the ride, our group had dropped to 8
bikes remaining. With less than 30 minutes remaining
I was borderline cramping. At a long straight section
Travis wanted me to apply more power and I had to beg off.
We didn't get dropped, but we were limited to what we
could contribute to the peleton during the last few
miles.
Throughout the ride my heartrate stayed mostly between
172-177, hardly ever dropping below 166. This may have
been an indication of inadequate fluid intake. Although
the early temperatures were a quite reasonable upper 60's,
by the time we finished it was probably in the lower
80's.
As the radio started counting off the final miles,
I realized that we'd actually break a 4 hour century.
A few riders made a half-hearted sprint at the finish
line, but this wasn't a race, so I didn't even notice
who finished first. The clock read 3:52:22. Since
the clock was started late, the organizers decided to
round up our finish time to 3:53:00.
We did it. A hundred miles in less than 4 hours and
a new course record -- my first (and last) time I'll
have ever rode a bicycle for so fast for so long.
Primary credit of course goes to Travis Werts, who
managed to break to finish with the lead peleton
despite being handicapped with me. Also major
kudos to the other members of our peleton, especially
Tod, the only other rider wearing a Gran Fondo
jersey.
We were also fortunate to have an unprecedented
level of support for a mere century ride. Charlie
and friends worked their butts off to provide a safe
and challenging ride, so the bulk of my gratitude
goes to them for going above and beyond the call
of duty, etc.
