Day 2 - New stage is very La Ruta

The new day 2 had the right ingredients for a La Ruta stage - notably monster climbs up coffee plantation mountains and a one hour taste test of horrendous mud.

How steep do they make roads here? Quote from Jon - I was zig zagging just so I could spin my granny gear.

How was the mud? There's about an hour of it at the end of the day. Clung to bike, got it up to 50lbs in no time, slippery to walk on, filled your shoes and sucked them in if they weren't buckled tight.

Trish was 4th again at about 6 hours I think, (side note that Erik witnessed high speed crash of the 3rd place girl, yikes). Jon "survived" at 4:50 but felt empty at start, and had one fall that left some leg scrapes, not too bad though. I haven't seen Jack or Gerry yet.

I was able to put power to the pedals for 5:20 minutes uninterrupted, which felt a lot better than yesterday. Rode 4.5 hours with Susan Haywood, it was nice to remove my brain from the pacing decision, that probably helped me a lot in terms of time. Right before checkstop 3 I shoulder checked and saw Lou Kobin approaching and I had the feeling that she meant business. I popped a gel and hoped I could hold on to watch the leaders compete, but I actually needed to stop at the checkpoint and they skipped it, so I never saw them again. Sue ended up with the stage again.

So having a good day had me finish 60th rather than 73... I thought staying on course and not fighting a bonk might work out better. With climbs this long and steep, I just need a better power to weight ratio. I'm up about 5lbs of fat since TR, that's not helping. Other than that I just need a 3lb bike!

Day 1 side note

For those who know Samantha Nicholson, sounds like she broke her collarbone about 90 minutes into day 1. I recall passing her, there was help on quads already there and riders were being waved by, but at the time I didn't realize it was her.

 

Bummer!

 

Brief Day 1

Jon placed high, about 20th (6:18 time). Trish was 4th overall in the womens (8:24 time). Jack, Jerry and Tori were all smiling at the finish - I think Jack about 9:20ish/Jerry 9:50ish range, Tori was 11:40. The finish line quote from Tori was that it was really hard.

 

Course was fast relative to prior years, suffer factor was lower in some ways.

 

I took 7:24, could have been about 15 min faster had a singlespeeder dude not convinced me to "go exploring" with him. Once I saw the turn we were on had no bike tire marks on the dirt, I argued we should turn back. Did get close to a bonk for a while, but not even a twinge of a cramp all day.

 

Nice weather, good food and organization, bike worked great. Fun times!

 

 

Pre-race morning

We woke for breakfast at 2:50am and ate in the tropical warmth of the darkened courtyard. To me it felt like the last meal, there's people joking around... I wonder if they're people who've been here before, or if they have no idea what lies ahead. Today should be "easier" than last year as the killer 800m climb has been rerouted. Overall it's 14,501 feet of climbing today over 95km.

 

Tuesday pre-ride

We pre-rode again and were amazed at how dry it was, just a 60 minute spin the time. I've fully checked in, got the bike getting a tune up, etc. Ready to ride.

 

Bumped into Tom Ebbern finallly who had a weather report from San Jose - 5 hours of thundershowers yesterday, puddles all over. And worse than that, local TV news showed pictures from the Carribean side with people wading in the streets with water up to their waists and taxi drivers won't go to that coast right now. I'm reminded of Jaco Pastorious and the Weather Report. Heavy Weather is a great album.

 

We'll see, glad I brought a front fender, I'm sure that'll make it no problem at all ; )

 

Monday pre-ride

I caught up on as much sleep as I could, then we ate the breakfast buffet of the hotel which I was quite impressed with. With 4 coffees and chat, we managed to stretch breakfast out from 8:30 to about 11.

 

We saddled up and the six of us went to scope out the start of the course (Jack, Jerry, Jon, Trish, Tori and I). Jon and I rode up the first climb, and for a while the sun was right on my back - sweat was constantly dripping from my elbows. It's like riding in a steam room, there is NO air movement at times. The first climb was dry compared to what everyone has been saying, and STEEP. Man I forgot how steep it is. Pictures wouldn't show it so well like at ski hills, but it's ridiculous just looking up at the roads. If Nutbrown is in granny (real granny front and back) you know it's steep.

 

The tires have nice grip and feel good, although they're a little less volume to reduce chatter on the way down. I feel like I'm descending a bit poor again, but we'll see. It feels great riding at sea level, fatigue doesn't set in as fast. Bike is climbing well, and mechanically it seems good. I've got two things to tweak before tomorrow but all is under control. All in it was 2.5 hour ride I think.

 

Lunch was good again at the hotel, had a good glass of wine, then swam in the ocean and the pool for a few hours. We washed our bike clothes, and hung them to dry on the railing. 2 hours in the direct sun didn't dry them if you want an idea of the humidity. I had a few cramps in the pool, so I'll make sure I take in some electrolytes, but the relaxation is going well overall. The pool has a warning sign that forbids intimate acts which is one of the funnier pool signs I've seen.

 

We had an excellent dinner that was huge, at a nice restaurant that happened to be neighbours with a gentlemen's club. Interesting scenery for the night.

Worked a bit on my bike, and chatted with Cory Wallace who just showed up.

San Jose to Jaco

We rented 2 vans, packed up the bikes, and started making our way to the coast. We stopped for a great lunch overlooking the valley, at a place with two little perros, and a David Hasslehof picture on the wall. In the van we munched on Doritos that we need at home - Fiery Habanero.

 

We stopped at the Tarcoles River to do some crocodillo hunting - Jon was the leader of the expedition and convinced us that walking right down to them was what we needed to do. I must admit that I was rather glad that by the time we got down there, they were in the river. We did find a small baby one, and some raw meat of some sort that they were gnawing on. Jon did an impressive attempt to lure them over by feigning that he was an injured animal (loco gringo?) but to no avail.

 

We got situated in the hotel, swam in the Pacifico, had a great dinner, and had a few beers. Jack Funk checked out the fish in the kitchen before we sat down, then had the proprietor riding his bike down the street to buy us beer and bring it back in his handlebar basket. We found a bar on the more local end of the spectrum that played good music, had the local concrete workers drinking beer and solving the world's problems, and a few ladies of the night available. The urinal was a rather crude trough.