2011 National Tour de Cure Ride Report

Well the ride in the tour yesterday sure was interesting. I got up at 5am, got all my gear together, and headed out to Reston Town Center to check in. After check in, I rolled out just before 6:15 in the morning, and grouped up with 3 other guys who I thought would be good riding partners. We ended up dropping one real early on, and the other 2 lasted a little bit longer, but I ended up dropping them shortly after we got to the end of the W&OD and started on the country roads. I then started riding with this couple at a pretty solid pace, and was having decent conversation, and then....things went downhill.

At the bottom of a pretty big hill was a right hand turn, that we completely blew right by. No advanced warning of a turn ahead (like other sections of the course), and at the bottom of a big hill when you're going 40mph+, let's just say it was real easy to miss the turn. We kept going straight thinking we were on track, then got to a 4-way intersection that we had already crossed at one point, kept going straight, and eventually saw to other riders coming back our way who told us to turn around (they did the same thing.) We headed back to the 4-way intersection, and decided to take a right to get back onto course. About 15 minutes later after I got my bearings, I realized that I had just started a good chunk of the southern loop all over again. I was really upset at this point because I was riding so well thus far, and it set me back about an hour, added roughly 16 miles to my ride and totally threw me off mentally. If you look at the map below, you can see a straight line heading northwest, where that line begins is where I missed the right turn.

I ended up riding by myself for quite a while, (barely saw the turn the second time by), and eventually caught another group that I stayed with till the rest stop in Lovettsville. At this point I was about 16 miles farther into the ride than everyone else, so I didn't want to stop for too long. I grabbed a bunch of orange slices, some small PB&J slices, refilled the water bottles and was on my way. After about 5 miles, I caught another couple in the Waterford area, and ended up riding with them all the way back to Reston. I was really glad I was able to hook up with them, since we were all riding at about the same pace, and had some good conversation. They were really nice people, and I really enjoyed riding with them for the final ~35 miles.

Despite the mishap and the additional mileage, I was still very happy with my time, all things considered. Up until this point, my longest ride ever was 75 miles, so being able to hold just over a 17 mph pace for over 6.5 hours, I thought was pretty good. Also of note, I climbed over 1 vertical mile of altitude during the day! Thanks to all who donated and supported! Now I just need to decide whether or not to sign up for the Shenandoah Mountain 100 bike race. Yea, 100 miles of mountain biking, that's twice as crazy! Also, many thanks to my mom who came out and supported and cheered me on. [She also took the photo below.] Here's a brief glance at the ride, but go ahead and click on 'view details' to open up the full ride summary. 

Here's a small breakdown of what went wrong [click to enlarge]

Crossing the finish line after 117 miles