Sharpshin

Well, 102.7 miles to be exact. Elapsed time start to finish twelve hours fifteen minutes; neither swift nor stylish but then I would imagine most folks ain't packing fifty pounds on the bike when they try this neither.

Late start, 9:50 am on Saturday, meant I'd be finishing after dark IF I made it, but I've been riding a lot at night lately. Here's the bike at the start, note the addition of Bontrager fenders, put on the night before.



Four miles in, heading east towards downtown San Antonio....



Ten miles, downtown San Antonio as seen from the Kirk Street bridge.....



Still heading east through the South Side......



Thirteen miles in, turning south along the Mission Trail, along the San Antonio River.....



continued next post....

Sharpshin

Mission San Juan, near the southeast edge of town, nineteen miles from the start, elapsed time two hours.....



Now came the time to head south out of town to Floresville and back. One concern was chip seal; the Texas practice of just spreading gravel on the road shoulders and covering it with a thin layer of asphalt. Make for a rough and speed-robbing ride. Loaded down, the Voyageur handled chip seal wonderfully, the supple steel frame soaking up vibrations. Still, it was a huge and unexpected relief to hit the Wilson County line, who's margins were far superior....



One forty-five pm, the McDonald's in Floresville, forty miles from home......



Four hours down, I made a point of stopping and eating here though I wasn't hungry. I still had a long way to go.

Continued next post....

Sharpshin

On this ride my mindset was speed was irrelevant, time in the saddle is what counted; as long as the wheels were turning I'd get there. Back in the seventies, when distance running the mantra was "run gentle, run long". I was applying that to bike riding.

To that end I purposefully spun in whatever gear gave minimal effort to move, generally a gear below what I would normally use. This took some act of will; to hold impatience at bay, especially on upslopes, where I would end up down in granny gear range. Anyhow it worked, and my troublesome knee never raised a peep the whole time neither.

Heading back towards San Antonio, catching a persisting angling headwind this way....



Back at Mission San Juan again, four fifteen pm, sixty-two miles into it, arriving here later than I had wanted.....



I was tempted to take the most direct route to the Alamo downtown to be sure I got there before dark but I needed miles, so the meandering Mission Trail along the river it was. Downtown visible from the path, about seventy miles along.....



continued next post

Lanceoldstrong

Congratulations upon earning the rank of Centurion. Bravo!

Sharpshin

Hmm...

somehow my last two posts w/pics didn't appear, I'll try again in the morning....

iforgotmename

Sharpshin

Finally rolled into Alamo Plaza (72.3 miles) around 5:30pm, it was grey and overcast and the light was fading.....



Here's my primitive riding attire thus far: Cotton blend knit skullcap fit under helmet, long sleeved cotton shirt over regular t-shirt, cotton dress slacks over regular cotton boxers, slacks tucked into socks, regular street sneakers. I should add inexpensive padded riding gloves on my hands.



No unusual pain or blistering/chafing. I figure the fact that I can ride this way points to the excellence of the design of the original bike. After all I was riding on a twenty-four year-old gel saddle with, as a LBS mechanic put it, no gel effect left. Must be, even though my useful riding surface is limited to the top 18" of those drop bars, that the seat/handlebar geometry is such to efficiently distribute weight between seat and arms. I am going to put on an adjustable stem and butterfly bar next week, I may have to rethink that since what is already on there is working so well.

Mike

Sharpshin

A bit of weariness was creeping in around the edges but thus far the "ride gentle, ride long" approach was working well, I was in no pain and was just enjoying the ride.

The next fifteen miles was going to be the toughest stretch though; the climb from the old downtown area to the Hill Country on the far northern edge of the modern city. Oh, not a climb on a Colorado or even Pennsylvania scale, but a steady gain in elevation nonetheless.

Needing miles and wishing to avoid hills if possible, I skirted around the hills just north of downtown and rode four miles into the upscale area of Alamo Heights.

6pm, eight hours in, time to stop and eat again, tho' I didn't feel at all hungry. It was about full dark when I set out again.

Time was on my commute to and from work through a bad area I'd take the stealth option on a blacked out bike, but since I'm riding so many highway miles after dark lately, now I'm generally lit up like a Christmas tree...



I lost some time in the maze-like warren of Alamo Heights amid the multi-million dollar homes, the area poorly lit and hard to navigate even in daylight. At least I didn't get pulled over by the Alamo Heights police as an obvious misfit. Finally found the egress to the Olmos Basin, and cut across it northwest. Now fatigue was beginning to make itself felt.

Funny how much of this is mental, the fact that I was covering familiar ground I had ridden before made it easy to conceptualize how far was left to go. Had I been riding unfamiliar terrain with no clear idea of a destination it would have been more of a grind. On tour I'm going to have to lean heavily upon my watch to tell me when to quit.

Eighty-four miles in, twenty-four miles longer than my previous longest ride, I hit the most difficult section of the ride; three and a half miles of steep ridges wherein even grannied all the way down I was still cranking hard on the pedals just to reach the top. It was a measure of my fatigue at this point that I just left the bike in that lowest granny gear, 27 gear inches, rolling gratefully down the downslopes and not pedaling again until I was slow enough on the next upslope.

In distance running there is something called "the wall"; a point where you feel like you simply cannot go on. It took me thirty minutes to cover that 3.5 miles and by the end of it I was done, had nothing left. Eighty-seven point six miles and nine and a half hours into it, nearly fifteen miles left to get home.

But, that last fifteen miles was mostly going to be all downhill. So I sat outside a convenience store for thirty minutes and around 8pm set out shakily for home. It took me two hours to cover that last fifteen, what I'd ordinarily do in under ninety minutes. Riding that easy though, by the time I got home I had recovered somewhat, and when I got home I felt like I could have ridden further if I needed. But it was 10:05pm..... way past quitting time.



No muscle pains, no unusual knee pains, that night or the next day. Just a general sleepiness and weariness. Sundays is granddaughter's day for me, and we hit the playground circuit hard, so I didn't get to ride to see how it was.

Hey, five of those rides from here would put me fifty miles inside of Arkansas, and another six after that clear to Indianapolis and just 700 miles from my destination. 'Course, riding this once is one thing, putting in high mileage day after day is likely to be another thing entirely.

Thanks fer reading,
Mike

MightyLegnano

Well done mate! Nice oldschool ride you got there! Is the saddle comfortable enough?

Sharpshin

"Oldschool"? Hey, I was already past thirty when that bike was given to me

The saddle feels uncomfortable, especially that tall bridge on the front projecting part, and the original gel is mostly compressed. Still, enough of my wieght must be on my arms, and the simple platform pedals allow me to adjust my position enough that I can tolerate it all day long.

But between the saddle and my street clothes I do think I would have problems trying to put in long hours day after day.

Next week when I take that rebuild class a new gel seat will be going on, complete with the modern center cut-out. Originally I had intended to switch to a more upright riding position, now I'm wondering if I need to rethink that.

Mike

bchboy1206

Awesome job and with all that gear on your steed that is an accomplishment, Congrats!!!

BTW, Thanks for sharing the pics!

Jim

Sharpshin

Hey, to paraphrase Archimedes....

"Give me a low enough granny gear and I shall move the world."

staehpj1

Congrats. Glad you had a good time. I do have to wonder why you would choose to carry 50 pounds of stuff. Was this part of a multi day tour?

Sharpshin

No, I'm prepping for a 2,000 mile attempt on New York in June, it will be my first tour. That fifty pounds is a gallon bottle of water in each pannier, plus chainlock, pump, tools, tubes etc etc. I didn't think I was actually carrying that much until we weighed the panniers at REI (a guy who works there tours quite a lot).

I haven't even overnighted yet, but that is my next goal of course. I have a gear scale and over the next few months will assemble my touring gear (with the help of all the blogs on crazyguyonabike.com). My target weight is thirty pounds. Shouldn't be a problem I hope, I primitive camp well.

Meanwhile I figure if I can pull serious mileage with fifty pounds on the bike, thirty oughtta be a cinch.

Mike

MightyLegnano

I'd suggest to try a saddle like smp's, with huge gap in the center!