Broctoon

Last Friday I rode on an eight man team for a super fun relay called Salt to Saint. It goes from Salt Lake City to St. George, Utah. If you’ve ever driven between these two cities on I-15, you’ll probably agree it’s not exactly a scenic or interesting route. I would not want to ride that corridor. Fortunately, the relay uses U.S. Highway 89 for most of its route—this is a much nicer way to go.

It’s about 420 miles, and we did it in 21 hours and 19 minutes. Though it is officially not a race, lots of teams (including mine) treat it like one. We came in sixth place among something like 120 teams, and I heard we were second place for our category. Although there were eight of us, it was effectively more like a four man relay, because we almost always had two or more riders out at a time. We took two support vehicles, and during the night one of them shadowed the riders.

This route doesn’t have as much elevation change as some others I’ve participated in, but it’s pretty tough. We started at 10:00 AM Friday and rode all day, all through the night, and into dawn Saturday, finishing around sunrise. You can see why it’s exhausting (beyond the initially obvious reasons) if you do the math: two guys always on the bikes, leaving six to ride in the cars. Each car needs a driver and a shotgun, so there’s only one guy in each car who can rest/sleep, change clothes, or otherwise get ready for the next turn. You would think we’re able to shuttle riders to the next exchange point with plenty of time and even stop along the way for food, but we often found the support cars were barely able to get there before the riders. The route is broken into 24 legs averaging about 18 miles each, but some of us took back-to-back legs to ride up to 40 miles at a time.

I struggled at a few points and only did about 83 miles total, across five rides. I’ve ridden a few non-stop centuries before and have also done well over 100 in a single day, but I still found this one pretty taxing. My biggest problem was trying to keep warm in the middle of the night. I thought I went out sufficiently clothed, but I was wrong. On a 20 mile leg with rolling hills and generally increasing elevation, at about midnight, my core temperature was all over the place. I got chilled on each short descent and then overheated on the climbs. I had to keep adjusting my attire in an effort to get into balance. I was slotted to ride the next leg, which was 22 miles down a gentle descent (about 2% grade, which works out to ~24 MPH coasting, 28 with moderate effort, or 30+ if you push). I knew before getting to the top that the upcoming descent would equal hypothermia for me. I was too damp with sweat. When I caught up with the support car at the top (they weren’t able to shadow me on this leg), they read an outside temp in the mid-30s Fahrenheit—no wonder I kept getting chilled!

The guys on my team were all in our 50s and 60s, except one young fellow of only 48, who also happened to be our strongest overall… as a new rider a few years ago, he was on the team that won Race Across America. Last week, everyone showed impressive grit and stamina. I learned a lot and had a great adventure.