Sunday, March 11, 2012
Solvang
I am back from Solvang 100 mile bike race, did it for the first time. The weather was good overall but it was very cold in the morning. Many riders were wearing long sleeves and long pants.Strong headwinds bothered us on the portion of the route. It was not hot in the afternoon but hot enough to take the jacket off. Contrary to what I had heard from others, I did not find the climbs in the end of the route to be very difficult. There was a very long climb at ~75 mile point that was not very steep and then two very short climbs around 85 miles in the race that were quite steep. Cramping was 'under control' but I had a couple of scary moments by the end of the ride.
The race was very well organized and the route was clarly marked. There were about ~5000 riders overall (on all the three routes, which included 50, metric century and 100 miles).
Because I did not practice and did not have enough sleep the previous night, I allowed myself a lot of slack, incuding 4 lengthy water stops. My average moving speed was 14.7 miles/hour, not great. With the water stops, my total time was about 7.5 hours.
Note: Housing in and around Solvang are difficult during the day of the race! The hotels were all booked up. We had to stay in Santa Barbara, 1 hour away. This was hard, keeping in mind that the race started at 7 am.
The race was quite scenic, in particular the last third of it, starting from the town of Foxen. Old oak trees are very beautiful. The very end of the race goes throgh the vineyards in Solvang.
The race was very well organized and the route was clarly marked. There were about ~5000 riders overall (on all the three routes, which included 50, metric century and 100 miles).
Because I did not practice and did not have enough sleep the previous night, I allowed myself a lot of slack, incuding 4 lengthy water stops. My average moving speed was 14.7 miles/hour, not great. With the water stops, my total time was about 7.5 hours.
Note: Housing in and around Solvang are difficult during the day of the race! The hotels were all booked up. We had to stay in Santa Barbara, 1 hour away. This was hard, keeping in mind that the race started at 7 am.
The race was quite scenic, in particular the last third of it, starting from the town of Foxen. Old oak trees are very beautiful. The very end of the race goes throgh the vineyards in Solvang.
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