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Stephen Kenny, Paul Anderson, Dan Driscoll and Paul Foley at the finish |
The event ends with me arriving in Europe with elephant ankles. This is what happens when you jump on a seven hour flight after finishing a very hot 1200 km Brevet. My friends and Alberta Rando teammates Paul Anderson and Chester Fleck joined me in Florida for the inaugural Sunshine 1200KM Randonneur Brevet. Paul and I had the luxury of training in Arizona with the hard men and women of the Arizona Randonneurs over the winter. We came into the event fit and feeling very good. Chester wasn’t as fortunate, and would come to Florida with mostly indoor trainer time and a few early season brevets. The heat would be the factor for Paul and I while Chester would contend with both the heat and a lack of fitness. Paul and I planned to measure our ride-success by how much time we could spend off bike. The terrain for the event would be flat, very flat, however it’s still 1200km, and wind and heat would play its part in making it challenging. More on the organization later but this was a complicated event to organize and it came off without a hitch.
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| Paul and Stephen putting the first 430 Kms in the bag |
A few facts, the ride was close to 1230 km, which Paul and I completed in 82 hours and 50 minutes, taking a whopping 33 hours off the bike during the ride. Our average moving speed was 30km/hr. We could have pushed harder but Mother Nature had other plans by settling in some very hot weather. Well, hot for us Canadian boys. The temperatures were in the high 80’s low 90’s every day but the humidity is what spanked us hard. Contrary to what you might think, the early months in Arizona are nowhere near that hot, and there is NO humidity. We were dripping wet riding the 500 meters to the 4AM start in Key West. Pushing harder meant having our stomachs come off, then no nutrition, resulting in yellow system dashboard lights, then red, then screwed. You get the picture. The pace we settled on worked for both of us and would have us consume close to 4 litres of fluids every two hours. The highlight when stopping for water was stepping into an air-conditioned environment, and for many of the riders, spending time in the beer coolers. Paul did suggest at one point that we crawl into one of those big ice chests one sees outside most convenience stores, it was tempting.
For those of you who have not experienced hours of riding in hot humid weather I’ll describe the environment that quickly envelops you. You have three climate zones in and around your body. Zone 1 is just on top of your skin and clothing, anyone in close proximity to this zone will experience a slight smell of rotting vegetables with a hint of Banana Boat suntan lotion. Dying but still moving will come to mind of those who pass near you. The second zone is between your cycling clothing and your skin. In this zone the fabric of your clothing is rotting and mixing with the rot from both dead and live skin cells, they smell different in case you’re wondering. Body organs are contracting away from your extremities, placing pressure on your bowels which forces gases to mix with this chemical reaction. Removing your clothing in a public space would seriously harm an adult and kill small children. Zone 3 is a microclimate onto itself that cultivates in your shorts, as Paul describes it “like a swamp like echo system”. This is where the plague that created the walkers in the Walking Dead came from. If you’re lucky, the antibacterial ingredient added to your chamois cream will fight a rearguard, losing action, that lasts long enough to ensure your private parts don’t end up down the shower drain.
We were sent off at 4:00AM by an attractive and very drunk young women who counted down the start clock. It’s a long story, I think. The ride started off at a good pace and not 5 minutes into the ride Alain, who was piloting a fully faired recumbent (Velomobile) Zoomed by us at over 40 kms an hour. Needless to say we would not see Alain the rest of the day but would meet him the following day as the heat beat him down. He would stop very little throughout the ride and rocket through days 3 and 4. We settled in with a good size group waiting for sunrise after which we started pushing the pace a little. We got a nice separation of 10 riders and then I got the one and only flat of the ride. Enter my hero of the ride, Toshi Munekata from Japan. He was upfront with us pushing the pace and stopped to help fix my flat, a class act. This took a little time as the staple was seriously stuck in the tire. We would work hard with him to catch the group however the heat started to really impact his performance and we were soon forced to leave him behind. We would hear later that he got severely dehydrated, called 911, an ambulance was dispatched where they set him up with an IV. When they then tried to get him to get in the ambulance and take him to the hospital he refused, finished up the IV, got back on his bike and kept riding. I can only imagine that the conversation as the Japanese rider with little English conversed with the paramedics. We would continue to see him throughout the ride, and were there to cheer him on when he finished. The event lost a few riders to the heat, one to a concussion and an Australian rider to Hyponatremia, (low sodium from too much water – layman’s definition) a life threatening condition. The rider recovered but has no memory from when he arrived in the USA until he woke up in the hospital.
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| A few Cool ones at Lake Wales |
Once we caught the lead group we would ride with them until Miami, where they suggested we carry on as they were going to back the pace off. Paul and I enjoyed riding through Miami, you had to ride like a courier and the only mishap was a skateboard hitting me, no injuries, kind words exchanged and we moved on. Paul and I rode close to 800kms of the ride on our own, leaving from the overnight controls at 5:30AM every morning. Two of the three nights would see us at local restaurants enjoying a meal and a beer. Day two was my bad luck day as I lost my credit card, phone and brevet card, broke a spoke and at my last water fill the Quick Mart had crossed the carbonation and water line leaving me with a camelback and water bottles full of highly carbonated water. The credit card and phone were inconsequential, the brevet card on the other hand!!! Thank God we weren’t in France where I would have been DSQ and thrown in jail. Dave was kind enough to allow me to continue with a new card. A mechanic in Daytona fixed my wheel, staying open late to do so, while I ate Thai next door with my wife and friends from the Daytona area. All carbonation was expelled from my system the following day to Paul’s chagrin.
We would always be checking in on Chester, and would only see him on the last day of the ride. He too suffered from the heat the first day and joined a few other riders going to red dashboard lights and screwed. We were told he was in rough shape but we knew that rough is relative for Chester. We saw him at one of the controls on the last day, he was in good spirits, spending time in beer coolers, pounding back the salt and wishing the rain in the distance would find its way on to the course. We were on hand for his arrival at the finish where he gladly accepted a beer, or two.
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| Stephen, Paul & One of the North Carolina boys |
We missed having Chester and our good friend Trev Williams with us while riding. Trev joined us in Tucson for many of the Arizona rides and does a good job at pushing us to our potential on the bike. Paul and I rode together like a finely tuned watch having shared many kilometers, over many years together on the bike. He also has a background in wildlife biology and acted as my personal tour guide to the ecosystems, birds and wildlife of Florida. He was very adept at pointing out the various beach species as we cruised through Miami.
We had the pleasure of meeting a number of seasoned Randonneurs. Paul Foley and Dan Driscoll were in the first day group and we would ride a good part of the final day and finish the ride with them. Strong riders, great senses of humour and very experienced. Paul and I concluded that Dan was the loudest speaking rider we ever met. Up-front into a headwind we could hear Dan ten wheels back telling stories. He could talk about anything and you felt he knew everyone in Florida. Paul F. quickly figured out that suggesting we stop more often was a good way to jerk my chain and he did.
Lastly the organization: The fact that Dave Thompson was organizing the event played a big part in my decision to tackle such an early season 1200. Dave organized the 2013 Granite Anvil 1200, which I completed, impressing me with his organizational skills. Dick Felton presence was also felt at both events. Both Dave and Dick pre-rode the course, are seasoned Randonneurs and know what riders are experiencing. Volunteers were strategically placed, many of them having done the pre-ride; from “Sugar” on top of Sugar Mountain to the guy (forgot his name) who had ice cream on dry-ice, sitting in a very hot open stretch of the course on the last day. It was also a brilliant move to have everyone carry a Spot location device. I could hear them and others using this technology to help get riders back on course and/or provide help. A big thanks to Dave, Dick and all the volunteers.
