This past weekend it was Calvin’s Challenge and I participated again, my sixth year. Unfortunately it didn’t pan out the way I’d hoped.
If you’ve not ridden or followed it, the 12 hr challenge starts with the participants riding a 50 mile long loop a number of times and then switching to a 7 mile loop towards the end of the day for the last few hours. My intention, given that it was announced as the last Calvin’s Challenge, was to finally achieve 200 miles, the classic double century. However, I didn’t make sufficient arrangements for a worsening weather forecast just before the event and it ended up being my downfall.
Leading up to the event, it had appeared that while there was rain forecast for the Sunday, we should escape it for the event on the Saturday. But it had been edging closer and closer and I should have tried to pack more for the ‘just in case’.
Starting at 7am, my first lap went really quite well and I was feeling some optimism. There was some wind to deal with, but having ridden the now-legendary 2014 Calvin’s (!) it wasn’t awful. Average speed was about 18.5mph/28.8kmh and elapsed time around 2hrs 40-ish. But then the rain started a little after 10am on the second 50 mile loop and didn’t let up. It was cold and with the wind, it was becoming clear that I was underdressed in my shorts, jersey and thin shell jacket, riding gloves with full-finger inner gloves. It didn’t initially seem terrible for the remainder of that loop but I was starting to chill - speed was a little down at an average of 17mph/27kmh but still under 3hrs for the loop which was my target for each 50 miler.
By the third loop around 1pm, I was really chilled and struggling to squeeze my water bottles with cold hands, and I was entirely soaked. Speed was dropping a little more but not embarrassingly so, until around mile marker 36 or 37 when I got a rear flat. Stopping to change it, in a very open area with no shelter from the cold rain, I started shaking like I never have before. Hands, arms, jaw, everything - it took me half an hour to switch out the inner tube for the spare that I carried. Possibly comical in hindsight was the fact that I needed to use a valve extender with my spare tube - I’d recently switched to wheels that required 60mm valves but my spare tube had a shorter valve so I also carried a valve extender. It didn’t cross my mind that when I’d need it, I’d be shaking so badly that I could barely pick it up, let alone insert it into the wheel and screw it onto the valve!
So I was done. I did finally manage to button everything up and get riding again to complete that loop but had no motivation left for even a single short loop. Fortunately, the shaking stopped once I started riding again. I gingerly limped back to the start and finished the third loop with a moving average of only 14mph/22kmh, except that didn’t take into account the stationary half hour, so the loop actually took 4 hrs pretty much and I called it at 5pm with 151.5 miles/243km. An early burger from the food truck and I sat in my van with the heater on and watched the remaining riders coming through on the short loop to the end (including during an insane deluge in the last hour, in case we hadn’t had enough rain up to that point).
Now, I will say that it wasn’t all bad, despite the above. One of my intentions for this year was to reduce my ‘off-the-bike’ time to improve distance covered. I started with 7 water bottles prepped with water or sports drink and all my food choices were such that I could carry a lap’s worth in pockets and eat while riding. I had a variety of granola bars, energy bars, fig bars, bananas and some other fruit. (The kiwi halves in particular were absolutely delicious and so easy to eat.) The two stops between the three loops were each five minutes or under, including a nature break during one, and I believe that really helped keep the early stages moving well compared to previous years.
The other highlights for me were that every cyclist that passed me while I was stopped asked if I was OK and if I needed help. I really appreciated that at the time. Also, I’d been riding with Matt Bond when I got the flat and he said he’d let the next radio car know I was stopped, which he did. Just as I clipped my foot back in to push off again, a radio car pulled up and we had a chat. He even offered to take me back and I won’t say I wasn’t tempted (and I suspect that was clear to him!) but I decided that I was capable of and needed to complete the third lap.
“Tell you what; how about I follow you for the next few miles and make sure everything is OK?”
He did, I was, but I was very grateful nonetheless.
There were still some big numbers achieved but also looking at the results there are a good number of riders who stopped after either two or three long loops. It was such a pity that we had so much rain, but you just have to deal with the conditions on the day and sometimes it might just seem to go all sideways. I still learned from the day and I was still pleased with food and break choices.
To the radio cars and crew who helped run the event, you guys were awesome. To all the cyclists who checked on me, thank you. This was the only picture I took on the day, in the parking lot late in the day - I hope it’s clear quite how much water is in front of that building!