I entered a bike race this past weekend called ‘Triple D’. It was a fun one. I entered it last year, but did not finish. This year, I had better luck. More on that later. Anyway, once again, in an effort to provide information to others on how to prepare (or, more likely, how NOT to prepare) for a winter endurance bike race, I am going to write a little bit about what I did. Pay attention, dear readers, for it is possible that both of you may find something useful here! I will try to break up the precious needles of information into multiple haystacks, instead of burying them deeply in one long post. For this first one I will list what I did to prepare. Don’t worry, it will be a short one.
Training: On a scale of 1 to 10, with ‘1’ being ‘I am in a medically-induced coma’ and ’10’ being ‘I occasionally get off of my bike to do jump squats, but then ride the other 23 hours a day’, I would rate my training regimen as a solid ‘2’, or ‘I rode my bike a three times in December and three times in January, and some of them were even outside. The longest ride was for three hours, going about 20+ miles. (yes, that’s right; I was averaging a little over 6 mph. No sense in overtraining.)
Bike: I rode the mountain bike that I ride the rest of the year in the woods in the same configuration as I ride it in the woods. It is a Fisher X-Caliber; a basic 29″ aluminum mountain bike. (No special snow bike here, but not for lack of wanting.) It is set up just as I bought it when new, except that it has bigger tires on it: 29×2.35 tires (Bontrager FR3s, in case anyone cares). These worked MUCH better in the softer snow than the narrow studded tires I ran last year. I was running them tubeless, which allowed me to drop down to about 11 psi without any trouble. (I know, I know; tubeless tires have problems in severe cold, etc. etc. I liked how they worked for regular mountain biking when tubeless, and I figured if they wouldn’t hold air I could always put a tube in. More on that later) Anyway, I rode in the snow several times, and I would say the bike worked well. By ‘worked well’ I mean ‘I was able to occasionally maintain forward motion.’ I knew if the conditions were really soft I would have trouble, but if the trail was packed at all I should be able to ride.
Shoes: I splurged this year and bought some nice Lake winter cycling boots. This was the single best decision I made about this race, other than deciding to do the race in the first place. Last year I screwed around with regular shoes, extra socks, toe warmers, shoe covers, and so on. Pain in the ass. I’m glad I got the Lake boots. I knew I made the right decision when I showed up for a 15 degree New Year’s Day ride with the local bike club and over half of the people were wearing the same type of boots.
Clothing: Nothing exotic here; a pair of Sugoi insulated bib tights, some waterproof pants, a pair of cheap non-cotton long johns, some arm warmers, a WarmFront vest, some polypropylene base shirt, a regular bike jersey, and a snowmobiling jacket that was big enough to fit over my Hydrapak backpack. Some insulated cycling gloves and a Sugoi balaclava to round it all out. I had tried out this setup several times, and it seemed to work pretty well down to about zero degrees. If the mercury receded below that I would be putting on an additional insulated bike jersey and/or calling for a ride.
Nutrition: 100 oz. reservoir full of Infini-T, some gel, and some Clif bars. I had done some long (for me, meaning around 3 hours) rides on any empty stomach and went through plenty of Infini-T, always with good results. By ‘good results’ I mean ‘I went very slow but did not vomit.’
Strategery: It would be an insult to strategy to say I had a strategy. More of a plan. Or a plan to plan. Anyway, I was planning to plan on riding until it wasn’t fun anymore. That’s what I did last year, and that worked pretty well. I was hoping to make it to Dyersville, which was the halfway point, but I didn’t really know what to expect. Even halfway would be considered a personal success, since I knew I was going into the race underprepared, underequipped, and undertrained. (But overweight, in order to keep the whole over/under thing balanced) I did spend some time stretching the day before, and I did cut my hair. Really, what more could I have done?
As you might have guessed from the hints above, I wasn’t really ready for this. I had fully planned on training much more, weighing much less, and having a much better plan on doing the race. That being said, nothing was going to stop me. From entering, that is. There was a no shortage of things that were probably going to stop me from finishing.
Furiousness 