Random Places

One of the most interesting aspects of these ultra distance cycling races is that they involve riding through the night. Most of these races start in the late afternoon or early evening so even the top riders have to ride from sundown to sunrise.

I few weeks earlier I spent a week camping out near Madison KS pre-riding portions of Unbound XL courses from previous years. That had given me the opportunity to ride some of these same roads in the dark. I hadn’t ridden a bike in the dark in many years, and in fact I had never ridding out on unfamiliar remote gravel roads in the dark. That pre-riding gave me the opportunity to test out my lights and just get comfortable with riding in the dark.

Ii did more than get comfortable, I found I absolutely loved it. Being out in the middle of nowhere, far away from any city lights, under the starts is just magical.

On this night we had an extra bit of magic. In the far distance all around we had an amazing lightning show. On a long uphill section I struck up a conversation with another rider. I asked “how’s your ride going so far?”. In a very French accent his response was “Ze lightning, is it dangerous?” sounding a little concerned about our light show. “Only if it gets closer, since we can’t hear any thunder we know it is a long way off.” Hopefully this put him at ease a bit so he could enjoy the show.

Gladly the thunderstorms did stay at a far distance through the night, at least for those of us mid-pack and farther down. The faster riders did catch up with some of it during the night. For me, the first 150 miles or so of the race were dry with good roads. In fact I would say it was actually much easier than I expected based on all the stories I had heard. Then, I noticed the bike felt a bit sluggish suddenly. Was it a soft tire? Nope, I quickly realized it was wet gravel. At first just a little wet and still rideable but the wet gravel soon turned into wet slightly muddy gravel, then just to mud. Not horrific mud but enough to make me have to stop riding and scrape some mud off occasionally. For the next few miles there were several of us dealing with the mucky mess.

Progress was starting to slow considerably, and my energy was certainly fading.