Ever since I started road cycling in 2007 I have had the goal of doing a double century (200 mile) ride in under 12 hours. On Desperado Dual (central Utah ride) I have come close…12:20, 12:35, but with the winds and sparse drafting opportunities I never achieved my goal. This spring I went to Calif. and did the Solvang Double but we had incredible head-winds for the last half so I missed my goal again. So this year I decided to try LoToJa, which held every September (Logan, UT to Jackson, WY). I think there was about a thousand rides. Since this is a sanctioned “race” and not a “tour” or brevet, everyone tended to move more quickly. This event is the longest sanctioned road race in America.
I teamed up with a few local friends, Brian Whipple and Richard Anderson. We signed up as a team in the Citizen Class, Category 5, age 35+ and ending up with a start time of 7:13 a.m. The morning of the ride was pretty typical with temperatures at about 45F as I recall. I did not wear long finger gloves and wished I had as they were very numb for the first 90 minutes of travel. I worn only my jersey and arm warmer which was just barely enough. Everything went according to plan…Brian and I stuck together as Richard went off the front, staying with our age group. We worked with various groups at times and also just the two of us at other times. Upon completing the first climb up Strawberry Canyon, Brian’s son-in-law, Matt caught us. We had left about 10 or 15 minutes after us in a different age group. His stomach was giving him minor issues, but we pushed him in and out of the feed zone so we could keep things moving along. Later in Afton, at mile 125, Matt’s stomach got the best of him and he had to stop and lay down for a while. Brian stayed with him (along with our support crew) and I continued on. Soon after leaving Afton I happened up a large and well-organized group with Bank of A.F. jerseys. I latched on to them and essentially rode behind them all the way to the finish. On three separate occasions, when they were going too slow (I was never pulling, so I always felt full of energy), i.e. on climbs, I would jump ahead of them, hoping there might be another group I could hook onto to. It never found another decent group and I always got scooped up by them. As it turns out, this is the same group that Matt started with, but dropped out due to his G.I. problems.
In the end, my official time as 11:19, much better than my expectations. The weather was perfect, topping out at about 80F and little wind and no precipitation. Richard was just off the podium (4th or 5th in our group), but would have been a first-place winner in several of the other groups his age…but our assigned was just faster for whatever reason. Bummer. As it turned out, Brian (who also wanted a sub 12-hour time) rolled in with Matt about 3 or 4 minutes before the 12-hour mark!
Many thanks to the spouses of Brian and Matt for their help at the feed zones. They had fluids and nutrition there so we barely had to unclip and were able to keep quickly throughout the day. As you can see by my Strava screenshot, my total time off the was 49 minutes for day. There were a few neutral feed zones that were well stocked and the volunteers were excellent at attending to our needs (except for lines at some of the porta potties).
Rando Richard Blog 