Race Report: Viva Bike Vegas Half Century

What a great ride! On Saturday, October 25, the Regional Transportation Commission held its Viva Bike Vegas event. Rides of 118, 50, 25 and five miles were available to participants, and you bet your underpants that team Chasqui was there representing.

Chasquis Heather, Mike and Jordan all did the 50-mile ride, which began at the government center downtown. From there, cyclists headed all the way up to the very top (west) of Alta, over to Charleston and around the Red Rock Loop to Blue Diamond where we turned around and headed back the same way.

Pre-race:

First off, big ups to Chasqui Morgan for texting me some nutrition and feeding tips the night before the race. It felt good going into race day with a plan.

6 am - I ate a small bowl of oatmeal and a scrambled egg. I never enjoy eating early in the morning, (or at all before an event) but when is maple brown sugar oatmeal not oh, so delicious?

6:25 am - I'm in the car on my way to pick up Weintzy at his place. HUGE PROPS AND APPRCIATION to Janel for letting me take the Volvo to the race, while she stuffed two carseats into the back of the Mini Cooper so that she and the kids could come cheer me on.

6:45 am - Pick up Weintzy and go to McDonald's for him to pick up a cup of joe and an Egg McMuffin. Give me a few more races to calm down, then perhaps I'll be able to stomach something like that. I got gas, grabbed a few PowerBars for the ride, and then headed over to Alta, so we could scope out the course. It was all downhill for 12.5 freaking miles, meaning the riade would start with a slow, grinding 12.5 uphill climb.

7:15 am - Arrive, park in the boondocks, get geared up and head to the startline. No sooner had I arrived on site, that my buddy Allison at the RTC was trying to put me to work for some media soundbytes (for those of you that missed me on Channel 3 last Saturday, it's yous loss). Luckily, I had to pee and was able to get out of doing anything else media-related.

The Start:

After going potty, Chasqui Warren (not participating in the race), the husband of Chasqui Heather (participating in the race) flagged us down towards the beginning of the pack at the start line for some pictures. This is where I got straight up MIFFED that we didn't have our Chasqui cycling jerseys on (soon). We took some pics, listened to some important people speak, and at right about 8 a.m. we were off...just like that. Having never done an oorganized ride with this amount of people, I was a little nervous about the close quarters, but everything went smoothly.

The First 12.5:

As I said earlier, the first 12.5 miles (from Alta to Desert Foothills) were a gradual uphill climb. It was really cold and almost miserable for about the first 10-15 minutes, but was absolutely beautiful after that. The rolling escort was super nice to have for the first few miles, until about Decatur, where we were all left to fend for ourselves. Because of the traffic lights, everyone stayed in pretty big groups until about Rampart, where we started to thin a bit. One of the coolest things was hearing every rider step into their pedals in unison once a light turned green. Alta ended with what was a brutal 1-or-200 yard ascent to the first rest station. Weintzy was a bit ahead of me and stopped to wait for me for a second...and by "wait" I mean the following:

According to his own account, he completely bypassed the line for bananas/oranges, and right in front of a laughing RTC cameraman with his camera 'on', stuffed his face with an entire chocolate chip cookie. Epic.

I caught up, grabbed a banana, stuffed it into my mouth, and we were off to conquer Red Rock.

The Red Rock loop:

Desert Foothils (the road that connects Alta and Charleston) was a sweet downhill ride...with a very inconvenient stop sign right in the middle.

Oh well.

We turned onto Charleston, and this is where I started feeling great. I was now on familiar territory and felt like I had some sort of home court advantage. Mike quickly reminded me that Red Rock was probably home court advantage to 95% of the riders on the ride that day.

I had never felt quite so good approaching the visitor center as I did on Saturday. I was not hauling butt by any means, but the field was so spread out that we were virtually alone, and I was feeling mentally and physically strong. Having passed through the rest area while Mike and I were stuffing ourselves, Heather was a bit ahead of us. We were able to catch her just as we approached the Red Rock overlook where Janel, Trey, Tally, Warren and Parker were waiting on the side of the road to cheer us on. It was so, so cool to see them there and feel their support. Weintz was 50 or so yards ahead of Heather and me, so he actually stopped to chat for a sec while Heather and I blew on through.

From the overlook to Blue Diamond was a great downhill just about the entire way. We were all able to shift into a big gear and maintain a 20-25 mph pace without too much effort. Janel and Warren both honked as they drove by us on their way to Blue Diamond.

The Turn-around:

Janel, Warren and the kids stopped at a park a hundred yards or so from the rest area in Blue Diamond. We rode by them, grabbed some bananas, oranges, etc and then rode down to them and hung out for five or so minutes. It was nice to get off the bike and walk around for a second. Just like clockwork Janel had a new Perpetuem bottle for me (seriously, few things make you feel cooler than having a Volvo Cross Country with bike racks on top as your support vehicle.). We took a few pictures and were on our way.

The third 12.5:

The part of the ride that I was anticipating being the toughest for me indeed was the toughest for me. The haul from Blue Diamond back to the Alta/ Desert Foothills intersection had two or three pretty decent climbs that I struggled on. It was the weirdest thing - as soon as we started ascending, Mike and Heather just kind of maintained the same pace while I lost significant momentum. I didn't like being a hundred yards behind them once I reached the top.

This was good though, as my new resolve is to become a decent climber (and by decent, I mean that I'll be able to hang with the rest of 'em). For me, this will mean shedding a few pounds so that the battle against gravity won't be so brutal, increasing my lung capacity and turning my legs into monsters. I'll let you know how it goes, but I'm determined to do it.

The home stretch:

The final stretch down Alta was great. It was all downhill and we just cruised our way down it. A rolling escort certainly would have been nice, considering all the red lights we hit.

Our results are not yet posted, but I think we finished the ride in just over three hours. It was an awesome experience and a huge confidence builder/eye-opener for me.

As Del Sol draws nearer, my challenge now is to shift a significant amount of my focus back to running; however, I refuse to leave my bike on the wayside. We'll see how things go!

How is everyone's Del Sol training going?