It was cold in the morning, I mean in the 30's type cold.    Joe Farinha, Gary Franck and Franz Kelsch (I called us the three “F”s) were under pressure to break 11 hours. Earlier sent out an email to the long distance riders in the bike club asking them to join us to break 11 hours. Others would certainly be asking us how fast we finished.

We knew some people were going to start as early as 5:00 am, which meant nearly two hours in the dark and cold but we decided to start the day off with a nice breakfast at Paula’s Pancake House, which opened at 6:00. During breakfast we decided to change our start time from the planned 7:00 am to 7:30 to reduce the time riding in the cold. However, we realized that the 7:30 group would have their times recorded and posted so that put more pressure on us, leaving no wiggle room when asked if we finished under 11 hours.

The day turned quite nice, although it was windy and cool, especially on the coast. I sometimes thought the wind was always a headwind but overall nice biking weather and a lot more enjoyable than last year according to reports from those that rode in the rain in 2006.

When we showed up at 7:20 am for a role call, I was surprised by the large group, which turns out to have been 42 riders. Just after 7:30 we all took off, in one of the largest pace lines I had ever ridden it, probably like riding with a big pro tour. The speed was about 22-23 mph. Starting at 7:30 proved challenging because if you don’t hang on the fast train all the way there is not another real fast one coming from behind. All three of us stayed with the group until about mile 22 when I could not keep connected during a fast decent. Gary whizzed by and caught on but I found myself riding alone and the train slowly pulling away. Joe soon joined me from the rear, as did one other rider, and we tried to catch them but finally gave up. There were a few other smaller groups we rode with for awhile. I remember one group of 5 riders who didn’t allow Joe or I to take a pull, as if they didn need our help. Another group, with two tandems, were mostly from Cedar City Utah. After some recovery time, we knew we had to go ahead or would risk missing our goal.

I think Joe and I rode with just two of us aloe for about half of the miles, until we were able to catch Paul D. from the bike club who had left a little earlier. Joe was glad because he had done more than his fair share of pulling by then. But then the pace picked up and I was off the back a lot on the flat part.

At the second from the last rest stop Joe and I were trying to calculate if we could still break 11 hours. We didn’t want to suffer the embarrassment if we failed after all we had done. I said I thought we could not make it because we would have to ride 20 mph for the last 50 miles and skip the last rest stop. Joe didn’t give up so neither could I. I think the lack of oxygen to the brain caused me to make some error in my calculation and was about to give up and slow down, but I kept chasing Joe and Paul.

I just was hoping for some hill to climb, which did not happen until after the last rest stop. At that point I was able to move a bit ahead of Joe and found one young buck to ride with. He was from that group that didn’t want us to take a pull earlier and I remember passing him on the hill. He said he was ahead of the rest of the guys in his riding group so I had now passed them all. The two of us took turns pulling the last 10 miles. He complained about the pace but I told him I was a man on a mission. We went past Ken E. with about 5 miles to go who … was riding his single speed. Gee how could someone do that, even starting when he did.

These were the total times of those who finished under 11 hours or close to that.

Gary Franck: 09:35 (6th of 42 in 7:30 group)
Franz Kelsch: 10:42 (20th of 42 in 7:30 group)
Joe Fahrina: 10:45 (25th of 42 in 7:30 group)
Spencer Frink: 10:47 (started at 6:30)
Paul Durren: 11:07 (started at 7:10)

Other ACTC members on the ride include, Lane Parker, Tom Behnen, Jon Kaplan, Benjamin Waters, Christin Sohm, Barry Schwartz, Mark Deger, Ken Holloway, Michael Bechauf and Ken Emerson.

Some comments from other members on the ride:

Joe Farinha: "The people that inspired me to never give up were everyone we passed ... all the ones with triple crown jerseys, that for some reason were not riding as fast as we were, but yet kept pedaling at their best pace ... with no "train" to help them, and into the night for a lot of hours in the saddle!"

"Gary was flying out there. He passed me at mile 157, 10 hours into my ride, about 7 1/2 into his ride. I saw Spencer a couple of times as he passed me on the way back. Ken from ACTC did the ride on his single gear and was crankin' out the miles.

"I was able to hop onto some pacelines and speed the ride up a few times. It was my fastest double yet, too. Not as fast as you guys but I'm whittling away at the times gradually."

Michael Bechauf: "I'm happy to report that I did my first Double Century this weekend. It was perfect riding weather, but unfortunately the ride report of my "first one" is not quite as perfect. I checked in at 5:30am, but wasn't in the mood to go riding on an empty stomach and had breakfast at the lovely pancake place in town. Once there was enough light, I was going. I left at about 6:30am and tried to get into the rhythm, which - given that I was travelling all week - wasn't quite as easy. Once my muscles finally woke up, I tried to catch on to as many pacelines I could. This was - unfortunately - too fast and I realized it when I needed too much time to recover at the rest stops. Once we hit the headwind north, I was merely crawling.

"The next stupidity was that I did not get a routesheet holder. I lost a lot of time figuring out where I was and had to stop in order to read the sheet. Since I had fallen behind, I also could not simply follow some other group.

"What gave me a lot of energy on the way back was that the route was exactly what we take every year with AIDS LifeCycle. I have many fond memories from this weeklong ride which I will do the 4th time this year. It was nice to see all the places that we always go through. The only difference is that ALC stops in Santa Maria whereas I still had ways to go :-(

"It slowly got dark when I rode towards Los Alomos. The Ultra people had a really cool idea and had warm noodle soup ready to go for every rider that was still out there. Since I realized that it would get dark over the final climb anyway, I said to heck with it and enjoyed my soup. The one smart thing I've done is bring my very strong commuter lights, so it wasn't a big deal to go the final 20 miles back to Solvang in the dark.

"Once I saw the Royal Scandinavian, I had this really exhilarating feeling of making my first Double !!!

"Thank you to the whole LDTR gang for all your company, training and tips. Deb, Patrice, Jon and of course Brian for his Deli on Wheels !!! I'm looking forward to many more hours riding with all of you during the summer. Ken, I'm not taking any more advice from you - YOU DID THIS THING ON YOUR SINGLE ?????

"At this point also a huge congratulation to Cristin Sohm who also did her first Double this weekend.

"I guess I have no other choice as to do Davis at this point in order to make good for my mistakes. Hopefully better next time.

"Oh, what's interesting is that my riding time was exactly 12
hours. So, timewise I seem to be ok, as long as I keep managing my
energy and reduce my time at the rest stops."

Cristin Sohm: My only goal for my first attempt at a double century was to not get a DNF.  I was very excited then to have finished the double successfully.  Benjamin Waters agreed to be my riding buddy and we ended with a time of 12 hours cycling time and a total of 15 hours of the day which means that I spent too long at the rest stops, but I hope to become more efficient with experience.
 
For days I asked friends and family to pray for Safety, Strength and Endurance.  The morning of the ride I also said a quick prayer for no excitement.  I guess I should have been more specific.  I did have a very bad crash at mile 86.  My handlebar bag broke off and went into the spokes of my front tire, stopping the bike immediately and thrusting me over the top of the handlebars to the pavement below.  It felt like I hit a dump truck.  At the time of the crash, I couldn't catch a breath and was clutching my chest since I had intense pain in my right lung.  I crawled over to the side of the street to get away from the traffic while taking shallow breaths.  A few cyclists stopped and brought me the lenses from my cycling glasses which I hadn't even noticed came out and the lights from my bike tire that also broke off.  SAG happened to be driving by and cleaned up some bloody parts and checked out my bike to see if it was rideable.  Bike injuries: my front tire was not true and my left handlebar had dented in.  My injuries: a large gash in my chin right side, the back of my right hand is all cut up, a large egg on my right shin, bruise over my right eyebrow, various cuts and bruises and the worst is that my right lung/chest/ribs is still extremely painful.  The good thing is that as I was coming toward the pavement, I tucked into a karate roll (thank you Sensei!) and was able to save most of my face and the inside of my hands which I needed for steering and braking.  Also if the handlebar bag broke just 5 seconds later, I would have been in a descent going much faster.  So God was looking out for me!

I decided to continue on.  For the first 9 miles after the crash, I still couldn't take a full breath, but I was able to take shallow breaths which is what I usually do while cycling anyway.  At every rest stop after that, they seemed to know I was coming.  The wonderful volunteers crowded around me asking if I was okay and pushing more and more advil at me.   I still hadn't seen my face, but this told me I must have looked pretty ugly ;-)  The other riders and volunteers at the rest stops and during the ride, were extremely nice and helpful and motivating.  

One of my friends came over on Friday morning before we left for Solvang and made me a bunch of my favorite sandwiches for the ride and it turned out that I was not able to eat anything at all.  She had cut up a bunch of energy bars into bite size pieces to eat on the bike and fruit snacks and such and all of it went unused.  I guess I was too nervous about the ride, but from the very start of the ride, my stomach made it clear that eating was not an option.  Luckily they stocked Sustained Energy at every rest stop and that worked for me for the entire ride.  At mile 160, my energy level dropped and my body started getting tired.  I realized that I didn't drink my Sustained Energy bottle from the previous rest stop, so once I drank that down, I was good to go again.  Can you guess what I'll be drinking at the black belt test in September ;-)  

I was blessed to ride with Benjamin Waters who has done numerous double centuries and yet was willing to ride with me at my first double at my pace.  He was fantastic.  He pulled me through the headwinds and then he let me pull when there were tail winds.  The hardest or longest part of the day was on the highway to Morro Bay.  The headwinds were heavy and whenever a large car went by, it would shove a cross-wind at us that made it difficult to hold the bike steady.  When we arrived in Morro Bay, we had to get a sticker on our bib number to prove that we did the whole route.  The volunteer there took one look at me and said he had heard about me and he got a big bottle of 800mg advils and insisted I take more.  If you think I stood out with all the pink cycling clothing and pink bike, just put a few gashes on me and see how much I stood out then!  On the way back from Morro Bay, the tailwinds were heaven-sent and really helped our time and spirits as we were able to ride between 29-31 mph with no effort at all with beautiful Morro Bay beaches alongside us.  Plus we knew that we were on our way back at that time which was SO exhilarating!

The biggest hill of the day was at about mile 175.  I had been really worried about that one as the organizers wrote on the internet that it was steep and technical.  I must have asked John Mazzella about 50 questions about the hill a week before the ride.  We started the double in the dark at 5:30AM and I thought we would be climbing Drum Canyon at about 10:30 at night, but luckily we had ridden so fast throughout the day, that we were able to climb and descend Drum Canyon while it was still light out.  The hill turned out to not be difficult at all.  After we got to the top, we had our reward of getting to descend which is always fun after a climb.  After the hill, we knew we were really close to the finish and I knew then that we didn't have to conserve energies and so we rode full out fast using every last bit of stamina left.  I had a picture of my beautiful daughter in my head waiting for me to arrive and so that ending was really easy and exciting.

It turned out that the LDTR's are way harder than the double was.  My legs and bum felt perfectly fine.  It was very exciting to complete my first double century.  One of the many cool parts is that as I passed people riding, several called out "that pink lady is my inspiration".  It also was so nice talking with Jon Kaplan after the ride and all the nice riders and volunteers.  I never would have been able to do the double without Benjamin.  He helped to keep me going after the crash and stayed with me throughout the event sharing his strength and tips.  The day really couldn't have been better - well maybe without the bruised ribs ;-)

Cristin Sohm

Lane Parker and Tom Behnen

Franz Pulling Joe
(photographer captured rare moment)

Chrstin Sohm and Benjamin Waters

Christin - I Did It!

Elevation Profile by Lane Parker
(click to enlarge)

Route by Lane Parker
(click to enlarge)