11 July 2009
Seattle to Portland 2009 - Ride Report
Posted by Brad Hefta-Gaub under: Cycle.
Yesterday I completed my 5th consecutive one day STP (Seattle to Portland Double Century). It was a great day, and I had a great time, and a pretty good ride. Of course, there were a few things that went wrong, like a flat tire early in the day, and totally blowing my nutrition and bonking at mile 150… but I also got to meet some nice riders and had a great day in the saddle.
Every year I’ve ridden the STP, there always been a different theme, with different goals. My first year, it was all about “finishing” the one day event. My second year, I rode with a group of friends and our goal was a sub 9:30 ride time. We made it in at 9:27. My third year, I was riding alone, and so I decided to challenge myself by riding it on my fixed gear bike. Last year, since I had already accomplished the goal of riding it fixed, I decided to ride it fixed again, but this time on my crazy Funny Bike (trust me, this is a crazy thing to do!)
This year, I seriously considered attempting the STP-PTS, where I would ride down to Portland on one day, and then turn around and ride back to Seattle the next day.
Maybe someday I will do that… but this year, it wasn’t going to happen. Since I have my first ultra trail run (50 miles) in only two weeks, many of my friends suggested I was crazy to even do the STP ride at all. Well… I don’t mind being a little crazy.
My story kind of started a couple weeks ago, when I realized I hadn’t bought my entry ticket, and unfortunately they had sold out. At first I tried to find someone who was trying to sell their bib number (they are transferable), and after a few strange phone calls and a near clandestine meeting with a fellow named “GreenGesus” it turned out that my first contact didn’t even have a bib number at all. So it was back to the drawing board, and that’s when I discovered “Rider 10000″.
In an effort to raise money for their Bicycle Educational Foundation, Cascade, who puts on the STP, offered a special auction. I will admit, I’m not exactly an eBay expert, in fact, I had never previously purchased an item from eBay. I tried to a couple times in the past, but was frustrated by the “auction” process. But this time, I really wanted that bib number. I even went so far as to dowload the eBay app for my iPhone so I could put in my final bid while I was on a training ride.
After some intense bidding, I finally prevailed and ended up with bib 10,000. I was rider 10,000!
With my bib affixed to my jeresy, and my Mom riding along to provide some personal support at the rest stops, I was ready to start my day bright and early at 4:30 am. I started at my house, which is about 2 miles from the start line. In past years, I’ve just rode from my house and jumped onto the course where it passes a couple blocks away from my house. But this year, since I was planning to video tape much of the ride, I decided to ride to the actual start line, and start my ride with all the other riders.
This was a fun experience, as the starting area is a massive swarm of riders. And while I waited in line to get to the actual start, I got a little taste of what I should expect for most of the rest of the day. Many people noticed my “10,000″ bib number, and got many similar reactions. I actually have come to a conclusion that peoples reaction says a lot more about them, then anything else. Here are a sampling of the most common reactions.
- Hey, Cool! Did you win the auction?!
- Dude! You must be the worlds WORST procrastinator!
- … and one I heard a lot more than I would have guessed… “Dude! Did you print that number yourself?” or the varient “Do you have a friend at Cascade that gave you that number?”
That was great of course, until mile 30 when I got a flat tire!
But as frustrating as this was, they were fast… and we ended up riding the next 50 miles in less than 2 hours. Over 25mph average pace!
In fact, I almost missed my Mom at Centrailia, we got there so fast. She had only been there a couple minutes before we rolled through! At Centralia, I decided to try to eat some solid food. I’d been trying to drink my liquid fuel and eat my cliff block shots and sports beans but nothing seemed to taste right. But a couple hot dogs at the half way point really hit the spot.
In retrospect, this was an early warning sign. Intellectually, I knew I wasn’t eating enough, but I still felt good. But I was digging myself into a hole!
When we rolled out of Centralia, my stuck with my new group. And we all joked about how crazy that other group of riders was, and how we were glad to be rid of them. We assumed they were all out on the road again… but as we turned the corner out of town, who did we run into.
At this point, I let my big mouth get the better of me, and I just had so say something to them. I asked them why they were riding so crazy. They said they like to “Ride Hard”… but I said, hey, you’re not riding hard, you’re riding crazy… and they should try to keep an even pace. I wasn’t trying to be a jerk really, but I’m sure I came off as one, and this later came back to haunt me.
I little bit of the way out of Centrailia… my group basically fell apart. Although I still had energy, the rest of them had been blown up by the 2 hours of 25mph average pace. And as soon as it was my first turn to pull, and lost them.
I was stuck in no-mans land, and was forced to jump on the wheel of the “crazy team”.
I rode with them for about 10 miles, and when the first mini-stop outside of Centralia came, they all stopped. Apparently their team has also been blown up pretty bad by the last 50 miles, and they decided to wait to regroup.
I decided to trudge along on my own. And so I rode the next 30 miles by myself. I kept a pretty good pace, and although I was hurting I came in to Lexington in 7 hours of ride time, 145 miles, 20.71mph pace.
At Lexington I was starting to hurt. I tried to keep up a strong face, but my mom could see it. I needed food and all of my “sports stuff” wasn’t sitting right. All of the “real food” at the rest stops had bread and/or cheese in it, except for some fresh fruits. So after eating a banana and some grapes and a couple of orange slices, I headed off to meet my Mom at St. Helens, 30 miles down the road. She promised to meet me there with some sliced turkey and tortillas and BBQ potato chips, along with some Dairy Free icecream I’d packed in the cooler.
As I pulled out, I saw my group of friends again, and although we rode together for about 10 miles on the way out of Lexington and across the Longview bridge, they blew up again by mile 160. So I was all alone again… well… not exactly. I caught up to one solo rider, who I had hoped would be able to work with me. But after I did a 10 minute pull, I waved him in front of me, only to have him beg off after 30 seconds.
By now, I was totally bonking. I knew I was out of fuel!
I tried to eat my gels and gus… but I couldn’t keep my heartrate up above 120 bpm. Although I don’t have a cycling computer, so I don’t know exactly what my pace was, I could watch the mile markers go by, and it seemed like each mile took a couple ten seconds longer than the last one.
It didn’t help matters that the last 60 miles had a ferocious headwind, or that the road in to portland is the worst. It’s incredible rough, and the cars are absolutely insane. In fact, several riders have been killed over the years along this stretch of the route. It’s the worst place to be if you’re running on fumes.
Thank goodness for St. Helens. When I finally got there in 8:37:43, my average pace had dropped to 20.4 mph. Honestly, I’m surprised it hadn’t dropped further. I hung out there for a while and ate as much as I possible could. I drank my pint of dairy free icecream, sure it had melted… but it was perfect! I ate a half a bag of BBQ potato chips, and a couple of “turky tortilla sandwhiches”. I drank a full bottle of Vitamin water to wash everything down, and then refilled two of my remaining bottles with more fuel.
As I sat there eating, I saw “the crazy crew” ride in, setup, and chow down. One of the riders had set to me earlier “We like to ride hard, and rest hard!” and boy was he right. They had the full setup waiting for them.
When I saw them heading out, I knew I didn’t want to do the last 30 miles alone, so I quickly finished up my meal, and jumped on my bike. I caught them about a mile or so out of the rest stop and jumped on their back wheel.
Now this is where my big mouth probably got me into some trouble.
Although I had worked well with a couple of their riders right after Centralia, I’m sure word of my smart ass comments had worked their way through the group. And so when the first rider finished his pull and came to the back of the line he pointed to the rider in front of me and asked to squeeze in.
Now this is totally appropriate… in fact, I really should get permission to join their line, that’s just courtesy. And so I said some to him like “Hey, if you’d like me to work for you then let me up front into the line.” To which he replied “I’d rather you not!” (ouch) That stings… and mybe I even responded “ok, if that how you want it, I’ll take the free ride”.
But honestly, I don’t want to be a mooch… and as the second rider came back, one of the ones I had worked with earlier, I asked again if I could join and he said ok, and went behind me. Two more riders fell in behind, and I felt pretty good that I’d be getting a chance to work with them again. Finally when it was my turn, the grump in front of me took a 10 second pull and immediately sent me to the front. Unfortunately, this was right at the base of a hill.
The base of a hill is a tricky place to be if its your first pull in a new pace line. You don’t want to come off as a whimp, and slow your pace and mess of the line by going to slow. But you also don’t want to speed up and lose the line off the back.
So when it was my turn to pull, I did my best to keep the pace as steady as I could. That basically means that I kept my pace the same as the pace we’d been doing on the flat before the hill.
Apparently that was way too much for most of the group. Except for the first two riders behind me (the ones I had worked with in the past, and in my estimation were the most fit of the riders), the rest of the group fell apart. One ride came darting up sort of yelling sometthing about “he blew up the group!”
I felt pretty bad at this point, and I probably wasn’t going to win them over as friends now. But as I came out of my pull, instead of going to the back, I fell back just enough to close the gap I had created, and pulled the trailing riders back to the front group. This would either really piss them off, or possibly work to have them forgive me.
Within two riders it was my turn to pull again. This time I slowed it down just a little bit, but still kept it steady, and I did a longer pull (about 8 minutes). And when I finally dropped off, I got the word I was looking for. As I rolled back to the back of the line, everyone in the group thanked me and said they thought the pace was good.
About 10 miles down the road we stopped briefly to let one rider catch up. And it gave me a chance to thank them for letting me ride with them, and apologize for “talking smack”, we all agreed to let bygones be bygones. I guess your perspective changes when your all tired and can use the help from others.
The rest of the ride in to Portland was pretty uneventful, and the mood changed to a really light and happy attitude. At about mile 197 there’s a steep short uphill, which is always a fun little chance for a quick sprint to the top. I was in the back of the group, and did my best to navigate the crowd. And although I came from way back, I was only able to come in third of the group racing to the top of the hill.
I eventually came across the finish line in a little less than 10 hours of ride time. Not a personal record, but a completely respectable time. I picked up my one-day finisher patch and rolled over to meet my Mom who was waiting for me at the finish line.
Clearly, the biggest takeway is that I need to get better at fueling on the bike. My problem might be that I am so used to doing 50 mile rides with no fuel at all. And although I can get by with minimal fuel 100 miles, that simply won’t cut it for races beyond 100 miles, whether those are double century rides or Ironman races. This is the biggest lesson I need to learn! It’s something I really need to work on before this year’s Ironman race.
After the ride, I showered, bought a “one day finishers” t-shirt, and went over to chat with the gang at the Cascade tent. In addition the them taking a picture for me with their fancy “I finished” background… I also got a coupon for a free meal, and a couple of drink tickets! Cool! I guess they really appreciated my donation!
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 07/11/2009
- Time: 04:45:00
- Total Time: 9:56:10.00
- Average Heart rate: 135
- Max Heart rate: 168
- Calories: 9915
- Distance: 204.25 miles
- Average Speed: 20.56 mph
- Max Speed: 30 mph
- Ascent: 1,951 ft
- Descent: 1,951 ft
10 Comments so far...
dion Says:
Very cool Brad, I think you’ll need to go for two cameras next time so we can see the rider as well as all those bums in front. A bit of vision backwards would be interesting too. Not so sure about the between the legs angle ! 
shebaduhkitty Says:
thanks for the great race report, of course when you tell all these stories it makes me think I will never be ready to do a race like that!
Brad Hefta-Gaub Says:
@Dion - Yeah, I only had the camera for a day before the ride, so I wasn’t able to do that many test videos…. the camera has no screen on it, so you don’t know what you’re taping until you download the videos to your PC. I will look into getting a helmet mount, as I think that would be a cool perspective. The backward shot was lined up better in my test, but apparently when I remounted the camera on the fly on the road, the angle was a little off.
@Sheba - well, when you’re ready to do the STP, I will happily ride it at whatever pace you want to… including doing a 2 day. Although I might have to drop you off at Centrailia, finish the first day, and then come back to ride the second day with you. 
@Rich - It’s a cool ride, you should come up to Seattle next year and ride it with us!
lassie Says:
I enjoyed reading your post and watching the video. Congratulations on your ride. I am not from that area so never knew how far Portland is from Seattle and I see there are many bicyclists that enjoy that long distance. I am totally impressed.
They hit me with a flower » Blog Archive » What others have been saying about patch finisher Says:
[...] http://brad.sweat365.com/2009/07/11/seattle-to-portland-2009-ride-report/I eventually came across the finish line in a little less than 10 hours of ride time. Not a personal record, but a completely respectable time. I picked up my one-day finisher patch and rolled over to meet my Mom who was waiting for me … [...]
They hit me with a flower » Blog Archive » Quick scan of the net - patch finisher Says:
[...] http://brad.sweat365.com/2009/07/11/seattle-to-portland-2009-ride-report/I eventually came across the finish line in a little less than 10 hours of ride time. Not a personal record, but a completely respectable time. I picked up my one-day finisher patch and rolled over to meet my Mom who was waiting for me … [...]
