255 Miles of Single Speed Insanity

Yep - that's right I put in a total of 255 miles on single speed bikes this past weekend. Most of that mileage was done as part of a competitive 24-hr race in Spokane put on by Round and Round. In the past I have done this race as part of a 5-person team on a geared bike, but this year for some insane reason I decided to do the event solo on my single speed. The end result of the race for me was 4th place after riding 210 miles with a total ride time of 17-hr 54-min during the 24-hr period in adverse weather conditions. The other 6+ hours were spent mostly on letting my very upset stomach right itself on 2 occasions. I figured out the part of my nutrition plan that was causing my puky feelings after the 2nd near trail-side puke and excluded the product. After that I was riding well again turning consistent lap times. Rain was a factor at times since it turned parts of the course into a fun mud-yuk slip-n-slide...perfect for a single speed (hard on all those poor geared bikes).

This event was only a trial for me so that I would know if this kind of mountain bike race was for me and to find out if my nutrition plan would hold up. I learned that junk food (potato chips and Coke) are saving graces for me when my body is trying to violently up-chuck at the thought of anything labeled as a "sport" or "endurance" nutrition.

I went to this race totally unsupported and ended up with more people helping me than you could imagine. Twice in the early morning I had hot pancakes waiting for me at the end of a lap - the people at this event were totally awesome.

In the end the ouch factor is not as bad as I thought it would be after I was done. My butt suffered on this rock-infested, bumpy course - that means my ass hurts. My hands suffered a bit also, but not bad. Nothing was bad though since I went for a "recovery" ride with some good friends from Sandpoint the following day - for some reason we had to ride the course again, but at a "leisurely" pace (on a SS that means nearly normal pace). This recovery ride along with 2-preride laps on Friday and the race gave me a total of 255-miles on the SS this weekend.

You think this is insane? I'm looking for another 24-hr race to do this summer (maybe this time on a geared bike).