Too bad the race was 205miles.
I'm proud of all the boys. They showed up, fought through the 35+ mph winds in the 95 degree Kansas weather beat down. Flats, dehydration, and early onset hyponatremia were on the menu for 90% of the field. I was feeling fantastic, foot pain very manageable and barely noticeable. My new super stiff soled Mavics and the foot pad I made were working wonders. My gearing felt perfect and I was motoring along exactly where I wanted to be. OldGreg and Monster were right up there with me too.
Monster got the first of his 86 flats making a left 10-ish miles into the gravel. I stopped to help him as I knew he'd be a little panicky and upset about the early flat. I dismissed his apology about causing us to lose our good position. No sweat, Scotty, let's just fix this properly and get moving, we'll catch back on, no worries. His tube had pulled apart along the seam, very odd. Tube changed, tire checked, we set back to catch all the groups that passed us and hop back onto our pace group.
The wind was kicking in full bore at this point and we worked hard to gain some ground. After a few rollers I looked back and only saw OldGreg. Where is Monster? After slowing up and waiting, we finally made visual contact with Scott and saw him riding with another rider. We kept on rolling eased off the pace waiting for Scott, but he didn't seem to be catching ground and the slow pace into the wind had me working too hard to pedal and putting pressure on my foot. I needed to get back on top of my gear and spin. I told Greg I hated not stopping for Scott, but I had to ride my race else I was going to expend way too much effort to go slower. So we rolled on together. Scotty was a bit off the back but with a few cyclists. Our hope was he was able to work with them and his pace would match theirs. If he couldn't hold pace now, stopping to wait on him then motoring on dragging him at our pace would most likely put the nail into the coffin for him.
Pretty soon I lost greg and assumed he had slowed to wait for Scott too. The wind was hellish, but catching all the folks who'd passed us kept me motivated and having fun. Eventually I caught back up to gRant, Jeff (eventual 2nd place SS finisher), and Dan, who'd kept rolling after our early flat issue, no reason for everyone to stand and wait. And we rolled on together. My pace put me faster than Dan and his Mike Beck (eventual 1st place SS finisher) group and 1x9 gRant and I pushed passed and motored on up the road.
Eventually the head wind eased for a few miles and we enjoyed a nice tail wind. I spun it up to 25mph on the ss while gRant raged on ahead. I realized I was working way too hard for a head wind and slowed it down to a more manageable 21 mph and enjoyed not having to work so hard. That lasted on a few more miles and it was right back into the aggravating head wind.
Grant was long gone, but I figured I'd catch back up at some point. I did a few miles up the road and we rode together for a stretch. Grant was feeling good and having fun, exactly as it should be. Eventually, my pace put me out in front of him and alone for a very long, long time. Pretty much until mile 104 actually. It was going to be a long day.
I was feeling great and was told I was in the top 30 by the first check point. 63 miles in and 1/2 water bottle drank. I had some serious catching up to do, the wind had taken it's toll speeding up dehydration, but it's cooling effect and 2 hands on the bars requirement to keep crawling through it had me in a deficit. I still felt great, just needed to get some fluids into me. I refilled my bottle, chugged a pure leaf pure sugar sweet tea and ate a slice of sausage pizza from the quickie mart. Feeling like that 62 mile stretch was really 100 mile, but ready to roll on, I left town as Dan rolled in. He said the others were shortly behind him. Knowing they were all close together eased my worry some and I headed out to check point 2.
I spent the first 25 miles of leg 2 alone. It was scorching hot. My goal for this stretch was to catch back up in hydration and fuel. By 10 miles in I had downed a bottle and a half. Better. I had pee'd twice, even better, and it wasn't that evil dark yellow. I started replacing electrolytes and getting some more calories into me too, as all I had had since 4am's breakfast was that slice of pizza. I was feeling pretty good but running low on water again with about 20 miles still to go. The wind had died down some but the 95 degree no shade anywhere heat was taking it's toll to where if you got behind on liquids again, it started to affect you immediately. I was in water conservation mode with about 15 miles to go. I had rolled upon a few guys I'd ridden with earlier in the day and was enjoying the company when we heard a tear and a massive exodus of air. Then my rear when flat. I quickly scanned up and back on the road looking for a shade tree, there was nothing. Losing the cooling wind effect of riding, it felt like an oven and it was about 5 minutes before I could open my eyes without the rushing onslaught of sweat burning them. Mike Beck passed me at this point and checked if I was ok, I told him to roll on and I'd see him soon. I quickly got to work (once I could see) to swapping tubes, then while checking the tire I found a near inch long gash in my tire. A sharp rock had sliced through my tire, through my liner and through my tube, all of the slices identical. Hello Flint Hills.
I booted the tire, moved the liner so I had a fresh spot covering the hole, then replace the tube. The slice ran vertically down the tire, so when the tube was inflated it opened up the gash exposing the boot and tube. A patch wouldn't hold it closed either. So I rolled on hoping the boot would hold until the halfway point. Less than 4 miles later I suffered another puncture from the same hole. Rocks were getting stuck in the gash and if a bump occurred during their down turn on the wheel, they'd hit the rim and rupture the tube. I cut the old tube and layered as much rubber as I could over the hole, but the cycle would just repeat.
I made it into town and the halfway checkpoint. Grabbed the new map and made haste over to the convenience store. Mission was water, pizza slice, a needle and some dental floss. As I leaned the bike up against the store, Mike Beck was there and we chatted for a second. He said he'd been waiting for me to come buzzing past him any moment, I told him of my slice and the fun flats and wished him well on his way. Hoping I'd catch back up and have someone to ride with, I set in to find needle and floss. They had floss, no needle. Damn. So I got water, a blue icee (to cool me down and help with the slight nausea feeling), and a slice of pizza. Once fed and hydrated, I'd get back on tire fixing tasks.
I had planned to take some time here anyway, I had enough buffer time and wanted to make sure I was refueld well before the next leg (touted as the toughtest) but more importantly because the heat was just searing at this point.
Jeff came rolling in while I was chilling out and we chatted some. He drank my water and I think grabbed a slice of pizza too. Don't recall, but he said he was hurting but doing alright and was going to push on. I told him I had to fix my tire first. He relayed the boys were hurting but not too far back. After he left Dan came in looking completely haggard. I've been to a lot of pain caves with Dan before and have never seen him like this, ever. He told me of his puking and his stomach issues, blurry vision, maple syrup urine, etc... Assuming early onset of hyponatremia or at least severe dehydration and he was here before the other guys, I started to fear the worst for them. I almost took Dan to the hospital in town to have IV fluids pushed, but he was able to slowly drink down an icee and I knew the simple sugars in it would help with the nausea.
After my lunch, I set about trying to find needle and thread/floss. I checked 2 convenience stores, a place called the Clothes Pin (or Line), a Home store, and a hardware/outdoor store. None had a needle or needle-ish item. The clerks all looked at me like I was some idiot. Guess the blue lycra and salt encrusted face didn't help my cause much.
I figured the only way I could continue on the rough gravel was if I could sew my slice shut, then patch the inside of the tire, boot it, and insert a new tube. Without sealing the slice, the tiny rocks would just continue to get trapped in between the tube and the casing. Otherwise I had 2 tubes and 3 patches to get me through 101 more miles of rugged roads. Considering 9 miles took 3 tubes, the odds weren't in my favor.
The other boys showed up while I was at the check point talking with Matt, DP, and Dan. Monster had suffered another flat and gRant and OldGreg had come in just at the brink of the wall. Both having done extremely well to make it this far. gRant with very limited ride time and Greg having just ridden the farthest he'd ever ridden before. A fellow heard us talking and offered up a new tire, but it was a 29'er and wouldn't work. Monster showed up running as he had suffered another flat.
Seeing the boys hurting, knowing we had no support crew, and not wanting to spend the wee hours of the night trying to patch tubes in the dark, I started to think riding back to the hotel on pavement was the smarter thing to do. I didn't want to quit, I felt really good still, I just wasn't sure my tire situation was going to hold up. Now, just to give an idea as to how remote Kansas is, we passed no towns except for the check point towns. I rode to the hotel on highways that passed through a town called Adams. I took the highways since they were paved and less likely to puncture my tire vs gravel and I assumed there would be service stations for refilling. Not a single station or store was present along the 44 mile ride from the halfway back to Emporia. Nothing. We only passed 1 house on hwy 56 too. Those are the factors one has to consider at events such as this. Quitting sucks, but when you have no support, no one to call, and no idea if you'll have water or cell service, sometimes it's the smart decision. I could get out the farthest point from Emporia (which is where leg 3 took us) and not have any place to refill water, food, or cell service to call for help if I needed it. Had I not had the flat inducing sliced tire issue and a dwindling supply of tubes, I would have pressed on. But add 15-25 minutes average time screwing with tube repairs, and I was adding an hour or more to my time and 3 bottles was already barely getting me by.
So, I opted to ride back to the hotel to get the van for the boys and a few others who were cooked after a long hard day on the bike. The convenience store without needles also had no maps either, convenient. I knew 56 ran east and assumed a highway would drop down towards Emporia. OldGreg had photocopied a few pages from a gazetteer and had them sealed in a baggie labeled "bail out". I scanned it and found hwy 99 would drop me into Emporia from 56. I guestimated 35 miles. Others said no it was more like 25, and that it wasn't "that far".
Knowing Monster was probably as down and depressed about the situation as I was I asked if he wanted to ride back with me. I knew he was hurting, but he didn't look too haggard or worse for ware and I thought it might do him some good to at least ride back to the hotel under his own power. He was up for it but needed some time to hydrate, having ran out of water and ran his bike in. So I set about fixing his flat while he got food and drink from the store.
We rolled out together into the heat of the day on the oven like tar bubble filled road. We were treated to a head wind and constant long false flat to rollers for 20ish miles. We were well past what we were told the distance should be with still no sign for our turn. We crossed a route marker on the road and stopped oogling the gravel road. Not knowing where it would lead (aside from home) and the gravel factor (we both were on limited tubes) we decided to press on, but just before we did a farmer rolled up in a truck and asked where we were headed. He told us 4 miles to Allentown Road, then 9 miles to 99, then 6 miles to the city limit of Emporia.
We thanked him and headed on hoping Allen would have a service station or an ice cream shop, we were both talking about how good ice cream would be at this point. We saw the water tower and excitedly kicked up the pace to Allen. Main street was our turn (Allentown Road) and we rolled in only to be disapointed, no ice cream store, no gas station, no store at all. Nearly out of water and with 17 miles of sun backed blacktop to go, we pressed on.
I still had a 3rd water bottle full and after a few miles I stopped and split it between Scott and I. Conservation mode entered again. Then Scott got another flat, so we stopped under a shade tree near a house and fixed it. The rest of the ride was just long and hot. We joked about crashing a wedding we saw out in the distance of a field or hoping for a birthday party along the way. Scott said something about offering $20 for a ride and I said I'd offer $40 for ice cream, screw the ride. And on we went.
As we finally neared Emporia (about 3 miles from town) Scott suffered another flat (always as we enter Emporia with this kid, just like last year). We joked about him and his flats after crossing I35 into Emporia (as we were finishing the race last year he flatted as we crossed a bridge into town). Flat repaired we made our way into the Northeast side of Emporia. I stopped at the first gas station and bought water and 2 orange Scooby Doo push pops. One for me and one for Scott. We'd earned that. Then we set about finding our way back to the hotel.
We rolled into the parking lot and fake sprinted for the finish line where everyone was waiting and cheering, Scott pimping me at the line, but quickly told Jim and crew that we weren't finishers, well I joked we were 1st and 2nd SS DK 150 finishers. We chatted with them and shared stories. It was about 9:30 PM at this point and just getting to be dusk. They said 1st place had just rolled in around 9:15 PM. Dude was hauling!
We quickly showered and searched the room for the van key (long story, eh Dan? :-) ) then headed out to pick up the folks waiting back at the halfway point. I turned the cell phone on in case Jeff called needing help. He was the lone one from our group still out there. Not having the last leg map, I was worried about being able to find him, even with the gazetteer, but since we rode home and happened across the course markings where it crossed 56, I knew I could follow the course backwards from that point and find him. So we took both vehicles in case he called while we were out that way - he deserved pickup before any of the rest of us.
We found the kids having a brew at the park waiting for us. Loaded the bikes and hauled it back to the hotel to wait on Jeff. Scott and I were getting anxious and discussed riding the course backwards to look for Jeff. It was nearing 1 there were no word of anyone seeing him. Around 2 AM (after Mike Beck's group came in) and officially after the cutoff, Scott and I got into the Element with a jug of water and headed out towards the course in case he needed water or was collapsed in a heap somewhere. As we made the left turn we saw 3 lights coming at us. We slowed and saw the blue Moots kit of Jeffy!!! We screamed cheers to him and spun around and raced to the lot so we could be at the finish for him.
He'd made it! Joel and Jim (2 promoters, cyclists, racers that get it) had made the decision that anyone who made it in after cp 3 would be considered official finishers despite the time, which was fantastic. They had all earned it, especially in those conditions. Congrats again Mike and Jeff!! Way to roll!
So, that is the tale. There is more tale to tell, but that is the bulk of the race report from my perspective. I'm so proud of Jeff and happy that he pushed on and completed it. Huge accomplishment. I'm proud of Monster for pushing through and riding back with me. I know he was hurting, but I appreciated the company on the ride back. Proud of Greg for putting in an incredible effort. Proud of Grant for riding strong for as long as he did, pacing so many people, giving away all of his tubes in route to the halfway point to others in need and being a great ambassador. Proud of Dan for pushing through to the halfway and realizing he wasn't in any condition to continue and not endangering himself by letting ego trump health. I say that only because I know how badly Dan wanted to push on and finish, as did I.
I'll update with photos and tales later, I've got work do do.
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