Epic Training Systems- Home

EPIC TRAINING SYSTEMS

Endure, Excel, Achieve

2010 San Diego 200km Brevet

We help athletes
achieve their goals
to win, race, or be
fit, and to discover
for themselves our
passion for cycling.

Before I begin I would like to thank the RBA Dennis Stryker and all the volunteers. Thank you for allowing us to
ride our bikes! I very much appreciate you folks that give back to the sport of Rando. My season opener was a
sucess I finished first with a time of 6:55 for 122 miles and 8,600 feet of climbing. GARMIN PLAYER HERE

H ere are the Official Results

Resorted by Total Time

Secondly, I would like to say that when I do brevets I ride them as hard as I can for as long as I can. I consider
them training races for my events later in the year. While some may enjoy the slow to medium pace that is
allowed with a 13 hour time limit, for a 200km anyway, I'm much more interested in beating my times from
previous years. I'm out there to test myself and my fitness as I progress through the winter months.

I don't believe in loading up my bike for a 200km or even a 600km with bags, racks, panniers, or my person with
camelbacks and all that stuff. I consider all that stuff completely unnecessary in an urban setting like San Diego.
There are so many places to get water on the course i.e. park fountains, fire houses, stores, fast food places,
garden hoses, and even homes. Additionally, the weather is very predictable in San Diego and carrying a lot of
clothing for the "what if" situations is again unnecessary. I don't wear rain gear in rainy conditions because most
of it is subpar and doesn't work anyway. The colder it gets the more ultra thin layers of wool I wear. I subscribe
to the "less is more" philosophy when I "race". I am a minimalist on the bike. If you leave it at home you will find
you will rarely need it.

It may not be important to most riders on the brevet scene but if we analyze the gear choices of the first three
riders that came in it seems we had many things in common. Two out of three of us had aero-bars (I didn't) , all
three of us had two water bottles, Drew had a mini hydration pack, none of us had jackets, vests, or beenies,
Two out of three of us only wore a jersey no vest nor arm warmers, two out of three of us had light weight
carbon bikes the third a lightweight Aluminum bike, none of us had racks, panniers, trunk bags or the like, the
three of us rode 23C tires, none of us had rain gear, none of us had hub generator lighting systems, all three of us
had Double chainrings cranksets (53/39) I'm sure there was more but that's all I can recall one week later ;)

I couldn't believe how much clothing people had on at the start i.e jackets, vests, long tights, leg warmers, arm
warmers, knee warmers, beenies and camelbacks. You would think they were doing a brevet on the east coast ;)
and that it was much longer than a 200km. I wore a short sleeve jersey and my Skins cycling tights which are
for compression not warmth. I kept thinking about those riders who brought all that extra gear what they did
with all that gear when it warmed up to 80 degrees. I asked the rider that parked next to me if he really needed all
that gear. He said he did and I left it at that.

We started off with probably 65 riders. We rolled out from Doyle Park in La Jolla at 7:02am. There was one guy
in a Death Valley Velo jersey pushing the pace from the very beginning. I couldn't figure out WHAT he was
doing going that hard at mile 0. I asked Drew Peterson if he knew who this guy was and whether he was strong
enough to hold that type of pace for the whole event. I wanted to ask him myself but never got around to it. It
didn't matter anyway because he was dropped before we got out of Rancho Santa Fe (about mile 10). Pretty
quickly our 60+ group was cut down to less than 20. By the time we got to Rancho Santa Fe we were down to
about 10 riders.

While riding through Rancho Santa Fe, I tried to organize a paceline and was unsuccessful. I can't understand
why Ultra cyclists are so dense on pacelining. In just about every Double Century I have done and many other
draft-legal Ultras most riders get out and pull at the head of the line but don't roll off. They sit out in front for
many minutes at a time while the other riders are sucking wheel. We could be going so much faster-- at least 2-3
mph faster. A four or five person paceline is a beautiful thing to watch. Here's a tip-- the paceline is in
CONSTANT rotation. No one sits up front for more than 4-5 seconds that's it. I gave up after a few attempts.

While climbing through Del Dios Hwy we were less than six riders and the pace felt comfortable to me. I was
having a good day on the bike and just felt great. Now the numbers were getting more manageable. My friend
Josh caught up to us again. I was happy to see him bridge up to us. We tried a paceline again and this time it
worked better.

Custom Search