Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
Or even funnier, he had the matching helmet and his lime green Madone. A picture of that get-up could give Bikesnob NYC enough material for a week😀
-Jim.
Going Long and Hard.
- Thread starter Steve Vai
- Start date
Or even funnier, he had the matching helmet and his lime green Madone. A picture of that get-up could give Bikesnob NYC enough material for a week😀
-Jim.
Ok, whose kit was it? Rock Racing or Movistar? Details please.
ArmyOfNone
Well-Known Member
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
It was the gayest Pearl Izumi kit ever. Like if George Michael, Elton John, and Liberace had a 3-some while Freddie Mercury taped it kinda gay.
Onward. I got a flat on my commute in. Another Pave, gone. At least this time it was a clincher😀
Threw back on the Rubinos, which have been my go to tire for the past few years. Filled the trunk pack with all kinds of poop for the ride home again. I also swapped my 11-26 red cassette onto my Eastons. My Seven is friggin' awesome!! Just putting that out there, in case no one caught that vibe😉
That is all. Nothing exciting. Busted my booty at work to make up for being gone on friday, I almost finished the repairs for the week. Tomorrow.
-Jim.
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
I'm back!! So. There's been a lot of stuff going on the past few days, and I've been sans computer so no updates. Let's go to the video tape.
Thursday...
Crazy day at work. Like super crazy. Like the craziest crazy. On top of it being crazy I got a Speed Concept 9.9 Di2 bike in that the customer wanted to race on saturday. Doh!! Yeah so, Di2 for TT? By far the coolest thing ever invented. It took me a little bit to work out the wiring and hide everything in the frame and bars to look like butter.
Came out super sick. He's bringing in the race wheels on friday when he picks it up, someone else will slap them on for him, I'll be riding my bike!!
Nuggles and Wayne-O were in the shop building up a pile of Shimano demo bikes. Somehow I became involved and ended up being roped into finishing the pile. Ended up being a super late night for me...
After finishing the final bike it was after midnight...I got home around 1 am and then had to finish packing for my adventure...But, it was well worth it as I earned myself a new set of 2012 new XT brakes. And I got a case of Monster from an earlier TT customer, not a bad haul for the day😀
I think I ended up in bed around 3am or so. This fact may come in handy a few posts from now😉
-Jim.
Thursday...
Crazy day at work. Like super crazy. Like the craziest crazy. On top of it being crazy I got a Speed Concept 9.9 Di2 bike in that the customer wanted to race on saturday. Doh!! Yeah so, Di2 for TT? By far the coolest thing ever invented. It took me a little bit to work out the wiring and hide everything in the frame and bars to look like butter.
Came out super sick. He's bringing in the race wheels on friday when he picks it up, someone else will slap them on for him, I'll be riding my bike!!
Nuggles and Wayne-O were in the shop building up a pile of Shimano demo bikes. Somehow I became involved and ended up being roped into finishing the pile. Ended up being a super late night for me...
After finishing the final bike it was after midnight...I got home around 1 am and then had to finish packing for my adventure...But, it was well worth it as I earned myself a new set of 2012 new XT brakes. And I got a case of Monster from an earlier TT customer, not a bad haul for the day😀
I think I ended up in bed around 3am or so. This fact may come in handy a few posts from now😉
-Jim.
dhsean
Member
Dam you! How much you want - my 2011's aren't cutting it. I'm serious though my brakes need a little tweaking/rebleed to be where I want them for my stubby fingers. Welcome back.
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
Friday. Century #1 for the weekend. My crizzy to High Point ala New York.
Today was a wee bit of a rough start. Up at 7 with the boys after only about 4 hours of sleep. We jumped on the bikes and rode to school, I started to wake up as we went. Joe met me at my crizzy just after I got back so we could pack the Beemer. Plan was for my wife to come back to the house and jump into Joe's car with the boys and meet us at High Point. The plan was tight, but it was a plan.
I'll start with the link so you can see where we went.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91888611
We kept the pace nice and easy and just enjoyed the day. Neither of us have been on any of these roads so it was super cool to just take it in a bit. As would seem to be a normal ritual for us, we almost ran over a turtle.
I saw this big rock furnace thing off to the side of the road so we stopped to check it out. Some kinda oldskool iron maker something or other. Cool.
Stopped a bit the first day. Actually sat down and had lunch at DD. Somewhere after that we went past this place. Must be a relative of some kind?
Made sure we stayed hydrated and loaded up all day, the plan was to stop very minimal tomorrow.
Not too far after that stop we got into the hills!! The roads up there are gorgeous. Everything went by kinda quick with all the scenery. And then bam!! We were in NY.
Of all the things to happen, we ran into my TT and CX nemesis, Dave Friefelder. He led us through his hood and showed us some of the roads up there. It was nice to sit on someone's wheel and get a free ride for a few miles.
We stayed in NY and hugged the state line straight across to Port Jervis. Went past the hotel the Longest Day ride starts at tomorrow. Climbed High Point from the same side as the TT route, that didn't feel great almost 100 miles in, but the view makes the pain go away.
So at this point we're waiting for my wife to catch up to us. She left late so it's gonna be tight to set up camp before nightfall. Me and Joe rolled back down the hill to the campground to scout the site. Ugh, it was like a hike from where the car would park to where the tent need to be. We were running out of daylight quickly, time for plan B. We Rolled back up the hill and down the front side to this little Inn to see if they had a room for us. LUCK!! They sure did.
My wife got there about 1/2 hour after we checked in. Unpacked, showered, changed into some civilian clothes and headed down into town for some dinner. Found a nice rockin' place called the Sussex Inn I think? Had a veggie burger and a pitcher of soda. Got back to the room after 10pm. Made my bottles for the next day and re-packed my trunk bag with food and supplies. Plan was to get up at 5am and be at the ride start by 6am. Looks like another short night of sleep...
-Jim.
Today was a wee bit of a rough start. Up at 7 with the boys after only about 4 hours of sleep. We jumped on the bikes and rode to school, I started to wake up as we went. Joe met me at my crizzy just after I got back so we could pack the Beemer. Plan was for my wife to come back to the house and jump into Joe's car with the boys and meet us at High Point. The plan was tight, but it was a plan.
I'll start with the link so you can see where we went.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91888611
We kept the pace nice and easy and just enjoyed the day. Neither of us have been on any of these roads so it was super cool to just take it in a bit. As would seem to be a normal ritual for us, we almost ran over a turtle.
I saw this big rock furnace thing off to the side of the road so we stopped to check it out. Some kinda oldskool iron maker something or other. Cool.
Stopped a bit the first day. Actually sat down and had lunch at DD. Somewhere after that we went past this place. Must be a relative of some kind?
Made sure we stayed hydrated and loaded up all day, the plan was to stop very minimal tomorrow.
Not too far after that stop we got into the hills!! The roads up there are gorgeous. Everything went by kinda quick with all the scenery. And then bam!! We were in NY.
Of all the things to happen, we ran into my TT and CX nemesis, Dave Friefelder. He led us through his hood and showed us some of the roads up there. It was nice to sit on someone's wheel and get a free ride for a few miles.
We stayed in NY and hugged the state line straight across to Port Jervis. Went past the hotel the Longest Day ride starts at tomorrow. Climbed High Point from the same side as the TT route, that didn't feel great almost 100 miles in, but the view makes the pain go away.
So at this point we're waiting for my wife to catch up to us. She left late so it's gonna be tight to set up camp before nightfall. Me and Joe rolled back down the hill to the campground to scout the site. Ugh, it was like a hike from where the car would park to where the tent need to be. We were running out of daylight quickly, time for plan B. We Rolled back up the hill and down the front side to this little Inn to see if they had a room for us. LUCK!! They sure did.
My wife got there about 1/2 hour after we checked in. Unpacked, showered, changed into some civilian clothes and headed down into town for some dinner. Found a nice rockin' place called the Sussex Inn I think? Had a veggie burger and a pitcher of soda. Got back to the room after 10pm. Made my bottles for the next day and re-packed my trunk bag with food and supplies. Plan was to get up at 5am and be at the ride start by 6am. Looks like another short night of sleep...
-Jim.
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
Day #2. The Longest Day double-century.
Woke up late...Of course...Ended up leaving our room after 6am. Got to the start and searched for the registration guy. Apparently, everyone has already left. I found out later that most people leave around 4am. We left at 7am. So we were in a deficit of about 3 hours and would run out of daylight if we stopped to much. I budgeted 12 hours for the ride so we'd have less than 1 1/2 hours of fudge time to beat the dark.
Sorta set the pace and sat on the front as we meandered down the hills and out of north jersey. It was raining in the morning but it wasn't bad, I'd rather be a little wet than have the sun beating on us all day. We had to pee a lot. Quick hit and run pee stops, no unclipping!! One of them we pulled into this VW shop and I caught this. SWEET!! And rare.
Dropped down into Bridgewater and the last of the hills. I think this was the last time we'd see a hill for the next 130 miles.
Our first refuel stop was in Manville at around the 70 mile mark. Quick, then back on the road!! Not too long after we drop along the canal and go by 6-Mile, it felt nice to be on familiar roads for a bit.
At this point my wife has left the hotel in High Point and is following our route to catch us at some point. Didn't seem like it took a long time before we started seeing pine trees.
So many pine trees!! There were a few LONG straight pine tree roads that felt like they went on forever!! At about the 115 mile mark we were out of food and fluids. We had to stop. Hopefully my wife will catch up to us while we eat so our down time doesn't get too bad. We order a few slices of pizza and by the time we finished eating, she was there. Perfect timing. RECHARGE!!
Muscle Milk, new bottles of HEED, change into some dry clothes, reapply chamois cream. We're off!!
At this point we started going through the groups that started before us. Seems like most weren't spread out too far. We just kept pace and went by the groups as they came. Most were going pretty slow so it wasn't worth sitting in at all. One group we passed and then they caught us at the next traffic light. This happened for a few lights in a row so we got to talking. They left at 4am, we made up 3 hours on these guys. They seemed shocked we started at 7 and caught them with another 70 miles to go still. We weren't that shocked.
Started raining again not too far after that. Rain kept getting harder and harder. Wind picked up fierce, hail, thunder and lightning. CRAP!! We were out exposed with lightning hitting close enough to scare the living poop out of us. There was no where to hide!! The road filled with water almost immediately and we were riding in like 3 inches. Cars pulled off to the side of the road to and we were still riding. I thought we were going to die!! Then we caught a glimpse of people on a porch waving us to come hide. We did!! The rest of the riders that left before us were all stuffed under this lady's porch. She was very nice to let us get out of this. There were nutty storm warnings and flood poop all over the area. Most of the other riders were calling the ride quits. We were more determined and waited for a hole in the storm to go back out. The lady made us peanut butter and jelly before we left. It's very nice to know that there are some truly nice people out there!!
The storm was heading east and we needed to go south. A few miles of hard rain and theoretically we're in the clear. We only had 40 miles to go so it was too close to not go for it. We went. Everyone thought we were crazy. We had faith it would work out.
About 10 miles in driving rain with like a million mph headwind. Very mentally tough to stay focused and not call it in. Alas, we made said southbound turn and came into clear blue sky. The gamble paid off but took it's toll. The next 30 miles or so were absolutely BRUTAL. I'm not entirely sure how A) my legs kept going and B) we were still keeping pace. Every mile felt like an eternity. We went past the campground we were staying at as well. That was hard to ride past. We were in the home stretch though.
Bam. I get a flat. Not paying attention so much and ran over some glass. Front flat. Quick change, back on the road. Not a mile down the road and the rear went. DAMN!! I didn't change it. I just popped some Co2 in it and high tailed it!! About a mile from the lighthouse I had to do it again. I didn't care at that point and just finished on a flat. God damn I was never more happy to see a stupid lighthouse!!
There was a table setup with food and drinks. I ate whatever they put in front of me.
We skipped dinner and headed straight to camp to unwind. My wife high tailed it after our pit stop to set up everything. I married a keeper!!
Got a nice fire going and roasted up some Smores. Hit the spot. Put my feet up by the campfire and just relaxed. Truly epic day on the bike.
The file...207.45 miles in 11:56 @ 17.5 mph average.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91888584
-Jim.
Woke up late...Of course...Ended up leaving our room after 6am. Got to the start and searched for the registration guy. Apparently, everyone has already left. I found out later that most people leave around 4am. We left at 7am. So we were in a deficit of about 3 hours and would run out of daylight if we stopped to much. I budgeted 12 hours for the ride so we'd have less than 1 1/2 hours of fudge time to beat the dark.
Sorta set the pace and sat on the front as we meandered down the hills and out of north jersey. It was raining in the morning but it wasn't bad, I'd rather be a little wet than have the sun beating on us all day. We had to pee a lot. Quick hit and run pee stops, no unclipping!! One of them we pulled into this VW shop and I caught this. SWEET!! And rare.
Dropped down into Bridgewater and the last of the hills. I think this was the last time we'd see a hill for the next 130 miles.
Our first refuel stop was in Manville at around the 70 mile mark. Quick, then back on the road!! Not too long after we drop along the canal and go by 6-Mile, it felt nice to be on familiar roads for a bit.
At this point my wife has left the hotel in High Point and is following our route to catch us at some point. Didn't seem like it took a long time before we started seeing pine trees.
So many pine trees!! There were a few LONG straight pine tree roads that felt like they went on forever!! At about the 115 mile mark we were out of food and fluids. We had to stop. Hopefully my wife will catch up to us while we eat so our down time doesn't get too bad. We order a few slices of pizza and by the time we finished eating, she was there. Perfect timing. RECHARGE!!
Muscle Milk, new bottles of HEED, change into some dry clothes, reapply chamois cream. We're off!!
At this point we started going through the groups that started before us. Seems like most weren't spread out too far. We just kept pace and went by the groups as they came. Most were going pretty slow so it wasn't worth sitting in at all. One group we passed and then they caught us at the next traffic light. This happened for a few lights in a row so we got to talking. They left at 4am, we made up 3 hours on these guys. They seemed shocked we started at 7 and caught them with another 70 miles to go still. We weren't that shocked.
Started raining again not too far after that. Rain kept getting harder and harder. Wind picked up fierce, hail, thunder and lightning. CRAP!! We were out exposed with lightning hitting close enough to scare the living poop out of us. There was no where to hide!! The road filled with water almost immediately and we were riding in like 3 inches. Cars pulled off to the side of the road to and we were still riding. I thought we were going to die!! Then we caught a glimpse of people on a porch waving us to come hide. We did!! The rest of the riders that left before us were all stuffed under this lady's porch. She was very nice to let us get out of this. There were nutty storm warnings and flood poop all over the area. Most of the other riders were calling the ride quits. We were more determined and waited for a hole in the storm to go back out. The lady made us peanut butter and jelly before we left. It's very nice to know that there are some truly nice people out there!!
The storm was heading east and we needed to go south. A few miles of hard rain and theoretically we're in the clear. We only had 40 miles to go so it was too close to not go for it. We went. Everyone thought we were crazy. We had faith it would work out.
About 10 miles in driving rain with like a million mph headwind. Very mentally tough to stay focused and not call it in. Alas, we made said southbound turn and came into clear blue sky. The gamble paid off but took it's toll. The next 30 miles or so were absolutely BRUTAL. I'm not entirely sure how A) my legs kept going and B) we were still keeping pace. Every mile felt like an eternity. We went past the campground we were staying at as well. That was hard to ride past. We were in the home stretch though.
Bam. I get a flat. Not paying attention so much and ran over some glass. Front flat. Quick change, back on the road. Not a mile down the road and the rear went. DAMN!! I didn't change it. I just popped some Co2 in it and high tailed it!! About a mile from the lighthouse I had to do it again. I didn't care at that point and just finished on a flat. God damn I was never more happy to see a stupid lighthouse!!
There was a table setup with food and drinks. I ate whatever they put in front of me.
We skipped dinner and headed straight to camp to unwind. My wife high tailed it after our pit stop to set up everything. I married a keeper!!
Got a nice fire going and roasted up some Smores. Hit the spot. Put my feet up by the campfire and just relaxed. Truly epic day on the bike.
The file...207.45 miles in 11:56 @ 17.5 mph average.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91888584
-Jim.
Dusty the Whale
Mr.Chainsaw
bravo. nice of the lady to make yous PB&J's instead of SS&O (sheep shit and onions) glad you both made it safe
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
And Day #3. Yeah, right. No day 3. I fell out of the tent this morning. 140 miles would take all day I think. Joe couldn't walk. Instead I roamed around the campground with Eric. We played golf, and played on the playground, and then we hit the lake to catch some frogs. Boy stuff.
Saw this crazy thing someone made.
Played at the beach and then packed the beemer and headed home.
The boys were zonked and fell asleep on my wife during the trip home. The family went well beyond anything I could've expected, I'm very grateful to have such a strong support crew. I can only imagine how hard it is for those that don't have that...
Pretty much as soon as I came home I fell asleep on the couch until dinner time. The lack of sleep over the past couple days hit me pretty hard. I'm curious to see what the recovery time will be like. That is all for now...
-Jim.
Saw this crazy thing someone made.
Played at the beach and then packed the beemer and headed home.
The boys were zonked and fell asleep on my wife during the trip home. The family went well beyond anything I could've expected, I'm very grateful to have such a strong support crew. I can only imagine how hard it is for those that don't have that...
Pretty much as soon as I came home I fell asleep on the couch until dinner time. The lack of sleep over the past couple days hit me pretty hard. I'm curious to see what the recovery time will be like. That is all for now...
-Jim.
mwlikesbikes
Well-Known Member
Just awesome Jim. When I was a kid my family would always go to Cape May for vacations and stay at camrgrounds. What campground did you stay at?
