Going Long and Hard.
- Thread starter Steve Vai
- Start date
Magic
Formerly 1sh0t1b33r
Is this the Alibaba version?
The Kalmyk
Well-Known Member
Have fun Jim. It’s a great ride. Rt50 to S
Check out PA bike routes. You can put together some real super loops. The Y route is on my long list.
Check out PA bike routes. You can put together some real super loops. The Y route is on my long list.
qclabrat
Well-Known Member
what are the two bags you are using, not the bento?
good luck at the CTC
The Kalmyk
Well-Known Member
Jim needs a beacon so we can follow. Can’t wait to hear where he slept.
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
I'm at a Days Inn in Breezewood. Brutal 18 hour day on the bike.
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
Revelate rear, Banjo Brothers frame triangle.
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
Only for 1/2 the ride.
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
Crush The Commonwealth, Part 1.
This has been a bucket-list ride for the last couple years but it never quite worked out logistically. There's a lot involved with a huge point-to-point route and not a lot of time to squeeze it all in. Luckily my teammate (and boss) Tom took care of the details over the past few weeks.
We got into Philly pretty late Thursday night after a long-ass day at the shop and dinner with our ride. There was some football shit going on and the hotel was bumping with those obnoxious Philly-sport-types. After a couple hours of stuff basically falling off the walls from a next door party and not being able to sleep, we moved rooms. Get to sleep right around Midnight for a 4am wake-up call. Balls.
I think there were 30 of us at the Liberty Bell for the 5am start. We leave Philly proper and hit the bike path. The pace was high as everyone worked the excitement out of the legs. Some 5ish miles in, it starts to rain. The ride starts breaking up into smaller groups throughout the first 25-miles on the path until there's maybe 5 of us on the front. We get on Route S and keep the pace somewhat high to gain some ground while we have the opportunity. Riding in a paceline during rain is fairly difficult with all the water spraying off everyone's wheels, I was basically blind. Rode through some shit and get my first flat. That's the last time we saw the 2 leaders. Gone. We make up ground, then Tom gets a flat.
About 100 miles into the ride we stopped at a bike shop in York to refill our tube and Co2 supply. We were a bit frustrated but at least the sun was out. 6+ hours in the rain knocked our spirits from a 10 down to a 7.
My brain is fuzzy on the order things happened after York. The roads were awesome, we were humming along, and all was good. We stopped for lunch in Chambersburg.
On my note sheet I had Chambersburg as the last re-stock before Breezewood, a good 60 miles out. As we're eating we watched a group of guys go by, including my homie Robert on his Fat Bike. He assembled a group of guys to ride Fat, including Chris Hays, who is a monster. We had a carrot to keep us motivated now.
We would catch them in Cowan State Park? Cowan Rock? IDK, some park with awesome-ass roads. We passed them. Tom and I were the 3rd group on the road in 5 and 6th. That's honestly the last time I knew what place we were in. We would leap-frog each other for the rest of the ride. Somewhere around mile 190 we see another storm rolling in. Thunder. Lightning. Black sky. Fuck. We pick up the pace. No sooner than we hit the Abandoned Turnpike, the heavens opened up. Pushed hard on the sketchy broken up pavement. Potholes. Craters. Dirt patches. Random rocks all over the place. No visibilty because it's raining so hard. Boom. I get a front flat. In a panic with lightning striking around us, we pushed harder to get shelter in one of the tunnels. 9 miles from Breezewood we would sit here and wait out the storm. Changed my flat. Ate food. Walked through the tunnel to waste time. Thought we'd see Robert's group but they were still out there somewhere.
After the storm we rolled out. Tom's light dies. We're riding with my single light. With the super shitty road surface through this section I hit another pothole and flat again. So close to the next town. I was starting to get frustrated with our luck and how long this last 10-mile stretch was taking. We use our last tube and Co2 and rode slow for a few miles, like every rock was a landmine. I'm not sure if I've ever been so happy to see a Sheetz and Days Inn next door to each other in my life.
As we're getting dinner the skies opened up again. Lightning hail? At this point mother nature was just fucking with us. Just under 18 hours after we left Philly, we were in Breezewood at a Days Inn licking our wounds. After a hot shower and food we laid out our plan for the following day. The nearest bike shop was in Bedford 20 miles out. We would leave at 7am to give us time to get over there with a breakfast stop. I set my alarm for 6am and was out like a light. If nothing else, I'd have a good night's sleep in me.
This has been a bucket-list ride for the last couple years but it never quite worked out logistically. There's a lot involved with a huge point-to-point route and not a lot of time to squeeze it all in. Luckily my teammate (and boss) Tom took care of the details over the past few weeks.
We got into Philly pretty late Thursday night after a long-ass day at the shop and dinner with our ride. There was some football shit going on and the hotel was bumping with those obnoxious Philly-sport-types. After a couple hours of stuff basically falling off the walls from a next door party and not being able to sleep, we moved rooms. Get to sleep right around Midnight for a 4am wake-up call. Balls.
I think there were 30 of us at the Liberty Bell for the 5am start. We leave Philly proper and hit the bike path. The pace was high as everyone worked the excitement out of the legs. Some 5ish miles in, it starts to rain. The ride starts breaking up into smaller groups throughout the first 25-miles on the path until there's maybe 5 of us on the front. We get on Route S and keep the pace somewhat high to gain some ground while we have the opportunity. Riding in a paceline during rain is fairly difficult with all the water spraying off everyone's wheels, I was basically blind. Rode through some shit and get my first flat. That's the last time we saw the 2 leaders. Gone. We make up ground, then Tom gets a flat.
About 100 miles into the ride we stopped at a bike shop in York to refill our tube and Co2 supply. We were a bit frustrated but at least the sun was out. 6+ hours in the rain knocked our spirits from a 10 down to a 7.
My brain is fuzzy on the order things happened after York. The roads were awesome, we were humming along, and all was good. We stopped for lunch in Chambersburg.
On my note sheet I had Chambersburg as the last re-stock before Breezewood, a good 60 miles out. As we're eating we watched a group of guys go by, including my homie Robert on his Fat Bike. He assembled a group of guys to ride Fat, including Chris Hays, who is a monster. We had a carrot to keep us motivated now.
We would catch them in Cowan State Park? Cowan Rock? IDK, some park with awesome-ass roads. We passed them. Tom and I were the 3rd group on the road in 5 and 6th. That's honestly the last time I knew what place we were in. We would leap-frog each other for the rest of the ride. Somewhere around mile 190 we see another storm rolling in. Thunder. Lightning. Black sky. Fuck. We pick up the pace. No sooner than we hit the Abandoned Turnpike, the heavens opened up. Pushed hard on the sketchy broken up pavement. Potholes. Craters. Dirt patches. Random rocks all over the place. No visibilty because it's raining so hard. Boom. I get a front flat. In a panic with lightning striking around us, we pushed harder to get shelter in one of the tunnels. 9 miles from Breezewood we would sit here and wait out the storm. Changed my flat. Ate food. Walked through the tunnel to waste time. Thought we'd see Robert's group but they were still out there somewhere.
After the storm we rolled out. Tom's light dies. We're riding with my single light. With the super shitty road surface through this section I hit another pothole and flat again. So close to the next town. I was starting to get frustrated with our luck and how long this last 10-mile stretch was taking. We use our last tube and Co2 and rode slow for a few miles, like every rock was a landmine. I'm not sure if I've ever been so happy to see a Sheetz and Days Inn next door to each other in my life.
As we're getting dinner the skies opened up again. Lightning hail? At this point mother nature was just fucking with us. Just under 18 hours after we left Philly, we were in Breezewood at a Days Inn licking our wounds. After a hot shower and food we laid out our plan for the following day. The nearest bike shop was in Bedford 20 miles out. We would leave at 7am to give us time to get over there with a breakfast stop. I set my alarm for 6am and was out like a light. If nothing else, I'd have a good night's sleep in me.
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
Crush the Commonwealth, Part 2.
We roll out of bed at 6am on Day 2. It was sunny and warm. On paper, Day 2 is very lumpy for 60ish miles, then rolling, then hits the GAP Trail with about 115 to go. It would be a long day for sure and our original goal of 40 hours seemed a bit lofty. Especially with a late start to resupply.
The rolling farmlands out of Breezewood definitely hit Tom off-guard and his legs were having a hard time coming around. We kind of planned for this and is why we left so early to cover the 20 miles to the bike shop. Eventually, we made it into Bedford. We had a little time before the shop opened and grabbed some grub. Shop opens and we buy many tubes and Co2s. And we're off again. Just on the edge of town Tom realizes he never filled his bottles and turns around. I sat on the side of the road next to this weird olde tyme coffee stand.
Robert's group would catch us here. They told us how they hid in some guy's barn when the storm hit last night and ended up sleeping there. After a few miles of chit-chat and trash talk, we rode away from them. Soon after came the big climbs. One after another of endless up, up, up, it was punishing and Tom was suffering. My body does pretty well during these things but Tom's inexperience was peeking through. I was stopped at the top of one of the last big ones waiting to see Tom come up and to my surprise, not really, Robert's group caught us again. Insert trash talk here. Then we had a gorgeous descent into some rollers before the next town. Seemed like our woes were behind us until we hit the valley and encountered some of the most brutal headwind I've ever been in. It took every watt we could muster to move at a snail's pace. It was insanity.
Finally we made it into town and there were a bunch of folks taking refuge. The first 60 miles of the day were some of the hardest I've ever done. We climbed over 6,000 feet in 40ish miles, with wind to boot. You can see the wear and tear everyone took to get to this point. We all kept saying it's only 10 miles to the GAP Trail, then it's easy street to the Steel City.
We were estatic when we finally hit the GAP Trail!! No traffic. Pancake flat. Smooth sailing. Beautiful scenery.
In the section into Ohiopyle, 2 Philly Rando guys went by us, they were on larger tires and keeping a better pace on the gravel trail. We tried to push harder but our 25c tires just dug in and we never went any faster despite how much harder the effort was. We'd see them every once in a while if they stopped for a second but that was about it. At one point the surface changed to a hard dirt and we were finally able to open it up. I wasn't sure how far out they were, but was determined to close the gap. We rode at 20+ MPH for about 30 minutes or so. My legs felt awesome. When we finally get on their wheels, we just go by, and continue to push until they're out of sight behind us. We wanted them to think we were a lot fresher than we were in hopes they'd give up the thought of chasing.
Settling in we were just pounding out the miles. So much so that we blew through a supply stop without realizing it. A few miles later we caught our mistake and re-traced our steps back into town. The Rando guys go by us, along with 2 more guys that were behind them. We felt pretty defeated at that point. Frustrated. Stupid mistake after such a huge energy expenditure. We spent a long time in that town re-grouping. 60 miles to go.
We roll out back onto the trail. Robert's group is there and we wave as we go by. Insert trash talk here. The next 40 or so miles on the trail were the worst of the worst. Boring. Flat. No recovery. We just plodded along at a pace that barely kept the bikes upright. The sun sets. In the darkness we go into zombie autopilot. At this point we would've been happy to finish before Midnight. But then, way out in the distance, we catch a flickering tail light. It was just enough to pick up our spirits and put a little zest in our pace. The lights never got closer, mile after mile, taunting us. Eventually we had to make the call to put in a honest effort to chase, or back off and reserve energy. We chose the former and put caution to the wind, the chase was on. It was not a pretty chase and it nearly killed us, but it worked, we were now in a group with the 2 Philly Rando guys we've been leap-frogging all day.
Our spirits were lifted. We talked to the Rando guys. We all had stories from the previous day's storms. The dirt gave way to pavement as we began our approach into the city. Despite it now being 30ish degrees and an hour out still, the dim glow of the finish line was in striking distance. At the very last turn heading to the fountain, our Rando friends made a wrong turn. We tried to correct them but they were sure they were right. Tom grew up in Pittsburgh, so we knew they weren't. We would arrive at the fountain in 41 hours, 54 minutes. Happy and relieved. We Crushed the Commonwealth.
We roll out of bed at 6am on Day 2. It was sunny and warm. On paper, Day 2 is very lumpy for 60ish miles, then rolling, then hits the GAP Trail with about 115 to go. It would be a long day for sure and our original goal of 40 hours seemed a bit lofty. Especially with a late start to resupply.
The rolling farmlands out of Breezewood definitely hit Tom off-guard and his legs were having a hard time coming around. We kind of planned for this and is why we left so early to cover the 20 miles to the bike shop. Eventually, we made it into Bedford. We had a little time before the shop opened and grabbed some grub. Shop opens and we buy many tubes and Co2s. And we're off again. Just on the edge of town Tom realizes he never filled his bottles and turns around. I sat on the side of the road next to this weird olde tyme coffee stand.
Robert's group would catch us here. They told us how they hid in some guy's barn when the storm hit last night and ended up sleeping there. After a few miles of chit-chat and trash talk, we rode away from them. Soon after came the big climbs. One after another of endless up, up, up, it was punishing and Tom was suffering. My body does pretty well during these things but Tom's inexperience was peeking through. I was stopped at the top of one of the last big ones waiting to see Tom come up and to my surprise, not really, Robert's group caught us again. Insert trash talk here. Then we had a gorgeous descent into some rollers before the next town. Seemed like our woes were behind us until we hit the valley and encountered some of the most brutal headwind I've ever been in. It took every watt we could muster to move at a snail's pace. It was insanity.
Finally we made it into town and there were a bunch of folks taking refuge. The first 60 miles of the day were some of the hardest I've ever done. We climbed over 6,000 feet in 40ish miles, with wind to boot. You can see the wear and tear everyone took to get to this point. We all kept saying it's only 10 miles to the GAP Trail, then it's easy street to the Steel City.
We were estatic when we finally hit the GAP Trail!! No traffic. Pancake flat. Smooth sailing. Beautiful scenery.
In the section into Ohiopyle, 2 Philly Rando guys went by us, they were on larger tires and keeping a better pace on the gravel trail. We tried to push harder but our 25c tires just dug in and we never went any faster despite how much harder the effort was. We'd see them every once in a while if they stopped for a second but that was about it. At one point the surface changed to a hard dirt and we were finally able to open it up. I wasn't sure how far out they were, but was determined to close the gap. We rode at 20+ MPH for about 30 minutes or so. My legs felt awesome. When we finally get on their wheels, we just go by, and continue to push until they're out of sight behind us. We wanted them to think we were a lot fresher than we were in hopes they'd give up the thought of chasing.
Settling in we were just pounding out the miles. So much so that we blew through a supply stop without realizing it. A few miles later we caught our mistake and re-traced our steps back into town. The Rando guys go by us, along with 2 more guys that were behind them. We felt pretty defeated at that point. Frustrated. Stupid mistake after such a huge energy expenditure. We spent a long time in that town re-grouping. 60 miles to go.
We roll out back onto the trail. Robert's group is there and we wave as we go by. Insert trash talk here. The next 40 or so miles on the trail were the worst of the worst. Boring. Flat. No recovery. We just plodded along at a pace that barely kept the bikes upright. The sun sets. In the darkness we go into zombie autopilot. At this point we would've been happy to finish before Midnight. But then, way out in the distance, we catch a flickering tail light. It was just enough to pick up our spirits and put a little zest in our pace. The lights never got closer, mile after mile, taunting us. Eventually we had to make the call to put in a honest effort to chase, or back off and reserve energy. We chose the former and put caution to the wind, the chase was on. It was not a pretty chase and it nearly killed us, but it worked, we were now in a group with the 2 Philly Rando guys we've been leap-frogging all day.
Our spirits were lifted. We talked to the Rando guys. We all had stories from the previous day's storms. The dirt gave way to pavement as we began our approach into the city. Despite it now being 30ish degrees and an hour out still, the dim glow of the finish line was in striking distance. At the very last turn heading to the fountain, our Rando friends made a wrong turn. We tried to correct them but they were sure they were right. Tom grew up in Pittsburgh, so we knew they weren't. We would arrive at the fountain in 41 hours, 54 minutes. Happy and relieved. We Crushed the Commonwealth.
I've driven to Pittsburgh twice in the past 6 months in a shiny new BMW and I thought that was too much work. Major props to you.
