2011 OC Gran Fondo Ride Report

Strava:  http://app.strava.com/rides/1903429

GC:  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/119980946

Attendees:  Shannon, Todd, Vince, Verm, Galen, Eddie, Adrian, Gary, Seon, Vin, James and David

Twelve of us made it out for this event in the new red jerseys.  I don't know if the others felt the same way I did, but seeing all of us roll up together to the start of the ride in "uniform" felt pretty amazing.  I don't know if others recognized and/or made the connection who we were when we arrived, but I'm pretty sure they knew who were after the ride.

We probably started the ride in a less than optimal spot for the mass start...more towards the back than up front.  This meant we had a LOT of people we had to make our way through for the ride.  Now one can say that it probably shouldn't have mattered given that we should save up for the TT, but what I was hoping for were 2 things:  1) get through all the riffraff since it would be safer to travel together considering the size of our group (or so I thought) and 2) find a good pack to ride with and sit in the draft vs. doing our own pulling and rotations.  In the end, neither worked out as expected.

The police escort and controlled intersections allowed us to make our way through the crowd easier, but once we got on the bike trail, it was downright sketchy.  We all got a little strung out considering how many people there were, so regrouping made it necessary to pass...this while there was oncoming cycling and pedestrian traffic and riders less than familiar with riding in a good sized pack.  Vince and I were held back for a while given there were just so many people riding across the whole trail.  Once we started asking people to make space, we finally got to make our way through and got back to the group before we hit University.

On Back Bay, BAM kicked in and we were flying!  This time, we didn't only have to worry about cyclist and pedestrians, we also had oncoming cars to deal with.  I don't know what set off the guys to hit this section so fast, but I went along.  At one point, I saw Shannon had rolled off and thought I should roll with him since I figured he was conserving energy.  However, I kept going hoping to have some good GoPro footage of the pack.  More on this GoPro thing later.

We kept going at a pretty good clip once we got on PCH, and ultimately I'm pretty sure we caught everyone who was ahead of us and ended up leading everyone out even before we got to SART.  While this was a cool thing, I again didn't think this was really where we should be.  The guys did a great job though managing the pace on the bike trail and not going nuts like they did earlier.  The pace was around 22 mph, which was ideal but the rotations were mostly with our guys.  After the first bridge, some other guys started working their way past and you can see they were forming a separate group ahead of us.  Curiously, no one latched on to that group but continued to run the managed pace.

After a few more guys made their way past, I decided it was time to bridge the gap in order to pursue the strategy I mentioned above.  The pace obviously had to heat up in order to do so, but I figured the spike in our output should only be temporary.  The rest of the guys were onboard and latched on as well as I chased the other group down.  Once we finally latched on, it was nice to see the HR shooting down again.

We were a pretty large group at this point, and the guys up front were holding a pretty good pace albeit calmer than how fast they were going originally.  We were all lined up as we made our way, but after one of the underpasses, I heard people calling out.   It took a while to slow down, but when I finally stopped, I thought something happened where it couldn't have involved any of our guys.  When I saw that the others weren't rolling up, I headed back and found the unimaginable:  a few of our guys went down.  I don't know all the details of what happened but would not venture to speculate on here in the best interest of the guys involved.  I will say, however, that James was hurt pretty bad requiring immediate medical attention.   We did receive confirmation subsequently that James was leaving the hospital, so in that regard, we were glad.

Galen should have also received immediate medical attention, but the guy was almost seemingly looking for a way to keep riding.  Of course, his shoulder and elbow were in no way going to allow this.  Considering his injuries, Galen seemed like he was still in good spirits.  Unbelievable...I don't know how he did that.  Amazing.


Seon also went down, but he managed to get by with seemingly no serious injuries and was able to continue the rest of the ride.  I'm thinking the most pain he'll suffer will likely be the ass-chewing he'd get once he got home to his wife for having hurt himself.


After waiting to make sure James and Galen were taken care of (thanks to the police, EMT, the guy and lady who stopped to help, and the roving SAG), we were off but by that point but I'd say that 95% of the 100 and 64 mile riders had already passed.  Shannon had rolled up on us fairly early on after the incident, so we were all together again minus those who could not continue.  Here, let me thank the guys who were working the front on the trail at this point since this allowed for a lot of us to conserve for the TT.   Shannon was off the back again after a while, and I too decided that was the thing to do as well but not too far from the first SAG.


After regrouping and a quick stop at the SAG, we were off.  On Taft, some of us decided to really start conserving power Shannon-style and let the other guys who wanted to get a head start up dump do so.  Even then, others still attached and rode with us on E. Santiago.  At that point, we didn't even see the other guys ahead of us, so we knew they'd get to the top of Dump Hill before us for sure.


We were still dogging it as we made our way onto Santiago Canyon.  Despite this, we still managed to make our way past a lot of people.  We saw Dana, who passed us after the accident, at this point and it was nice to see her working that hill.  Once we neared the top, we could see some of the guys waiting at the top ahead of us.  We waved them on to go so we can keep rolling, but I think I saw Seon and maybe someone else wasn't ready.  We didn't end up stopping to wait as we were all anxious to get to the TT section.

Going down the other side of dump, Verm led the charge but in a tucked position, I was able to coast past him and lead for a bit as well.  When we started seeing the signs to prepare us for the KOM sections starting 1 mile out, we were trying to be in a good position to be able to already be moving as we made our way past the sensors.  The problem was trying to do so with all the other rides in the way.  Fortunately, at least I'll say this for now until the results are posted, I think we all managed to do so.

I went through the sensor first and started off the TT run but I think I lost the memo about rolling out to the right and the fast rotations.  I think I heard Vince call out to tell me to do so, so I complied.  The initial charge did have a lot of us together in the beginning doing a pull.  It was a pretty crazy pace, but what made it ridiculous was how we had to keep the pace up despite all the other people on the road.  I'm thankful to God none of us got hit as we made our way past some people where we had to jump on the roads to do so.

With the pace as intense as it was, attrition started setting in.  Todd, Shannon, Vince, Verm and I were left to finish the charge.  Verm had skipped a couple rotations to hang on, but came through after a while with another couple good pulls before he too dropped off the back.  Once we started climbing the Modjeska hills before Cooks, I tried to stay with the guys as best as possible, but after skipping a rotation and trying to hang on, I was off the back near the top of the first peak.  Vince, Shannon and Todd duked it out until the end, so I'm sure all of them will definitely be in the top 3 spots.  I was able to close some of the gap after dropping on the quick down and a sprint up the last hill, but was still 10 seconds behind Shannon according to Strava.  Good enough.  Verm rolled through about 27 seconds later.  Good job!

When we climbed Live Oak, we were staying together for the most part.  I thought I'd crank it up near the top just for fun and got to shoot down the other side with LTJ.  Vince and Verm caught us, and just at the right time.  I started to feel some twinging on my calves from all the work on the canyons and up Live Oak, so it was nice to just sit behind them as we made our way to O'Neill Park where Tiff and Pam were waiting for us.

A special thanks to these ladies once again for their support.  Even a cast on Pam didn't stop her from coming out to support the troops.  Awesome!  Tiff was taking pictures of us as we arrived, but I'm not sure how well they came out with the lens cap still on (something Vince pointed out and I'm just repeating).  Both these ladies are definitely honorary BRCM team members.

As we ate and replenished our fluids, the banter was typical of the team.  I hope not to upset him by repeating this, but at one point, Verm blurted out how he got a mouthful of Rich.  Obviously, he was talking about my sweat, but you can just imagine how many of us took opportunities to reply to this statement.  That's all I'm saying.

We got going again, and Shannon and Verm decided to heat things up early and broke off from the group.  I was somewhere in the middle, and the rest of the guys were grouped up behind me.  Just before the base of the switchback climb, we had another incident:  Vin's chain snapped.  Seon and I couldn't stop safely right away since the road was tight and climbed a little bit of the hill.  Once it was safe, we turned around to see the other guys working to get Vin back on the road again.   Shannon and Verm were too far ahead to know what happened and just ended up riding on their own.

With all the time taken from the two incidents, I decided to take off on my own given I wanted to get back so that I can get home and prepare for the guys.  I didn't mind riding on my own as it would make for some good training for Stagecoach, but I think I hit just about every stoplight at Santa Margarita.  When I finally got to El Toro, another rider was sitting at the corner looking at the route section and I mistakenly asked him which way he was going.  With no markers to turn there (with the route having been well marked throughout), I should have went straight but I ended up sitting at that light after crossing and looking for myself what direction to go.  Aaargh.

I rode on by myself up Glenn Ranch, Saddleback and through the canyons.  One guy did latch on at the lake and stayed with me up to top of Dump, but fell off on the way down toward Jamboree.   I still haven't found anyone to ride with yet, so I kept going solo.  That little detour that eventually led to Portola was also a big waste of time.  It had us sitting on a left turn light where there were no cars there to trigger it.  The lights continued to be a problem on Portola always interrupting momentum, and at one point I actually screamed.   After one of the lights, however, I heard someone calling from behind and lo and behold, it was Vince, Adrian and Todd to the rescue.   I jumped on, but it was only for a bit.  We followed an arrow for the route, which led us to a SAG.  It would have been nice to know that the arrow  was for a SAG and not part of the route, so when I found out it wasn't, had to double back to get back on the road.  The other guys needed some fluids, so I let them know to just catch up again.

I did have better luck with the lights for a bit until I got on Irvine Blvd.  I saw some guys moving at a decent clip, albeit while I reeled them in, and I thought it would be nice to ride with someone.   However, I missed 3 lights just as they went through, so it took a while before I was finally able to latch on.  One guy was sporting Sho-Air and appeared to know the other guy on the TT bike.  I sat for a little bit on their draft after chasing them down, but made my way to the front eventually.  I was leading them for a while but when we got on the bike trail that led from Harvard to Jeffrey, my left inner thigh started to cramp.  Only the TT guy was with me at that point, but he chose to keep going while I worked on recovering with some Shot Bloks.

Of course, once the Shot Bloks kicked in, I made my way up to and past the TT guy.  His Sho-Air friend also ended up rolling up behind us before crossing Irvine Ctr Dr.  They both sat in my draft for the rest of the route all the way to the finish, but unlike crits, this Sho-Air guy was thankful for having towed them to the end.  Who'd have thought, right?

While this ride was quite eventful, I think the weather was almost perfect.  It was a bit windy on some sections on the way back, but other than that, I can't complain.  Considering we finished late with a 6:50 elapsed time,  it could have been a lot worse. 

19.6 average on my GPS and according to GC (Strava shows 19.4)  which I'm certain would have been higher had we ridden together.  I'll take it since it was a great workout today with a great bunch of guys.  Thanks to those who came over after for some post ride festivities.  If you want to know what happened there, well then maybe you should have went.

I'll post up pictures later, but coming back to the GoPro, NONE of the footage made it.  I changed to a bigger memory card, and for some reason, it didn't record.  THIS is what happens when I don't try things out beforehand.  Sorry, folks.

Picures added:

 

Sporting the non-aero wheels

First to arrive

Already asking to take the pictures

James and the sex mobile

Might this be why these two were hurt?

Hiroshi showing his team support

LTJ giving the OK to go

S-Gary before the storm

Smile looks forced - too early!

Vin doing the taro bun loading

David applying the lube

Warriors with honorary team member

The upgraded Wednesday crew

Can you just sense my discomfort?

Team shot with Verm's gratuituous centerfold pose

Update:  

The results have been corrected on the timing chip company except we're still working on Vince getting added.  Shannon and Todd had top times, Vince next followed by me then Verm.  Broadcom took top 5!  Here's a link:  http://racedaytiming.com/r_results.php?event=29