B2B

This past weekend was the Harpoon B2B, according to my computer it’s a 148.48 mile ride from the Boston Brewery to the Windsor VT Brewery. Until now the longest day in the saddle for me had been just over 100 miles. This was a tough ride, and would have been challenging at just a century.

Getting out of Boston was easy as it was flat, but it was chaotic. To simplify things the organizers staged riders in groups of 25 and spaced them out in 5-minute gaps. Our group must have gotten off to a good start because somewhere in Cambridge or so we caught up to the group in front of us. This made things interesting, as we now were now trying to navigate the burbs with a peloton of 50 riders or so.

The first 50 miles really flew by since we had such a huge group and it was mostly flat. Just after the 50 mile water stop we hit our first hill, I took a good pull here, but I didn’t want to take on too much as it was still early in the ride. This proved to be a smart call as the hills rolled on until mile 90. From there we hit the major climb of the ride, it was roughly 6 miles long, and pretty steep. This was a new section to the ride and clearly caught a lot of people off guard. I have never seen so many riders stop to take a breather or actually walk their bikes.

On top of a challenging hill 90 miles into the ride, the organizers also underestimated the mileage of the second stop. This was frustrating, as I had gauged my food, water and energy based on a water stop at 101 miles and it wasn’t until 109.

After a long stop for lunch, I got back on the road to finish the final 30 miles or so with a good group of riders from the North Shore. The last 30 miles started pretty flat and we pulled a solid 21-22 mph. As we came into the last 15 miles we hit some rolling hills, I tried to take a pull but as soon as I jumped to the front of the group they fell off, and I wasn’t trying to drop anyone. So at this point it was me and this guy Tom, we rode in the last few miles together. He also said that anytime he tried to take a pull these guys would just drop off… maybe they didn’t want someone not in their club pulling, road-snobs.

My final ride time was 7:43.29
Including rests it took 8:36.55
My average speed was 19.2
Max speed was 46.2
Total distance was 148.48