How to ride your bike all night

Thankfully, we’ve been blessed with great cycling weather in Reno Slash Tahoe for the last month before 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo. So instead of skiing epic powder like they are doing every fucking where else, we get to ride. Not dirt though cause it’s just cold enough to sort keep the snow melting slowly which means the ground is wet, which means there’s not much rideable trail.

We’ve got a big team rallying to Old Pueblo this year and I know some haven’t done much night riding. The night laps are the  hardest for me because of the cold, and darkens, and the fact that I usually like to sleep most of the night. So I’m focusing on that in my preparation in hopes that I will do better than I’ve done in the past.

But riding single track at night, and particularly at dawn, is one of the most sublime experiences you’ll have on a bike (unless you know a way get a, nevermind). So here are my tips for the night laps @ 24 Hour Races.

#1: Your light can’t make another lap

My first solo effort i thought I could burn 2 laps on one charge. I make it 1.5. I used a Petzl headlamp to sort of ride, but it wasn’t working. I finally found two riders I could follow and use their light, but they were going too slow and I got really cold, so i had to cut the lap short.

• Bring a car jumper battery that has a built in inverter to charge your batteries.
• Borrow a battery or second light setup
• They have a free charging tent, use it
• NiteRider will speed charge your batteries for free

#2 Don’t wear a backpack

Wearing a pack gives you more water than you need for one lap in the cold and makes you sweat and the sweat makes you COLD! Just use a water bottle cage and seat bag and mount your pump to the bottle cage. I used a pack my first time and was miserable.

#3 Don’t Don’t dress too warm

The more you wear the more you sweat the colder you get. If you look at the pros who ride 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo, they don’t wear much more than leg and arm warmers. What works best for me is a arm warmers under a long sleeve jersey and a wind block vest. If it’s really cold I’ll wear a fleece shirt or jacket instead of the jersey.  That works well cause everyone has a pile of regular fleece shirts or jackets so you can wear them for one lap and change. If you’re comfortable when you start you have too much on.

#4 If you’re cold, ride harder

The faster you ride the more heat you generate the more you stay cool. It’s a delicate balance and the biggest challenge is maintaining the energy to keep riding hard enough to stay warm.

#5 Don’t get into your sleeping bag

Unless you’re a sadist and you enjoy getting out of a nice warm sleeping bag to rub shammy butter on your taint, pulling on skanky shorts and riding for an hour and a half in the cold darkness where you might oversteer off the trail and land on a cholla cactus, just stick it out in the cold. Stay up, stay soggy, stay cold. You can crawl into a nice warm burrito @ 12:00 tomorrow.

#6 Avoid the left side of the bitches

Trust me on this one.

#7 Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty

If you’ve never used, or usually don’t use shammy cream, use it. You’ll need it. You also need the following

• Wet Ones
• Neosporin
• many many pairs of cycling shorts

#8 Grilled chese and bacon sandwiches

You don’t think you want one, but you do.

#9 Let the trail talk to you

You might go a little crazy. That’s why we do it. The cold, the tired, the endless consumption and combustion of calories, the pounding your cold joints are taking. My first solo 24 attempt I heard the trail talking to me all night. It was in the aussie accent voice of this douchetard who yelled at me on the Tunnel Trail once. “I’ll fucking destroy you.” Just like real roid raging fucknobs, if you keep riding, they’ll drop off.

#10 Ride the Sunrise lap

At this point you’ve been up about 18 hours, you’re tired, cold, hungry, tired, cranky and seeing stars. You’re nearing the end of your rope and thinking that it’ll just be dark and cold and you’ll have another 10 miles to ride for the rest of eternity. Then the horizon gets orange and the sun peaks over and lights up the cactus and cholla. You start to ride faster. You start to feel stronger. You remember where you are and what you’re doing and why. It’ll make you smile.

That’s all i got. What are your night lap secrets to success?

-M

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 23rd, 2011 at 11:25 pm and is filed under bike races. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.