ISSUE3: S1/P001TWE/$ECTOR 3
⚠️ If you are just joining us great but you should probably check out Sector 1 and Sector 2 here first
“I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.”
Here we are in the final and third sector of this mad dash. Our pace dropped significantly through the previously rolling section and with even more climbing and traffic to weave through we started to feel our goal slipping through our fingers. At this point, the remaining group was starting to crack, and sharing the work became more difficult. This sector followed familiar loops for all of us but stringing them together into a 42-mile fast split would be difficult.
We continued along the shores of the coast until making a sharp right to the steep hills of SF just skrting the parameter of the city as we made our way through the Presidio and down the dirt path to the Golden Gate. We had to control our pace on the climb up to the GG as this was when we collectively started having to tap into that final gear and knew if we pushed much further it could be bonk city for some of us. As usual, the bridge was filled with tourists, cyclists, and walkers/runners on the wrong side of the bridge, leading to some VERY close calls that snapped you right into focus of just making it across in one piece.
Hero pull
Working through the pace in our heads we knew we were just under the 6-hour mark but still had 30 miles and lots of city riding to get through. One of our crew was on 1 and decided he would drag us through most of the Marin bike path. This epic effort, invigorated some while also reminding others just how razor-thin the edge had become. We rolled through Mill Valley and Tiberon and past the entrance to San Quentin. Next on tap would be the bridge into Richmond.
Bridge over troubled water
Historically this bridge has been the bane of many cyclists coming back to the East Bay from rides in Marin… and today was no different. A headwind made the 5ish minute climb up the bridge painful and killed our pace. With the group feeling the hurt we reconsolidated and focused on smooth riding and frequent rotations. We made it over and then weaved along the bay trail through El Cerrito, Albany, and Berkeley. In Emeryville reality struck that 6 hours was within a few short minutes and we knew the efforts to bring the pace back would be futile but we kept squeezing every once of fitness out to see how close we would get.
Back to Jack
With 6 hours having escaped us we gave it one last push down Adeline past the West Oakland Bart and onto 3rd street where we rolled into the finish covered in salt, sweat, and ooze from sugary drinks and leaky gels. Stopping on the boardwalk we all quickly dismounted, uploaded our rides to Strava, and then slumped onto the bench for a beer and to slowly take in what we had just tried to accomplish.
Final Stats (Link to Route)
Distance: 131
Time: 6:06:57
Speed: 21.7 mph
In Summation
While it was a bummer that we didn’t hit our goal we still claimed the FKT and were happy with the strong effort everyone put in to make this happen from planning to execution everything went almost perfectly and with only ~6 minutes of total stop time, we felt that could only be beaten by better planning at the rest stops. A truly Epic ride can be built anywhere with the right planning, drive, and flexibility. We challenge you to take on this time and hope to see some groups take this route sub-6 in the future. So what is next for us, why did we do this and who are we? Check out this post and you can learn more about @s Far As I’m Concerned and even how you can be a part of the saga.
