THE WHOLE ENCHILADA: AN ATTEMPT TO RIDE AROUND THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY IN UNDER 6 HOURS

February 30, 2022, by Taylor Peliska

It was sometime last year, but I can’t remember exactly when. It was Matt Solomon’s idea, and I think it was as simple as him casually wondering,

“How fast do you think we could bike around The Bay?”

By late 2021, it was a full-blown freaking obsession. The more we researched the idea and looked at the possible routes, the more it became apparent that if we did everything right— hit it on the right day at the right time, got the right crew of people together, and executed well— we could circumnavigate The Bay, unsupported, in under 6 hours. The Whole Enchilada was born.

THE ROUTE & PLANNING
Because no FKT of the San Francisco Bay had ever been attempted before (as far as we can tell), we came up with a route ourselves. In our mind there isn’t really a set path for this FKT, just make it back to where you started as fast as you possibly can, whatever way you can (*hint-hint to anyone who wants to try this. Feel free to use your own route and beat our time, we’d love that).

This opened up a lot of possibilities on how to structure the ride. After some scouting (and math around traffic light probability and duration) the route we landed on felt like the best mix of the shortest distance, the least elevation, and the least amount of potential traffic stops; the Goldilocks route. In order to complete The Whole Enchilada in under 6 hours, we’d basically need to average 22 mph (21.83mph, to be exact) for 5:59:59 with little-to-no stopping.

To even get close to 6 hours, we needed every advantage we could get. We decided to do the ride on a Sunday morning, which would have less traffic than a Saturday. We wanted to start early before the bustle of the day to avoid hitting as many red lights, but not so early that we would have visibility issues. Any stopping would add to our time, but we decided that 1 stop was necessary for a bottle refill. We had a few gas stations scoped out that could serve as our stop and we’d play it by ear on which one we would stop at.

THE SQUAD

Matt and I knew we couldn’t tackle The Whole Enchilada in under 6 hours by ourselves— we needed a crew. We decided a team of 6 riders was about right to get a paceline going, but nimble enough to navigate any weirdness along the way. In addition to Matt Solomon and myself, we enlisted 4 others; who’s-who of hitters from the East Bay. Ryan Gorman was on board early (he’s been crushing everyone’s hopes and dreams on his bike for a while), Sandy Floren (2018 U23 XC National Champ), Din Abdullah (one of the most unselfish crushers we know), and Milo Baker (raw, youthful talent) rounded out our team. The stage was set.

THE RIDE

It was Ryan’s idea to do the ride on February 13, Super Bowl Sunday (in hindsight maybe not the safest day, but still probably one of the fastest, especially in the morning). The plan was to meet in Jack London Square in downtown Oakland, where the route started and finished, wheels rolling at 7 am. I wish I could say everything went without a hitch, but this is the “best-laid-plans” part of the story:

At about 6:45, Sandy called to let me know he was running a bit behind.

“I’m going to be a little late,” he said.

“Not a problem, dude.” We’ll start a bit late it’s not the end of the world, I think.

Sandy gets to JLS, gets prepped, were wheels rolling at 7:45.

“It’s all fine, it’s a tiny hitch, everyone is here, at least we’re rolling, these things happen,” I think to myself as we’re about to start ripping down the road.

Then, about 300 meters down the road, Sandy’s crank arm sheers of clear from his bike. Yeeted off, completely. What are the chances?

After some deliberation, we decide to try a quick repair at Din’s house, who thinks he might have the parts we need. No dice. Special thanks goes out to the bike industry for getting together and creating standards for bottom brackets and spindles that makes swapping parts so easy and not proprietary at all.

By this time it’s almost 9 am, and our paceline is now minus one of the strongest riders this side of the Rocky Mountains (and the other side of the Rocky Mountains too, honestly). While it’s a big loss, there’s too much planning that’s gone into this; it has to happen today, and it has to happen now.

Luckily, that was the end of any real hitches.

Once our team of 5 started, everyone sent it. I had my computer set up to auto-lap every hour, so we could see where we were at relative to our goal. Any of these splits and averages are including any stops or slow downs at traffic lights — of which there were more than expected having left 2 hours later than planned.

We got to Fremont in less than an hour. Through Palo Alto in just over 2 hours. We knew we were ahead, but we didn’t know by how much until we got through the climbing on Canada and Skyline. Our one stop was at Woodside, and took 5 minutes flat. Din started cramping on Skyline, and we lost him before we got the The Great Highway.

I don’t think I’ve been that concentrated for that long ev