AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED / SEASON 1 / PROJECT 001

RIDER NOTES


Welcome to The Whole Enchilada. I’m glad you could join us :)


This shit is going to be pretty hard. For the race-minded of us, think of this ride as the most cooperative 135-mile breakaway/TT you’ve ever been in, on an open course, with no sag or support. Here are the guiding principles of the ride. They’re nothing new to everyone, but it’s nice to say anyway:

  • WORK TOGETHER

  • TAKE CARE OF YOUR SHIT

  • OVER-WATCH YOUR NUTRITION

  • NO HERO-PULLS

  • BE SAFE

  • COMMUNICATE

LOGISTICS

Wheels rolling at 7am. Meet at Jack London Square on Broadway and Embarcadero West at 6:30 at the latest. We’ll have a car for you to throw any extra gear you need to bring to stay warm if you’re riding over. There will be food and beers (and potentially some people) waiting for us when we finish. There will also be a non-sag car with a photo team in it that will be out on the course in case anything goes awry.

THE ROUTE

The planned route is the best one. Please take a look at the Strava link. It’s a combination of the least interaction with traffic, the shortest distance, the least elevation, the least turns, and the fastest roads.

That being said, there are parts where we need to look out and be careful. especially on parts of Skyline, we’re going to be ripping with traffic right after some hard climbing, so stay alert.

I would love it if everyone has the route loaded on their computer for the ride— using the Strava “saved” function is good, but if you upload the GPX, it will give you turn-by-turn directions along with the GPS heading, which can help remove any guessing.

FOOD

Nutrition is the key to doing this ride as fast as possible. There aren’t any crazy efforts we will be putting in, but we’ll be on the pedals for 6 hours straight. For me, that is about 5-6k calories. Any food that you need and can’t get at a super-quick gas station stop, bring it with you. I’m happy to help anyone figure out storage solutions for nutrition (I’m considering bringing a small frame, for example).

Everyone’s nutrition needs and strategies are different, but I highly suggest getting carbs and calories in your bottles. If you don’t normally do that, let me know and we can figure something out for you. I’m planning on bringing 3 bottles with me.

I propose a couple of “feed zones” at 2 and 4 hours, where we slow down for a mile or so and let people take in solid food.

FORMAT & THOUGHTS

One of the hardest parts of this ride is stopping as little as possible. we’ll do one quick gas station stop for food and water at 3 hours (under 5 mins) the locations of any stops have been noted on the Google map, along with some other spots of interest. Take a quick look at it if you feel so inclined.

The format of this ride will be a pace-line whenever possible. We’ll need to take longer pulls because we’ll be riding on an open course, think between 2-5 mins minimum. There will be sections where it will be hard to keep speed (navigating a turn, transitioning on or off a bike path). Everything about this ride is about staying steady, no need to hit the gas and make people behind you work harder than they need to.

Tubeless is good, aero-anything is good.

This is a project I’ve had a lot of fun planning with everyone involved. I hope it is personally challenging for everyone, and that the satisfaction that comes with working together to accomplish something unique, something greater than the sum of our parts, is worth the effort.

At the end of the day, this ride, this project, this perspective on riding, creating, pushing our limits together, is something I’m simply excited to share with y’all. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s all that matters.

-T