BVC-CHAT Hotter'n Hell

[Jean Marie Linhart]

> Kevin Baker wrote:
> > Speaking of the "HH"H, what's up with the ultra-early leaving rally
> > riders?  I know it's common practice to  start a few miles up the road
> > to get in front of some of the huge crowd, but I'm talking way up the
> > road.  Way, way up.  We finished in less than four hours and we were
> > still passing a few people over fifty miles into it.  Judging by their
> > speed, they must have left town somewhere around three in the morning.

Frank Irwin notes: 
> If they left just an hour before you did, they would only have to average
> a bit over 15mph to be at the 50-mile mark when y'all got there.

More Kevin:
> > What the hell?  Is this fun for people?  Why would you pay someone to do
> > a ride before the support crews are even awake?

If you leave an hour early, the support crews will be out by
the time you get there.  

People leave early to avoid the suicidal maniacs at the start line.
HH100 is a beast for attracting the insane -- it is one of its
charms.  You can start up conversations with random strangers
and discover that this is there 5th-6th year here, they got
put in the hospital the last 4-5 times, and, Guess What?  They
are back for more.  Crazy.  I regard the trip up as anthropological
research.

These folks ride crazy too, if we hadn't been in the tandem start, I'd
have opted to get down the road early.  The first pacelines started
passing us about 10 miles in.  I'm sure a lot of the wheel suckers
were toast 25 miles later!  You'll see 'em on their aerobars in the 
middle of a fast paceline.  Also doing the accordion dance -- slow
down then speed up and fill the gap, and so on.  Not my kind of riding.
If you start in the main line, you'll see 5-10 crashes before you hit
mile 20.  It calms down after that.

I also will opt to start early to miss as much of the heat of the day
as possible.  I'm slow and on a bad day, I might finish a century
at 3:30 pm on the single.  If I can get out an hour early and bring
that back to 2:30 pm, I have a much nicer day... early morning hours
aren't nearly as wearing as mid-afternoon hours.

By the way, I do know to get the hell out of the way when the racers 
go by!

Yours in turtledom,

Jean Marie "Carpe de Copy Room"