That's how the race's website puts it... spot on if you ask us!
The day before the race, we dropped the kids off at Becky's sister's place. SO nice living by family! We could then focus on making sure we had everything in order - tools, tubes, food, water, electrolyte, clothing, lights, sunscreen, first aid kit... check, check, check! The only thing we didn't worry about was deodorant :)
Becky's brother and his wife also came over that evening to spend the night - they were our support crew for the race and would have an early start the next morning as well. We organized the car, made sure everyone knew where everything was, covered maps and routes in detail, and finally went to bed - at a reasonable hour, too!
Race day morning was pretty smooth. Everything, including breakfast was ready to go. One final stop in the restroom and out the door!
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| At the starting line 5:45 am - we were the first group to roll out at 6 am. Moving to Logan just before the race was nice... the starting line was a 5 min bike ride from our house! Nice way to warm up a little and get the pre-race jitters under management (OK, not really. They weren't gone until a good 30 miles into the race). |
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| We thought we might be over-dressed because all of the race category folks were just in shorts and really light jackets... maybe it's all about performance, but they must have been freezing! We were glad we dressed warm. I don't think I'd leave anything off were I to do it again. We bought leg warmers just a couple weeks before - really a great invention, made our transitions much smoother once we needed to layer down. |
Fortunately, about 20 miles later, the sun was out and the (Drew's) bike computer thawed. It's alive! Everything was back on track. My (Becky's) computer didn't work, the whole time. I was super anxious about it at first, but it turned out to be a blessing when I let it go and just focused on peddling and enjoying the journey.
The first leg of the race goes from Logan, UT to Preston, ID, but because our early group of tandems actually rides the race route (not the cyclosportive route), we didn't have a stop in Preston but skirted around the town and continued on to Strawberry - the top of the first of three huge climbs in the race.
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| The long, gradual climb up Strawberry. Beautiful views - at least for Drew :) Although I (Becky) am looking at my feet here (trying to get in sync with Drew-I think the only potential down side to independent coasting) the majority of the ride I got the best ride of anyone! The stoker's trade of being in control for carefree sightseeing is a good one. :) |
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| Montpelier was our first team-supported stop - so good to have some food options that we were used to! Mmmm... the turkey sandwich with fruit punch EFS was delightful. Rolling in, my arms were starting to feel the sun, but the spray-on sunscreen was in the car. Fortunately, the baby sunscreen was in the bag... that'll do, right? Well, yes and no... it worked great, but the active ingredient is zinc oxide - but the race must go on! See results below... |
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| Awkward picture. After slathering on the zinc-oxide paste, I felt well-protected from the suns harmful rays... even if I did look like a white corpse. |
After Montpelier, there are two more climbs - they almost feel back-to-back because the downhill after the first is steep and short. The third climb is steep - the king/queen of the mountain section of the course (there's a timing chip register at the bottom and the top). Everyone has their gears maxed out on this climb and it doesn't feel like it's enough... and the sun is hot and pounding. We sure loved the gear range on the tandem, though! We had plenty of granny gears to grind - high RPMs and not much speed, but much more comfortable than hammering our knees like all the single bikes!
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| The top of Salt River Pass (climb 3 of 3) is pretty much a party! Music, food, and everyone is super happy because the climbing + 100 miles is over! WOO-HOO! |
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| My Stoked Stoker at the top of Salt River Pass. About 100 miles to go, but we both felt great! |
Our next stop was Afton, WY - something like 17 miles past Salt River Pass - so this was a pretty quick stop. Afton to Alpine, however, was much longer. It felt even longer because of the headwind... wasn't sure it would ever end! This is the leg of the race were we learned that riding a tandem is essentially a rolling service project. You see, on the uphills, we're slower than everyone else, and on the downhills we're faster than everyone else - in both of these situations we can't draft behind other riders (unless they're also riding a tandem... but there were only an small handful of us, so that usually doesn't happen). As for the flats - like this section - we still can't draft behind other riders because of our difference in mass and the Yo-Yo effect that occurs in group riding. So what can we do? Well, we can pull everyone else... and pull we did! Some 35 miles of it! We'd pull everyone along to the next hill where they'd pass us, but anyone left behind us at the top would draft down and through the flats to the next hill... rinse and repeat. At times we'd have upwards of 25 riders in a chain behind us!
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| I believe it was somewhere on this leg of the race where I was enjoying a bag of buttery salt and pepper potato cubes when I didn't notice the start to the rumble stripe - I was holding the bag with my hand resting on the handlebar, but as soon as the front wheel hit that rumble stripe, the potatoes came alive and bounced and shot out of that bag like raging popcorn! 3/4 of the bag's contents were gone in an instant! |
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| Cruising from Afton to Alpine - the weather couldn't have been better! Really pretty, but starting to feel the miles. |
Alpine to Hoback (25 gorgeous miles) was our next leg in the race. The stop is on a distinct corner turning right and up Alpine Canyon to
Jackson - really a nice change from the flats. Although it's a continued
gradual uphill ride from there, it follows the river and is beautiful
country.
Becky's favorite stretch of the whole ride! We share a lot of good memories together rafting down that river when we were students at BYU-Idaho. It is incredibly beautiful. These made for very good distractions.
Slightly more uphill mixed with gradual downs/flats. For a few miles we were riding fast with a big team, a great morale booster for us and helped keep momentum up.
Hoback (~mile 173) was our last stop before the finish line.
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| Pulling a couple race stragglers up the canyon. |
On the way up the canyon, we caught up with a father and son tandem team that we'd been leap-frogging at stops all day. Since groups were now really spread out, we decided to finish the last leg of the race working together. However, when we turned off the highway to go to the finish at Alpine Village, we wanted to make some better time so we pulled the rest of the way and put the hammer down - holding above 20 mph for the next 15 or so miles to the finish. Felt good to finish strong!
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| 206 miles, 13 hours 10 minutes and 36 seconds... feels good to be done! Definitely the best race day we've ever had! |
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| Back when we ordered the tandem, seeing as she was custom built, we decided that a proper name would be needed - we now present her to society, following her successful maiden voyage. It's our distinct pleasure to introduce "Milady Ambition!" |
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| After the race we consumed an inordinate amount of calories at BUBBA'S in Jackson in the form of mac 'n cheese, St. Louis Ribs, fries, and corn on the cob. Thanks again to our awesome support crew, Dylan and Camille! |
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| Back at home the next day... haven't been awake long and ready to go back to bed. Took a while to recover... |
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| The whole team: Dylan and Camille, our race support crew, our awesome kids - the support crew that kept things fun during our months of training, and those Colorado mountains-that made us strong. |
The big question now is "Will we do it again?" YES!!! But...not until our kids are older, at least not together. Training for LOTOJA is time consuming and our awesome kids are growing up too fast - we don't want to "blink" and miss anything! And then there is our new passion: paragliding...but more on that to come :)
But, it was so fun! Yes, FUN! Maybe because the training was SO hard and often lonely (on our single bikes), it was good to be riding together! We loved meeting and chatting with other riders. We loved helping and caring for each other-during our months of training as well as during the race. We felt each others pain, literally, and knew how to better help, love and serve each another - as our friends Meg and Austin told us years ago, when we were just getting into cycling, "Wherever your marriage is heading, you'll get their faster on a tandem!" Working for and accomplishing hard things as a couple is awesome!
We are so grateful we had this opportunity and know our biggest support was the Lord. He loves us and wants us to succeed, be happy, and grow.
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| DAAANG.... that be long, eh? |
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