In this post, I'll talk some more about completing the course.
As I wrote before, throughout the entire ride I had to overtake a whole lot of fellow cyclists. The math is simple — divide the number of participants by the distance, and you get about 80 people per kilometer, which is almost one person every 12 meters, if I'm not lying. Considering they're not standing still like posts, it's understandable that starting from the middle of the course I frequently found myself riding next to the exact same bicycling folks.
Moreover, the people I was overtaking often surprised me quite a bit. How could it be that fatties, women, teenagers, bikes with trailers, clunkers from Maxima, and Latvijas Pasts were so far ahead of me? A considerable blow to the ego.
On the other hand, everything can be explained by the starting block. Next year I'll be starting around position 1000, make it a goal to ride properly, and then we'll find out where I stand.
What else of interest did I see? On one of the few sharp turns (from A2 to A3, if I'm not mistaken) I braked — I don't like entering turns fast, because I'm not sure how well the bike grips the surface and I don't know when it'll skid, and I absolutely hate falling.
In front of me, a more professional-looking guy was entering a bit faster, but was also braking. And then, from behind and to the right of me, a teenager flies out at full speed and rides straight into the middle of the dude ahead of me. He brakes, but it's too late — he slams right into the center of the frame with all his might, knocks the other guy down, they both fall, and the rammer smacks his noggin really hard on the asphalt. Right then, I was unrealistically glad that everyone was wearing helmets — otherwise I'd have seen his brains right in front of me, which doesn't exactly contribute to peace of mind.
All this happened in a fraction of a second, and right in front of me (or beside me? I can't remember). Fortunately, special people are on duty at the dangerous turn, so I hope everything turned out okay. Now, as time has passed, I'm starting to think — wasn't the teenager's trajectory like that because I was braking and changing my position in front of him? Even if that's the case, he's still the one to blame, because the turn is obviously dangerous; you need to brake in advance, not at the last moment.
Crash diagram, me in blue, the culprit in red.
In short, I got very, very lucky, because I was separated from disaster by mere seconds, or more likely even fractions of a second.
Anyway, moving on.
As you know, Sigulda is located in a fairly hilly area. Up to about the middle of the course it was a relatively easy ride, but after that it got harder and harder. And if on flat ground I somehow still managed to keep up 25-30 km, on the uphills it didn't even reach 20, sometimes dropping to 14. Considering my weight and the bike's weight, it makes sense — going downhill is easier for me, but going uphill is much harder than for everyone else. I was overtaking regular people, but the sporty ones were already overtaking me going uphill.
Coming towards us were rare roadies, and occasionally police on motorcycles would ride past us — they stop those riding without a number or a helmet — you can't be on the course illegally. Occasionally, we came across stuck cars belonging to those unfortunate souls who hadn't heard about the ride in advance, and weren't careful enough to avoid popping into Sigulda at this time.
There were a few spots on the track where you could rest and refuel. At one you actually had to stop. At two more they were handing out water and bananas — right on the go. Afterwards, for 200-500 meters the whole road was littered with peels, fortunately only on the right. I didn't get to appreciate the water or the bananas — saw them too late. Luckily, I had water in my cycling bottle, even though there was little left, and at first I wasn't even going to take it, thinking I'd manage. Well, I didn't manage, because your mouth dries out instantly, and it's much nicer with water.
By the way, it's no secret that it's much easier to ride on a good road, so the pros tried to steer onto those parts of the asphalt without cracks, which isn't always possible because the traffic gets in the way.
By the way, throughout the course I periodically came across locals and fans who cheered on the participants with shouts, whistling, honking, and banging.
And at the end of the track awaited a terrifying ordeal — the dreadful hill after the bridge (anyone who's been to Sigulda knows). A quarter of the people walked up it on foot, the rest were barely dragging themselves along. I, being a crazy athlete, rode standing up, in what's called 'the dancer' position. Again, just like with the shoulder, I was surprised that no one else was doing it. Apparently, people had absolutely no strength left, or maybe everyone who did it that way had already passed before me. A couple of times I even got scared that it was against the rules, because people were yelling something from behind. But it turned out they were yelling 'unsportsmanlike' at those walking on foot. I myself shouted 'davaj, davaj' to a girl who was also riding like me. It's an international word in Latvia now, which is why I'm writing it in Latin letters. The girl, unfortunately, couldn't keep up the pace and was left behind.
What helped me a lot, however, was training on the elliptical machine with high resistance at the gym I go to — it's very similar to riding uphill standing up. So on the hill I overtook a whole crowd — otherwise I would've arrived even later. But instead, I coolly rode up solo, not even in a crowd. All the rest were left behind until they dragged themselves up the hill.
I must say, it was exceptionally hard, and I probably made some horrific faces during the climb and a little bit after it. It is, without any exaggeration, physically painful to endure, and I don't recommend repeating my experience unless you work out regularly. My legs hurt for a week after the ride, so you get the idea.
But at the finish line, I was even riding no-handed, like a show-off.
By the way, I came in 1143rd, although I could swear I thought and saw earlier that it was 1008th. In total there were 3006 finishers, so I was better than half, and noticeably better at that. According to my bike computer, by the way, I finished not in 1.24, but in 1.16.
Here is my result:
pos. Nr Vārds Uzvārds Gads velo Laiks -t dist kmh
1143 4950 Vladislavs Kugeļevičs 1983 Scott 1:24:04 +0:30:22 26,7
Making it under an hour, it seems to me, is still unrealistic for me, so next year I'll be aiming for around 1.10, with any luck.
Here are all the results, in a terrible fixed width columns format, and even that has errors. I wanted to process them in Excel and make some nice stats, but the format is so stupid that I'd need to spend extra time converting it, and I don't want to. Maybe I still will.
It turned out I still haven't written everything, so in the next post there will finally be the conclusion.