Playing In Traffic: They've Waited Seventeen Years for This

Outriders! One of my favorite rides of the year. A one day ride from Boston to Provincetown. More than 125 miles/200 km in one day. Just. For. Fun. No fundraising. Just plunk down the registration fee and ride.

Spoiler alert: I made it

A quick sidebar, I'm going to try and write this quickly. I've done too my write ups that I never finish because they were too detailed.

It was a real challenge this year, far more than normal. Winter was tough and I didn't get as many miles in as usual. Spring had crappy weather almost every weekend. In September I had Covid (for the first time), and it took six months before my overnight resting heart rate returned to normal. Top to top it all off there was a major emergency at work that chewed up weeks of my time. In the end it all meant I was missing well over a thousand miles of cycling in my legs compared to normal. Oh, and I didn't get a good night's sleep the night before the event.

My game plan was to ride conservatively. Ride at an easy pace, and try to avoid hard efforts all day. Concentrate on hydration and eating. The basics. This pretty much worked out.

I organized all my stuff the day before the ride. Water bottles were in the fridge, food was loaded on the bike. There was no scrambling after I woke up at 4:20 AM. I was out the door an hour later. The volunteers at the start were ready earlier than they had to be. So I rolled up, signed in, got my number written on my leg, and hit the road. It was forecast to be a fairly warm day, with highs in the mid 80's (almost 30C). One of the first really warm days of the year was a fair trade for the first non-rainy Saturday in two months.

1377, my rider number.

I caught up with another cyclist while we were rolling through the South End. We stuck together until about the gas tank around Morrissey Boulevard. I rode with another ad hoc group for a while and was passed by bunches of faster cyclists. The first pit stop of the day is 30 miles into the ride. I was riding my easier geared gravel bike, a Specialized Diverge, that has three bottle cages on it. So I took my third water bottle to ensure that I would be able to guzzle fluids (water & heavily sugared iced coffee) for this first bit of the ride.

I didn't skimp on the sunblock

On this first bit of the ride I was passed by Jian, a cyclist I had met a few years ago. Clearly Jian had not missed any training. I think he was red shifted when he sped past me. I said hello, as I do to anyone who I pass or passes me. Jian realized it was me & slowed down to chat briefly.

I also saw my friend Richard who's done many of the same rides as me and has always been faster. We talked for a bit & I noticed that he had replaced his flat bar hybrid with a red road bike. Red bikes are faster. Everyone knows this to be so.

When I got to the first pit I re-filled one of my water bottles. The empty coffee bottle became my sports drink bottle. I wasn't temped by any of the food they had out, so I had another one of my Clif bars that I had brought.

I kept my stop very brief. Given my -- stately pace -- I just wanted to press on. I did this all day and it kind of kept me from talking to other riders or joining a group.

The route after the first pit has a lot of lovely scenery. Horse farms, easy flat spinning. Just good cycling. I didn't reference the queue sheet & I forgot that it was another 30+ miles to the next pit. If I had remembered, I would have refilled my third water bottle. Of course, if I had trained better I would have spent less time between the pits and two bottles would have been enough.

The rolling hills after Plymouth is where the ride starts to feel "real" to me. The ride isn't half over yet. The hills are big enough that you can't charge down one to get significantly up the next one. This finishes up in a crawl up an exposed/unshaded hill. The Anvil of the Sun. Well, there was nothing for it, but to get into my climbing gear and spin up the hill as easily as possible.

Finally, I got through that section, safely made my way through the intersection with on/off ramps to the highway, and made my way to the bridge. Yay. Over the bridge, flip the record, and start a whole new ride. Right? Right? Right?

I still had a bit of a way to go to the lunch pit in Sandwich. And there was an eerie high pitched noise. What was it? Some kind of siren? Nuclear reactor meltdown? And there all these really large flying bugs around. Cicadas! Brood XIV which has been sitting underground for 17 years! And then I realized they were the source of the sound as well. What a weird otherworldly sound. It was even stranger when I thought that these insects had been waiting under the ground since 2008. Of course, had I had my wits about me, I would have taken a photo of a cicada. Guess I'll have to wait until Outriders 2042.

The lunch stop traditionally features peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I looked at one and just wasn't into it. I grabbed some peanut butter cracker packets and ate some. When I got up to leave, I took more & put them in my top tube bag. They made for good snacking as I cycled through Sandwich heading for the service road. The service road featured a new parallel bike path for quite a stretch. What a luxury not to have think about cars. I was also more than 72 miles into the day, so every turn of the wheel marked a new longest ride for the year. Normally, I would have done a one hundred mile ride two or three weeks before Outriders. Oh well.

Unshaded bike path, no cars

No stress, just pedaling.

At this point I kind of started riding with a small group off and on. We'd been leapfrogging most of the day. It was nice to chat about what were the longest rides we'd ever done, the longest events and what not. They also kept me from making a wrong turn in Hyannis.

At the Hyannis-Yarmouth border we picked up a spur of a bike path that joins the Cape Cod Rail Trail, but is not part of it. Going into Hyannis & picking up this path adds a few miles to the route, but we get to skip a very scary section of Route 6A. A very fair trade, to say the least.

The group I rode with for some of the day

We hit pit stop three in a park. I kept it short & left ahead of the group, figuring they'd catch me soon enough. I was getting close to 100 miles (160 km) for the day and really feeling it. The rail trail is a good place to recoup some energy. It's shaded. Even when it's uphill, it's very gently graded. There are lots of inexperienced cyclists on it, so you should not go too fast. I hit 100 miles passing Nickerson Park. My bottles were almost empty, but I knew that there was a bottle filling station in Orleans. Earlier in the day I had drunk the very last Forto Coffee shot I owned. They've stopped making them. So sad. As a replacement I got a GU coffee pouch that promised 40 mg of caffeine. I tried it, but damn, it tasted vile.

Max dosage. OK.

I stopped in Orleans, filled two bottles with water. In one I added some powdered sports drink. I sat and polished off another Clif bar & drank most of another bottle. I chatted with a nice older couple who were enjoying the day on the rail trail. My group passed me by, but I could not rush after them. The concept of rushing was off the table. I was tired. From the miles. And from the crap night's sleep.

About 100 miles in with some fresh sunscreen

Eventually, I got up, got back on my bike and resumed riding. I felt A LOT better thanks to the stop. In short order I got to the official pit stop in Wellfleet. I grabbed a little more food, feeling kind of fatigued from eating. I sat down and talked to some of the other riders. We were all really feeling it. One guy had some bad knee pain, but was going to try to muscle through it.

I talked to a group of three cyclists who had come to the Cape on the Cape Flyer Train. They asked what we were doing. I realized that the pit stops on the rail trail have no signage. Seems like an opportunity to advertise the event. Boston to Ptown, One Day, Just for Fun. Boom.

Well, the time had come to face the most beautiful and also most challenging section of the ride. In years when I've trained well, this section is the reward for the day's work up. Oceanview Road, Wellfleet, Pamet Marsh, and the hills in the backroads of Truro.

This year those hills crushed me. Just crushed me. They're beautiful and in the winter you can even see Provincetown in the distance, but this year they destroyed me.

I got through them. Often wondering on the descents how long would a descent have to be until I got cold? These weren't. Anyway, I ground them out and got through them to the last pit stop. I had some kind of salty crunch industrial snack, cheetos maybe? Drank some water. And then I got back on my bike to finish the ride.

Finally, I hit that last climb, three successive hills from a convenience store in Truro to a crest that overlooks Beach Point and beyond that, Provincetown. There were a few more miles to go, but I had a tail wind and no more climbs. What a great feeling. Whoosh, down the hill, through Beach Point, past the condo we rented for the weekend, and to the finish line in Provincetown.

132 miles for the day, including cycling to the start from my home. Wow. I was a wreck, but I was a happy wreck. My family was waiting for me at the finish, strangely, they wouldn't hug me.

Another Outriders in the books, and a lesson learned. Next time, get those winter & springtime miles in!