RIDE REPORT (archive): EIBC San Facundo 100 --- SUNDAY Aug 31, 2014

Hey all -

A bit late in coming, but since several of you have inquired with great curiosity as to what fate befell our group last Sunday.......I will offer a recap below, free of flourish and fabrications, expletives and exaggerations.

Early last Sunday, a group of 7 lighted riders met at the corner of Minnehaha and 50th street to take on this year's 5hr century challenge. The Facundo.  It started with a reading to San Facundo, praising his miracle of turning rubber band to rope, and thanking him for holding tools and things (see attached).

Departing on a northwest route, we charged up past Medicine Lake in Plymouth into Maple Grove and toward Hanover.  The wind was there, slightly behind us and to the side, but not a big push either way.  Rolling along, adding some cushion along the way, knowing we would be facing some wind after Buffalo, we managed the average up to 21.5 and then 22.0.  Andy gave us cushion time checks ---- 5min ahead of schedule, 8min ahead of schedule......beating the phantom rider inside his computer ---- call him Garminski, the steady master of the 20mph pace.  He didn't have a name on Sunday, but he's got one now.....because he would get the better of us very soon, passing us silently as we repaired flats, then turned face into the roaring wind.  For Garminski these things mattered less than a honey-badger -- he was going to keep his pace of 5hrs right to the end, then sit there at Rustica with his feet up on a chair staring at the barrista and making an occasional glance at his timepiece with a shake of his head.

So it was.  4 stops for 2 flats just a bit east of Buffalo, the first of them was a bugger.  The tubeless tire refused to take the healing slime three times, and rider Pasdo had to abandon his Facundo at mile 47.  We were barely out of his sight when I flatted.  A quick look showed a small slice in the tread, so a precautionary goo pack was emptied into my gullet and inserted inside, between the tube and tire for precaution.  That goo, it turns out, was one of the few things I was to have eaten before I entered a period of darkness from which even San Facundo could not rescue me......the rope was going to be too short for me to hang on.

We rolled into Buffalo dead even with Garminski.  We navigated some jackasses in pick-em-up trucks and got to the grocery store for a quick stop.  Garminski wasn't there.  Our crew looked pretty fresh ---- but there's something strange about that place, and I'll never stop there again.  In a trance of stupid, I bought a 4-pack of Starbucks Frappucinos, downing one, adding one to a water bottle and giving away the two others.  I didn't buy or eat any food -- something I didn't figure out until much later the next day when I tried to figure out what happened.

There's a set of rollers coming out of Buffalo which pinch the muscles you thought you just rested at the store, and then the houses and the trees fall away and it's just farm ---- and where there are farms, there's wind, and this time the wind wanted a staring contest......it wanted to look us right square in the eye for a couple of hours.  Where we would turn, it would turn.  So we rotated counter-clockwise in a continuous flow, each rider coming up the protected side on the right waiting for that moment when the door opened and the wind slammed down for a half minute before sliding over to the left and waiting for that partial protection of the next rider's leftward slide.

This is where Garminski pulled ahead.  Despite a well executed rotation, as we headed due south and then east toward Watertown, the wind knocked us down toward 18mph -- and lower on the rollers. The wind picked up as the day warmed up.

Andy was in front of me, and my flow through the rotations became slower --- matches being burned on each effort to pass and slide over.  A couple of miles outside of Watertown, around mile 72, I reached into my pocket for some food and ended up dropping my wallet onto the side of the road.  I gave a short, serious thought on leaving it and driving back later, then came to my senses and circled back to get it......I mean look in the weeds for it until it appeared (thank you Donkey Label for making it yellow!).  I don't know if I ended up eating anything.  The group waited, and I caught back on, but it wasn't going to last.

A couple miles later the end came fast.  I dropped back and when they turned around I was swerving in the road frantically waving them on --- catch Garminski, I would've said if he existed in my mind at that time.  Instead I was just thinking about Facundo.

Sullivan came back and the rest pushed on.

I spotted a shady are in the front yard of the rare house in the plains, and the grass was green, and long, and covered in dew.  I laid down and ---- well, I'd love to tell you that I wept or had a vision, but there was no energy left for even that.  Maybe ten minutes later, maybe fifteen, I don't know.....I stood up and we rolled slow all the way into Mound with Sully pulling me along, about 7 miles at really low speeds.  In Mound, with a Snickers and a Gatorade and a few miles of spinning, everything came back......almost everything.  The wind had eased up and my legs were alive again.  We were in familiar territory, headed around Lake Minnetonka on roads we know well.

This is around 10:30a --- as Garminski was rolling into Rustica.  It would be another 22min before the first group of the Facundo's would arrive and cash in on Erik Ekstrom's generous gift of post-ride calories (in the form of a gift card with instructions that it be used by the most exhausted looking riders presenting themselves after 10:30a).  Another 40 minutes later, Sullivan and I would arrive --- in decent shape, but an hour off the challenge.  Pasdo was there with air in his tires, and there were smiles on all faces --- so the wind didn't take away everything. 

The next day, Labor Day, the wind......it was gone.  The day was still and clear.  The wind was tired and stayed in bed.  And us, the riders, we each went about our holiday with families and friends......and thoughts about San Facundo, and how we will be victorious next year.

To San Facundo!

-ng