Zwift - DIRT Rolling Thunder (C)

Zwift - Rogue Racing MNR

Zwift - PartyAnimal 80 (B)

Zwift - 3R Endurance (B)

Zwift - KISS at Base (B)

Plenty of notes to share but I need a nap first 😴

Okay, now that I'm back from the dead ☠️ I'll add some details, hopefully I can remember all the different things I made note of during and after this incredible adventure. There were definitely many good things, but also some bad and some ugly and some odd/interesting/maybe even spooky 👻 (probably just because it was at night/dark)

First, what went well- The route was awesome! Even when it was difficult (which there was plenty of), I was loving it (minus maybe the short washboard of death sections at the end that'll mention later).  It was a great mix of gravel and "other stuff". The two track and singletrack sections were a blast 🤟and there was just enough pavement to give some short respite from time to time. There was plenty of climbing (which seems to be easier when you can't see it coming in the dark- no extra energy involved in anticipating it?), but there were also some longer stretches of flat in between the climb heavy parts which was nice and made having the aerobars worthwhile. The sandy areas where no problem at all with the recent rain and cooler temps. Even on just 38s I had no issues pedaling through everything. I can probably count on 2 hands the number of times I lost traction just briefly, and only once had to dismount (mostly from user error) and I just walked 5 ft and was able to start right back up. Tyler K. came up with this route and did a great job mapping it out. There were several sections that didn't follow any "real roads" but I had no problem whatsoever following the GPS track on my Garmin 830. I really appreciated this as I was unfamiliar with a few of these sections and was by myself (and it was cold 🥶 so down time off the bike would be no beuno). 

The new Garmin 830 was another huge asset. I've struggled a bit with figuring out all the quirks involved with navigating using it (seems sometimes like it tries to do too much) compared to my ultra-simple old 800 where all I had to do was follow the GPS track as no base maps were even present. The only reason I hadn't yet returned it was because of the extra long battery life. Well I finally figured out what settings I prefer, how it will behave, and that the route will contain much better detail (especially with regard to elevation profile) if I load it onto the Garmin the old-fashion way (via the USB tether) instead of the simple new way of starring the route on Strava and using Garmin Connect. I still find some things regarding navigation to be very problematic (most notably the repeated demands to make a U-turn while taking forever to "find" the route if I ever stray from it, even when it is obvious that I am back on and following the route...side note I have found the best/quickest solution is to just stop the course and reload it when this happens instead of waiting sometimes at great length for the "course found" beep which seems dumb and unnecessary and like it should be an easy fix) but I have really fallen in love with the turn-by-turn direction prompts 😍 which allow me to look at other screens, keep the backlight off saving battery, or just look around at my surroundings instead of constantly looking down at the map and needing to keep it visible with the backlight. Speaking of battery- this is BY FAR the best feature of the 830. After this ride, I still had just under 50%!! That's with a map running the entire time and not turning it off at all during stops- so a total run time of just under 18hrs. If this is as important a feature for you as it was for me in my decision to purchase the 830, I'd highly recommend it and just allow yourself time to get used to how everything else on it works (or doesn't seem to).

Another good thing- No bike issues! This is just so huge on a ride like this. You never know when something might happen but thankfully nothing did. George at Rockford Bike Shop had my bike shifting like butter after fixing my front derailleur blaze-on mount which he noticed was loose due to stripped screw holes. He redrilled them and threw in a couple helicoils and it was shifting like a dream, which was super helpful because I did a ton of it on this route, especially towards the end lol 🥵 Which brings me to another positive- first ride I've really benefited from the the extra 32t cog in the rear with the 11-32.

A couple other good things briefly- glad I went with the winter boots for comfort and warmth instead of the mtb/gravel shoes. Slight downside to this was that afer a while I noticed the cleat on my right foot would feel better moved back and rotated slightly (don't use them a whole lot) but with some rust corrosion from riding in winter saltiness, I couldn't budge the screws. Despite that, for a ride like this the prolonged warmth and comfort compared to my other pair more than made up for that- not once did my feet bother me and no thoughts whatsoever of taking the shoes off during a stop to give sore feet a break.Taking the small old hydration backpack and using it to store extra supplies was also a good decision although I really should instead find some nice bikepacking bags to use on rides like this.

Okay, now the bad stuff (which was pretty much all due to user error/poor decisions on my part) I under-dressed badly. 30-something degree temps for an hour or two when you know it's going to warm up soon is definitely not the same as 30-something degrees for 9 hours in the dark into a headwind once my body is into the perma-low HR zone and has decided that some areas of the body deserve less circulation. The first inkling I had of this was following stop 1 at 54mi/9:30pm. It took quite a while for my hands to warm up once I got going again. After ~15-20min they were okay, but this made me wary of stopping moving forward and I knew it was only going to get colder as the night moved along. Around the halfway point, my man-parts started to get extremely cold. My full-leg bibs are a bit loose around the waist section which simply put allowed for too much airflow. Nothing new to be a bit cold down there, but this was the first time ever it was to the point of causing pain which was of course rather distressing. Also, I think since my lower abdominal area had been cold for such a prolonged period, the blood was just not circulating much below that area. Thankfully, the gas station in Nashville (~135mi/3:30am) had fleece gloves for sale. I bought a couple pairs- one for over the top of my other gloves, and another to stuff down the bibs. It far from eliminated it, but it was a slight improvement. It took a while before remembered I had a couple toe warmers and put those in the gloves too. I got some interesting looks later on before realizing I still had the gloves stuffed down there. Unfortunately from about the halfway point on being cold became a major focus of my attention and distracted from maximizing my enjoyment of the ride.

This, along with fueling/hydration issues. I think I majorly overdid it on sugar and coffee early on, which later caused me to kinda lose my appetite and become quite averse to anything sweet. My plan was to start with "real food" and stop at BK in Allegan. Google had them open until 10pm. I was there around 9:30 and all the lights were off. So, to the gas station I went. Coffee sounded good so I had a large one and didn't hold back on the sugar, figuring my body would appreciate all the readily available carbs. I had another one at my next stop along with a honey bun and strawberry shortcake roll. Not sure exactly when it happened as it kinda crept up on me, but at some point I just couldn't stomach the idea of anything at all sweet and stopped drinking my drink mix or consuming gels entirely. I started craving meaty cheesey things and had a hot pocket pizza thingy at one point which helped a little. The Denver omelette I had at the Bluewater Cafe in Ionia for breakfast around 7am really hit the spot though. I almost ordered another one, even though I felt full and kinda had to force myself to eat the first one. If I could get a do over on the whole fueling/nutrition thing, I would go with one of my 2 bottles only with water in it so I'd always have that option and could hydrate if/when the drink mix sounded terrible. I'd also ration the coffee/caffeine a little more and be careful about overdoing the sweet stuff early on.

The ugly: well outside of my junk getting worrisomely cold, this was mostly the couple sections of horrible washboard going into an ever-strengthing headwind Saturday morning. Trying to perfectly navigate to avoid the bumpiness was tough with how faded I was mentally (this old man doesn't pull all nighters much anymore).  There were several instances of teeth-chattering followed by expletives. 🤬 At one point, I must've misjudged the volume of my voice and a walker up the road turned to look as I was (i thought) murmuring some drawn out variant of MF. The cruelty of the wind on this ride could maybe fall under this section as well. It was strong when it was a NW headwind at the beginning, faded at night as a tailwind (except when the small breeze was very noticeably lowering the windchill going N), and then kicked back up with a vengeance as a headwind/crosswind the last few hours Saturday morning. 

The interesting- I've never ridden all the way through the night. Closest I have is when I started out at 2:30am on Mega-ODRAM but that was in the city and then on the Musketawa the whole time while in darkness. Being in the middle of nowhere on gravel and seasonal roads was kinda different. No traffic whatsoever made riding simply wonderful. There were a few cars/trucks though in the randomest spots in the middle of the night. Like a vehicle just at a stand still on Sager until I came along at which point it seemed like they were trying to get away from me, but the ruts forced them to go slow so I ended up catching up and they let me pass and then killed their lights. I was surprised how many people out in the country leave their dogs out all night, esp as temps got pretty cold. I was barked at many times and was never quite sure if it would be followed by a chase. 🐕 Lots of other sounds, too, and in very close proximity to me. Most of these seemed like just small critters moving around 🦝🐇🦡🦔 but occasionally there'd be something crashing around quite a bit and I was half-prepared to be knocked off my bike by a deer 🦌. A huge bird (owl maybe?) flew right in front of me too. It was on the side of the road possibly eating something when I came around a corner and it took off. 🦉 It had a massive wingspan and it was majestic to watch flap it’s way away. It was a clear night and the stars were awesome. Unfortunately, I found myself only really enjoying this in the early part of night, as trying to stay warm later dominated my focus. Not only did I see stars, though. I saw some crazy lights at one point. I thought I was seeing stars moving but wasn't tired enough to think my mind could be hallucinating that yet, so I stopped to look. Sure enough, there were a series of lights more or less in a straight line moving across my field of vision. I watched for a few minutes and they just kept coming. It was to the North and they were moving from West to East not too high up on the horizon. At first I thought they're probably just planes but there were so many of them and they were so close together that this seemed implausible. 👽 I asked a couple people today and someone told me others reported the same thing late Firday night/early Saturday morning and said it was being attributed to Elon Musk launching a bunch of new satellites into orbit.  Anyways, there's something rather peaceful and surreal about riding in the middle of the night. If you've never done it, I'd highly recommend it sometime. But chose a night that doesn't get so cold your balls almost freeze off. ☮️

👍 109.9 new miles

-- From Wandrer.earth

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Nick DeHaan

2021 Gravel Mitt!

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Zwift - DIRT Rolling Thunder (C)

Zwift - Rogue Racing MNR

Zwift - PartyAnimal 80 (B)

Zwift - 3R Endurance (B)

Zwift - KISS at Base (B)

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