Shenandoah 2009: June 11 - 14, 2009 - Part 0 - Preparations for the Ride

Shenandoah 2009 - June 11 - 14, 2009 Ride Report

Since I’ve still not gotten my website up and running, I made it a resolution this Spring to to be much more timely with my ride reports and photo postings. As you can see, I’m a little behind, and although I’ve pretty much got most of them in order ready to post, I’ll go with this report first, as it is probably of more interest to those than our fixed-gear fleche or my “arriere du peloton” reports of the Eastern PA brevet series.

Additionally since most of you know from Tom’s “blow-by-blow” live action reporting of the event that Andy, Juan, and I all successfully completed the ride, I’ll be posting this report on an “installment basis” each day, as if I had the capability to report on-the-road. This first installment is the introduction including the preparation leading up to the event, the drive to the Leesburg start, and the Wednesday evening check-in on June 10th. The subsequent four postings will be each day of the ride (How’s that for encouraging readership. Up to this point, I believe that the only “hits” to this blog are my brother, Mark, or my wife and mother looking to catch up on what I’m doing.)

Again, since you ALL know that I’ve finished and are looking for the photographs, I’ve included a link to them as a slide show…a caveat – you’d had better like looking at the photos of my brother, Mark, as if there is an “action shot” with a bike rider in it, it will probably be Mark, as we rode together most of the way, and since he was dragging me along most of the way, most of the shots are of his back side – probably not his best side – I’ll leave that to you to decide, but in his draft I was just tickled to have this view for most the ride.




I thought I was able to post the slide show directly but if not, I've attached the link below:

http://picasaweb.google.com/randonnerd/Shenandoah2009


Shenandoah 2009 - June 11 - 14, 2009 Ride Report
Day 0 - Preparations up to and including Check-in on June 10th.

Oh Shenandoah,
I long to hear you,
Away you rolling river,
Oh Shenandoah,
I long to hear you,
Away, I'm bound away
'Cross the wide Missouri.

This was the song that beckoned 42 riders to this years’ Shenandoah 1200K held on June 11 through June 14th, 2009. Although some came from the neighboring area and had ridden many of the routes either as part of the ROMA SR brevet series, or as brevets and Permanents with the DC Randonneurs, others had heard the call for the Shenandoah from Florida, Texas, Arizona, California, Washington (the State), Ontario, Minnesota, Iowa, and British Columbia, actually crossing “the wide Missouri” to get to the event. (Sorry if I didn’t include all of the states, in deference you’ll note I intentionally left off New Jersey.)

Some had heard of the previous year’s event and were looking to do the ride for the first time, either to experience the beauty that the Shenandoah Valley, the ride up to Gettysburg up over the Catoctin Mountains, or the Blue Ridge Mountains as the route crossed over to North Carolina, had to offer on this late-Spring ride, or to push themselves to complete a randonnee that offered a great deal in the amount of “relentless climbs, both long and short, as it traversed the numerous river valleys of central Virginia.

Others were returnees from last years inaugural event looking to erase a “DNF” of the previous years event which, with record temperatures took a toll on the riders, or perhaps returning because for the challenge and beauty that the ride has to offer, (or like me, looking to prove that last years’ successful finish wasn’t just a lucky fluke.)

A digression: The provenance of the song, Oh Shenandoh is unclear but most interpretations, at least those in the Shenandoah River Valley, believe that the song tells of a pioneer's nostalgia for the Shenandoah River, and for a time in early 2006, it appeared that "Shenandoah" would become the "interim state song" for Virginia. While the authorizing legislation passed the Virginia Senate, the measure died in committee in the House of Delagates. It was a problematic choice because the song never specifically mentions Virginia and, in many versions of the song, the name "Shenandoah" refers to an Indian chief, not the Shenandoah Valley or Shenandoah River.

Those riders from the Midwest might consider a “reunion brevet” of as one version of the history of the song has it originating out of Iowa as a Union soldier in the American Civil War, dreaming of his country home to the west of the Missouri river, in Shenandoah, Iowa (though the town lies some 50 miles east of the Missouri river).

The song is also associated with escaped slaves. They were said to sing the song in gratitude because the river allowed their scent to be lost.

I’d believe that for most of the riders finishing up the ride on Sunday, they’d go with this third association, as the Shenandoah river valleys (both the North and South) forks offered welcome downhills into the valleys with “gentile” rollers as the route followed the rivers through central Virginia.

From Matt’s ride description, the Shenandoah 1200K, as conceived, was intended to showcase the beauty and magnificence of the incomparable Shenandoah Valley. The Valley is not flat, but the buzz about the inaugural 2008 ride should have been about the great scenery, hospitality of the staff and the locals, and the great food – NOT the fact that 26 of the 56 riders were forced to abandon.

Matt learned from his and the riders’ experiences last year and promised that the second Shenandoah would be a much more enjoyable randonee. Having THOROUGHLY enjoyed last years ride, and KNOWING that Matt is not one to make idle promises, I couldn’t imagine what this meant but I figured I’d go along with him and see what he meant by this. Additionally, I had “bragged-up” this ride to my brother, Mark and had gotten him to commit that this would be one of this year’s “bike vacation tours” that we’d be riding together. Some of Matt’s promises were based on the weather surely be more hospitable (with last year’s record heat wave, he probably couldn’t go wrong in promising this!) and changes to the course will allow for more flexibility as to sleep and eating options outside the controls. The various changes to the route though extensive were not intended to alter the character of the ride. The Maury River and Goshen Pass replace Douthat State Park and the climb up to the Blue Ridge Parkway from Mount Airy will be just as memorable as Rich Patch and Jamison Mountian Rd was for the inaugural riders.

I was happy to see the addition of the Maury River (downstream, no less!!) as it is one of my favorite sections of road in all of Virginia, except Dry Mill Road at mile 761 and the turn onto Prosperity Drive at mile 766.9 on this ride. I enjoyed the ride through Douthat State Park – a long gentle descent through tree-covered back roads – but trusted that Matt knew what he was doing in cutting out this extra mileage here to allow the route to extend into the NC Randonneurs “locals” territory with the addition of the Mt. Airy controle.

Having become something of an “old hat” at preparing for randonnees, especially those that I drive to, and can just throw everything into the back of the car, my pre-ride preparations included managing to get a 200K brevet in on the Saturday before. (Tom was gracious in scheduling one of the more hillier PA 200K brevets for this day KNOWING that I’d be using this as a pre-ride warm-up – THANKS, TOM!!!) This was followed by my Sunday “penance” of getting all of the lawn mowed and performing all of the additional “honey-do” items to allow me to take my 5-day mini-vacation without the rest of the family.

Tuesday evening found me late at work getting through all of the things that couldn’t wait until my return so my ride packing began on Wednesday morning. Last year I had not taken Wednesday off so I needed to get up early to throw everything into the car, and after a full day’s work and the 4 ½ hour drive to Leesburg, I didn’t get to sleep until close to midnight for 3 hours of sleep before the ride. This year I took an extra vacation day Wednesday to allow me to “sleep in”, pack and get on the road by around 8 or 9, to arrive in Leesburg in the early afternoon. Things didn’t quite work out that well, and after cleaning up the bike from Saturday’s ride and packing everything up to depart, I had a last request to plant an additional 6 dalphinas before I left, and didn’t get out on the road until after noon.

On the way I made a quick stop at the local bike shop to pick up 8 extra spokes (4 for the drive and 4 of the non-drive) for the new rear wheel I’d be using for this year’s ride. – for those interested it is a 36 hole Campy Record 10-speed with a 12-25 cassette laced to a Mavic Open Pro CD using a 3X spoke pattern. I used to do a 4X but figured I go “modern,” 3X pattern, and this wheel was a replacement of the Orion rear wheel I was using with 28 spokes in a 2X pattern on the drive side and a radial pattern on the non-drive side, it would definitely be a more reliable option to what I had. (In a later posting I’ll describe why I went to this change but for now, I’ll admit that this change in wheel results in a net weight gain of 71 grams or 2.5 oz.). I also picked up a temporary “Fiber-fix” spoke to ensure that by having this and the spare spokes with me, I wouldn’t have any wheel problems. – If I didn’t have then, you can be sure that I’d have a spoke failure.

The drive to Leesburg was pretty uneventful – there were the usual 5 mile back-ups on I-78 as the PA highway department performed their annual bridge and road repairs, but fortunately traffic was fairly light. I took US15 south of Harrisonburg and enjoyed the section of road that was included on tomorrow’s ride from Thurmont to the PA border. Arriving at the Comfort Suites around 4:30, I quickly located Mark who had arrived the day before and had secured a great room on the second floor, just down the hall from the front stairway. After unloading, I met up with Juan who provided me with a copy of the cue sheet in the PA Randonneurs format. (Not that there is anything wrong with the format that Matt provided with was the “traditional” DC Randonneur/ROMA format that allows the sheet to be folded in four so that, including the front and back, allows for eight separate pages to be displayed on a single sheet of paper, but for longer brevets, I preferred having more information available than just the directions and cumulative and point-to-point mileage.) I don’t know if Juan learned it from me, or if he developed this preference on his own, but in addition to converting the cure sheet to the PA format with the cumulative, segment, and point-to-point mileage, Juan added double entries at all control points, placing page breaks between each so that each page of the cue sheet included the starting controle, all information on the segment, and the final control, with opening and closing time – it made my day to see what Juan provided me, as well as knowing that he developed this good cue sheet preparation habit from riding with the PA randonneurs. …now if ONLY Juan could have included the missing “T’s”, “SS”, and “TFL’s” (not the ones that those who know be believed this originally meant) I’d have been in heaven!

Before checking in, I had a chance to meet up with many who I hadn’t seen from last year’s randonnee “series” including Andy and Ron from last year’s RM1200, Henk, Dick, and Carey from Last Chance, and Phil and Dave from the Shenandoah.

In particular, it was great to see Branson again. He’s a strong, fast rider, and a real gentleman, and on days that he is either taking it easy, or I’m feeling good – without many steep hills, or possibly it was the good drafts to suck along into, I’ve had the pleasure of riding several 200Ks with him as we met up on the DC brevets. The last time I saw him he was volunteering at the Fancy Gap Control on last year’s Shenandoah, as part of the NC contingent – flying the NC flag on “foreign” soil. We both recalled that I was one of the few who took them up on the offer of a beer as the beverage of choice at the controle. At 3 in the morning after the strenuous climb, that was probably the ONE beer that I can recall tasting the best for 2008 – and I hate to admit it was a Budweiser! – so much for those fancy craft beers. :-) Branson offered that since it was such a hit last year, he assured me that the NC group manning the Mount Airy controle would be SURE to have a cold one waiting for me when I arrived early Saturday morning – something to look forward to as I did that last climb up the second climb over the Skyline Drive.

Mark and I then did our last minute packing while I participated in a mandatory teleconference call (it is amazing how one can “multi-task” with the speaker phone on mute!), followed by a hearty meal at the local Wendy’s with a last round of “carbo-topping off” nightcap of a local malt and barley beverage. We stopped by the lobby to say goodnight to the few souls that were still up and managed to get to sleep by a little after 10:30PM. It would have been great to have gotten more sleep but with the anticipation of the following day’s ride, we managed top get in a good four hours sleep before needing to get up at 3:00AM.

Part I (June 11th) to follow…