A one-day Belgian-styled classic in Hunterdon County, NJ, the Hell of Hunterdon did not disappoint. I drove down on friday to Tucker's house, did a great 27-mile ride in his hood, then had beers and dinner with many EN peeps: Dominick, Peter, JT, Evan, Tucker to name a few.
After a late night, we got up early to head out to the ride with Tucker's neighbor. The weather looked awful the night before, but it was only cold and misty all day. Temps were about 40-degrees; combined with the wet was pretty rough. Combined with the 15+ gravel / dirt road sections across the 78 miles and, well, it was really, really ugly (see pic here). It was great to meet up with Attila and to see Brad Loescher there too...EN was everywhere!!!
I opted to start with the first wave, and quickly found out that there were a lot of doodes who couldn't ride in the first 75 folks (about 4 waves of 75 folks for the day). I spent the better part of the first hour chasing the leaders, catching them at about the 60-minute / 18-mile mark. My IF was .897 for this hour... a great way to start a 4+ hour day!!! :(
The rest of the ride was just me riding really well on the roads, but getting dropped on the gravel descents....some of them were really sketchy and the doodes who could ride just flew. After about mile 50 I was just praying that I wouldn't flat b/c my hands were too numb to really even operate my gears.
I lost the A group at the 2nd aid station (mile 62?) when 1/2 of them stopped and 1/2 of them jumped like it was an attack? Whatever, I had to pee so badly it wasn't funny. I also determined I had no rear brake at this time...which was aweome...only 15 more miles and a few more climbs/descents/dirt roads to go.
I latched on to two guys and we worked together to the finish. The winds had picked up and I was pretty damn shelled by this point. I was really happy to have made it in a good time, and pumped to see the power data for the ride (file image here). Pretty cool to see I can sit on 271 for 4+ hours...makes me feel a bit more optimistic about being able to see 250 for 5-ish hours in Texas.
Duration: 4:24:06 (4:42:16)
Work: 3324 kJ
TSS: 277 (intensity factor 0.798)
Norm Power: 271
VI: 1.29
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 78.887 mi
Time to recover now and mentally figure out how I can possibly run long tomorrow...I think I'll be dreaming about being dry! :)