Nanci
Alien Lover
To earn the R12 Award. I got my medal in the mail yesterday- I am so proud! It took a lot of work to achieve this- lots of riding in bad weather and tough conditions, when I was sick, all over the whole state, when my friends had really fun things to do- there's no make up. You miss one ride, you start over. I rode 3100 kilometers in one year, (1926 miles) not counting the training miles which were about double the event miles.
My letter: (Too bad it was kind of crumpled up by the post office!)
My medal:
Engraved to prove it was me!!
So all these rides are organized, and the rider is given a cue sheet which lists the route which has checkpoints which you have to reach in a time window- not too early, or you have to wait for it to open, and not too late, or the ride doesn't count. The time frame is pretty generous- but you have to keep going steadily, even during the night on some of the longer rides. You are responsible for feeding yourself, repairs, etc. If you get lost- that's just bonus miles! There are secret checkpoints that the riders don't know about just in case one felt like taking a shortcut...I made so many cool friends from all over the south doing this. I saw cool things- the space shuttle launch, a panther crossing sign, Lake Okeechobee. I rode when it was 104F in the shade. A lot of people didn't finish that ride. In July, the ride was a torturous series of the same steep hills, over and over and over for 124 miles. I was close on time due to loaning my pump to a guy that had two flats before the first checkpoint. When my chain came off, grinding up a steep hill, in the near dark, when it looked like I wasn't going to make the 13.5 hour limit (I normally ride 200k in 8-9 hours) and I miraculously just stepped off my bike and didn't fall- I'd have been crying if there wasn't another struggling rider in even worse shape right beside me. I made it exactly at the deadline, and only because I didn't give up and rode the hardest I ever had to make it in time. Then there was the longest ride ever- 600k (375 miles). When I started the series of 200, 300, 400, 600k, that distance seemed not humanly possible, even by a super cyclist, much less me. Scarily, I'd barely finished the 400k three weeks earlier due to a knee injury that occured during the ride. I'd babied my knee and just maintained my fitness as best I could, giving the knee time to heal. The time limit is 40 hours. I finished in 38 hours, with four hours of sleep! Here's a picture of me 300 miles into the ride- I'm no Lance Armstrong, that's for sure!
Anyway, that's what I do when I'm not doing snakes (although it's a great day when I can combine the two!).
Thanks for looking!
Nanci
My letter: (Too bad it was kind of crumpled up by the post office!)
My medal:
Engraved to prove it was me!!
So all these rides are organized, and the rider is given a cue sheet which lists the route which has checkpoints which you have to reach in a time window- not too early, or you have to wait for it to open, and not too late, or the ride doesn't count. The time frame is pretty generous- but you have to keep going steadily, even during the night on some of the longer rides. You are responsible for feeding yourself, repairs, etc. If you get lost- that's just bonus miles! There are secret checkpoints that the riders don't know about just in case one felt like taking a shortcut...I made so many cool friends from all over the south doing this. I saw cool things- the space shuttle launch, a panther crossing sign, Lake Okeechobee. I rode when it was 104F in the shade. A lot of people didn't finish that ride. In July, the ride was a torturous series of the same steep hills, over and over and over for 124 miles. I was close on time due to loaning my pump to a guy that had two flats before the first checkpoint. When my chain came off, grinding up a steep hill, in the near dark, when it looked like I wasn't going to make the 13.5 hour limit (I normally ride 200k in 8-9 hours) and I miraculously just stepped off my bike and didn't fall- I'd have been crying if there wasn't another struggling rider in even worse shape right beside me. I made it exactly at the deadline, and only because I didn't give up and rode the hardest I ever had to make it in time. Then there was the longest ride ever- 600k (375 miles). When I started the series of 200, 300, 400, 600k, that distance seemed not humanly possible, even by a super cyclist, much less me. Scarily, I'd barely finished the 400k three weeks earlier due to a knee injury that occured during the ride. I'd babied my knee and just maintained my fitness as best I could, giving the knee time to heal. The time limit is 40 hours. I finished in 38 hours, with four hours of sleep! Here's a picture of me 300 miles into the ride- I'm no Lance Armstrong, that's for sure!
Anyway, that's what I do when I'm not doing snakes (although it's a great day when I can combine the two!).
Thanks for looking!
Nanci
