PA 400K, 4/30/11

The PA 400K is 2 weeks behind me, and was a very enjoyable event. A group of 36 riders set out from The PA Randonneur home base hostel at 5:00 A.M., and soon, a group of 7 of us, started riding together, and we stuck together almost the entire day. We were fortunate to have nice cool temperatures throughout the day, upper 60's to low 70's, compared to the low 90's that they had for the same event last year, which really must have been brutal given the amount of climbing on the ride, especially the first part of the ride.

I needed to finish a 400K this year, as my requirement to ride in The Shenandoah 1200K in June, so after having already ridden 2, 200K's and a 300K event this year for training, my goal for this ride was not to push too much, and I really enjoyed the company throughout the day of the group that I rode with. We finished at midnight, 19 hours total, with several more "relaxing" rest stops for food.

One of the things that I did learn on this ride, which was "better now than later" was that it is true that if you load a long route into a Garmin Edge 800, or probably earlier models, it can cause the unit to crash. I had no problem loading a single 300K route into my Garmin, and had wanted to break the 400K into 2 routes, but I was away on business most of the week before, and used a route that someone had already loaded as a full 400 route, in order to save time. I almost made it, but the unit crashed with 10 miles to go. I will say though that whenever I have needed to call Garmin to ask any questions, they have been great, and they said that they would replace the unit, which I am hoping to receive this week, before the upcoming PA 600K next weekend, which will be my final preparation for the 1200K. (Yes, I have already loaded up the route into 3 segments), and I may only charge the Garmin during the day from my E-Werks charger. Again, much of my second year is still about learning and gearing up for the June ride.

I feel that my training has gone well, although I probably need to get some weight off in the final weeks, as I feel that I have slipped a little of late.

I still do not attempt to take any pictures during these rides for some reason, but I am going to paste a link from a fellow N.J. Randonneur Shane Beak, who I rode with all day on the event, and is not only a real strong rider, but very adept at taking pictures all day. This is a slide show that he entered on the PA Randonneur message board.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/45325491@N05/sets/72157626621083498/show/


Thanks for reading, and until the next time, "Keep on Truckin"