MS150 day one

Having been much lighter on the mileage (and suprisingly enough on the scale too??) for most of the past month, I was looking forward to the MS150 and getting to Cedar Point early so that we would be able to head out in time to see my mom and her new 'puppy' at my grandpa's (where we would be spending the night).

Got up at the butt-crack of dawn and got to the Berea fairgrounds JUST in time to make the 6:30am picture, which was fortunately at like 6:45am... Doned the new Cleveland Clinic Team Mellen jersey, which looks GREAT. It's made by Voler (www.voler.com) who also makes our racing kit. The new jerseys look a little like the Discovery Team's.

Still running behind, we missed the sendoff when Team Mellen got to leave early. When we rode out at 7:30am sharp there were 3 other guys from our team who missed the initial wave. It was a little congested as we were leaving Berea - one of the reasons for wanting to take off early. We had to be very cautious working our way past slower riders who were sometimes riding 4-5 abreast... Turns out that the 3 guys from Team Mellen were very good riders, even though they were new. (It was the first organized ride for one of them).

We were starting to make good time when we came across an injured rider. We stopped briefly as many other people did, but aid had already been called for and was en route. Not wanting to be part of a 1,000+ rider bottleneck, we continued on and signaled to approaching motorists to slow down & proceed with caution.

Soon after catching back up to Zack, Greg, and Jason, yours truly had a flat tire. Trying to squeeze 150mi out of a badly worn 175gr race tire ended up costing Rick and I 8minutes while I put on a new tube and a less worn tire. We didn't see the other 3 from our original pace line until we were in the cafeteria for our lunch rest stop.
Once we got past the congestion and were warmed up after lunch, it was back to our quick pace. My HR strap wasn't working at the start of the ride, so data from the beginning is a little sketchy (in addition to the 2 stops). For the 22.8mi leading up to lunch, Rick and I averaged 20.6mph. For the remaining 41.5mi we stayed consistent and would end up averaging 20.5mph. HR data was consistent as well with 177bpm leading in and 178bpm average after lunch.

We would have really arrived early except that Rick had a spoke break a few miles before the last rest stop. He had to fully release his rear brake to keep it from rubbing. At the stop the mech from Eddy's was great. He just wrapped the end of the broken spoke around another spoke and tightened the neighboring spokes and the wheel was almost perfectly true. Pics can be found on Rick's blog here: http://inquintessence1.blogspot.com/
Professional photos can be found and purchased here: http://kmorris.exposuremanager.com/p/85/p2p_035837

Once in Sandusky, we parked the bikes, cleaned up, ate until we could eat no more, and headed to Cedar Point. We made good use of our limited time by riding some of the 'classic' rides like the Demon Drop which had 15min or shorter waits.

Caught a bus back to Sandusky High School where my grandpa graciously picked us up. Made it to his place just in time to meet Kayla for the first time.


Too bad they don't make a 'green eye' reduction feature for dogs...