Short version for now: despite deciding at the last minute to buddy with another rider, and having to wait up for him a bit, I beat the sunrise by about 18 minutes, setting a fourth consecutive course record with a 5:15 actual wall time (previously a 5:45), and could still top that next year if I go solo and train for it.
Details at 11
For those who like ride stories, the detailed version.
I drove out to the place where I traditionally post a
smilie-face tear-off poster, and stuck it to the gate with magnets. Then I drove to where I was going to leave a couple bottles of Gatorade for pickup. Then I drove back home. It was still a couple hours to go, so I paced around and thought about my strategy: go particularly hard on the big climbs, then slam some energy gel on the descents to restore my quick energy reserves before the next climb.
It was finally time to go, so I rode to the start, said hi to a bunch of people (there were nearly 50 riders this year!), fixed one guy's front derailleur, sneaked over to the city park to take a leak, and then came back to wait for 11:59PM.
At 11:59PM, I took off (this cueing everyone else it was time to go). The first mile is through downtown, so it was stop-&-go at the stoplights. Then we go through the breezeway of the Spokane Convention Center to get onto the Centennial Trail. SURPRISE! A concert had just ended, and the breezeway was swarming with people. I jumped off and threaded my way through the crowd at a brisk walk.
Well, there goes a minute I won't get back
So then I started blasting east on the Centennial Trail, which starts as a bike path and then as a bike lane on an arterial. I had a couple riders in tow, including a guy I'd decided at the last minute to buddy-system with. He'd never done the route, and is fast enough to at least hang in my draft, so we were going to see if it worked out.
A few other riders managed to get up to us. Now we had six guys and were going even faster. I saw my hopes of a fourth consecutive course record dimming if they all stayed with me, but you never know who's planning to do the full route and who's not. I contributed several lengthy pulls at the front to keep the pace up and no one was showing signs of breaking yet.
We got to Idaho and turned south towards the first gravel roads and the first major climb. My buddy took the lead on the climb and I followed. The other three from our group of six began to spread out. AHA, I HAVE DISCOVERED THEIR WEAKNESS :sneaky: Over the top, me and my buddy got up to speed quickly and gapped the followers. Only one bridged back up, and it turned out he was only looking to do 1/3 of the route on his way home. All of a sudden my course-record hopes were much stronger.
Up the next ascent, I kept the pace down a little so we didn't lose the guy who'd bridged... an extra "engine" would be handy on the flats coming up. But he was running out of steam. When we did hit the flats, I got on the front and pulled. Dude #3 peeled off, and then it was just me and my buddy for the last 2/3 of the course.
I was starting to hit my stride and also knew the course really well, so it was slightly frustrating that my buddy wasn't descending very fast (his lights weren't that powerful, but gravel road isn't exactly treacherous either). But I wasn't going to leave him if I could hit my pre-sunrise target, so I spent the rest of the ride somewhat restrained. On the last 25 miles, which are paved, I was probably running 1-2mph below my potential to avoid dropping him from my draft... he's a good endurance racer, but I have a higher power ceiling.
We finished at 5:14AM, for an elapsed time of 5:15. The next finishers came in 33 minutes later, close to my previous course record. My actual riding time this year was only about 12 minutes better than last year, but I had literally just one stop this year, taking a leak and grabbing my stashed waterbottles at about mile 64.
Stats from the ride:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/206831863
http://app.strava.com/rides/16639523