Oct 27, 2025
The 48-hour race is a bit over a week ago and here some info's about the preparation and in next posts about the race itself.
My complete planning went overboard already 3 weeks before the race due to a car accident putting my van-based RV out of service, and I had to switch to my Pacifica to live and work out of the Pacifica for about 3 weeks. It was a bit of a mental and organizational challenge plus the accident left some scars ... seat belt and airbag caused some bruises on chest and shoulder. But that's complaining at high level.
So I had a cool time with training starting at campground near race start. Used that the last two years and love the location. Big surprise ... 2023 and 2024 I had no issue on race route while this year ... first weekend test rides a big white dog had close interest and on second lap a small terrier type dog joined in. No big deal and Carol and Rich spoke to the owners and ... dogs never showed again. However, around mile 10 of race route starting Tuesday there was another dog. First one ... on Tuesday and Wednesday not was 3 dogs and the lead dog was getting close than I liked. sadly ... even at speed around 25 mph the lead dog closed in. I was able to get it off with water bottle. I know Carol and Rich had a talk with them as well and all cool until .. Saturday. 3 laps and the bigger lead dog was way to close for my liking. He was about an inch from the left leg. Did another test ride on Sunday in the storm and could not go fast ... now the bad part happened. Dog had the chance and used it and ... did bite me in the left food. I was able to manage the bike but that was unexpected since I know they love to chase but that the dog would bite was not expected. Had a discussion with owners the day after it since I could not get them on same day. Good news .. they kept the dogs under control. Bad news ... even no flesh would but it left some scars to me and was a bit unexpected preparation for the race.
I admit after the dog bite and the test rides as tapering rides before race start on Friday made me seriously think to withdraw from the race this year and go back home. But people who know me also know I normally do not give up easy. ... So, I decided to adjust my target distance (to about 600 miles) and see how I may do in the race while still doing it. So, I moved the car to race start on Thursday Noon and prepared most stuff for the race. Biggest fear in the race at that time was to manage nutrition, water refills and mostly headlights for the nighttime and sure enough weather changed to better but was supposed to be chilly on Friday night so had to prepare stuff in the car for it.
Oct 20, 2025
Got back home and found the new ilInfinity seat. So will start working on seat for one bike this week and trai. With it for my November attempts. Very excited … rhanks to infinity that I could preorder one and even more to have it now. Have two November activities to use it #infinitybikeseat #ingolf676
Sep 25, 2025
The-508 Race Report - 2 The race had 4 loops with start/end in Borrego Springs. 205/138/113 and 52 miles (330/222/182 and 84 km) with 16,431/7,197/10,715/4,568 ft (5008/2194/3266 and 1392 meter) elevation gain making loops 1 and 3 the strongest for climbing. I tried to adjust to heat a but before the race, but the unexpected rain system changed the process adopting to heat. Plan was in first loop to see that I can make good ground and have one stop for refueling. Loop 2 would be during nighttime and should be possible also with one stop while loop 3 was unknown how to refuel ad loop 4 should not require a stop. Main fuel was two bottles of water mixed with Hammer Pereptuem for carbs. After every loop plan was to get my bottles refilled and have some food. Critical for first loop was to make sure I have backup of lights if needed and enough tubes in case of a flat. So, I did take 3 spare tubes, CO2 cartridges and a tiny electric pump. For lights I did mount 3 taillights to run 2 in parallel (experience is to be visible for traffic from behind) and 3 head lights. Two for daytime and one for dark (a bit brighter). With crew it’s all no issue but without a backup is needed for safety reasons. A plan is always great before the race, and I admit I have not done self-supported in that type of heat with the amount of elevation gain. I checked the climbing required and tried to see when it’s best to refuel. But that was a bit of a gamble. So, taking off we had to watch out for issues with sand on road and one spot of water on the road. I almost lost the bike on sand shortly after taking off. The amount of sand was simply not visible with my headlight, and I was on bike lane at the time. Main lane would have been cleaner. Was able to catch it but had chain jump off so had to let the one person behind me pass me for the moment fixing the chain issue. A few miles after start we had the first challenge with climbing the ‘glass elevator’ a 12-mile (19 km) around 4k ft (1.2k m) climb. Knowing the climb, I was able to do ok and kept passing a few other cyclists. I knew after that climb I could relax a bit and recover in the descents. That part worked out just fine. I kept going and found a decent pace to keep pushing. But as plans go overboard easy … I start running into hydration issues when sun came out and I learned that I judged the dry heat wrong. I am used to humid hot conditions and dry hot conditions simply is a different situation. So I had to look for refueling much sooner than planned. First stop was around mile 80. Stopped at a gas station and had a soda and refilled water. Unfortunate I had to switch to more start chewing Perpetuem tabs for cabs and refill just water. I did ask for banana as option but …. At all gas stations during the race only one had a banana. Did not expect that so food was an issue since I did count on bananas as one option. Again … planning is cool until first change is required … I do not remember exact spot any longer but around mile 110-120n I think number 508 (Joey Ducut) came next to me and mentioned we seem to have a similar pace. Impressive cyclist … I thought of trying to stay somehow together but besides we have to go solo anyway I let drop back and knew I better let him go and use my own pace. I did have to have 2 more stops for refueling. So instead of one stop I ended up having 3. That did cost extra 20-30 minutes and was not planned for. So from my initial idea to finish top 3 I decided to focus on just finishing the race. It’s more critical to adjust goals in a race instead of going for overdoing it and end up with a DNF. The rest of loop 1 was uneventful. I made it back over 30 minutes later than initially planned. At end I did see two racers coming towards me with them have just taken off.
Sep 24, 2025
The-508 Race Report - 1 Overall, a race of over 508 miles (818 km) with about 39,000ft (11600 meter) of elevation gain. At new location back in California. Why did I sign up for it? Very simple I had a DNF in 2023 at the other location due to hypothermia. So, I do not like a race that I have not finished. Since I have no longer crew-support I thought it was great to sneak in this race in my race schedule. I participated in the Self-Supported racer group. Was surprised to see quite a few self-supporting racers and was happy about that. Its great people do self-supported racing even its much harder compared to using a support crew. One thing upfront … there have been overall 26 Relay Team and Solo racers and like RAAM we had only 50% finishers in the race. That’s amazing and shows how hard the race is. What was my goal this time? Only crossing finish line. So, I decided to stick with strategy to race only against myself and not worry about competition. A strategy that worked decently well the last month too. I did show up the race location 5 days before the race. It helped me test some of the loops starting miles to get a general feel for them. And I was able to adjust a bit to local climate. Did go through the different layouts of the loops a few times to come up with my personal race strategy. I assume at the end it paid off. One thing I learned doing self-supported racing only … plan a strategy and try to stick to it. OK some minor situation related adjustments maybe required as I learned also in the-508 race but it should not kill power too much.
Sep 02, 2025
Endurance training on last two days in August. Ok … not the regular type of training and no I do not recommend others to copy that type of training… every coach would tell me its not smart and they would be correct. Why did I still do that? Because I had fun and simply enjoyed getting to the limits plus there are a few things I focused on to improve them. Therefore from Friday to Saturday I had a cool night ride with total over 245 miles and Sunday morning a second ride mostly at night time with a bit over 130 miles. Saturday I had lots of fun also because I joined Jeff Dudley on his Century ride. Yes .. temperature went up high and we had to suffer in the heat. But we had a successful ride without issues. Sunday I noticed I was fatigued and had a tough time at most of my ride. So I used parts of it for active recovery to see how I can turn it around again. Was a cool experience and made sure I only stayed in the Easy Sunday Morning Group Ride for 20 miles. Good thing even the last part I was able to push again on solo riding. Very cool me to prepare for future longer distance rides.
