A small group of team members met up for a quick bite before taking on the “Full Monty” of the 160 miles. Eric Brandt, Al Krueger, Freddy Derocher (Boneride Rookie), and myself drinking some coffee and having a Sunrise Bun at Collectivo.
Off to Tom Schuler’s a couple of blocks away for the pre-ride pep talk and instructions. Seemed like a smaller group than previous years. $10.00 donation for the Bike Fed and Sag Support and we saddled up and rolled out as a group. Delfino Parra from the team joined us from Schuler’s.
On the way out and about 15 miles in, we picked up the group at Attitude Sports in Pewaukee which included teammates John Grisa, and Kevin Kronschabl. Once the groups got back up to speed the KS Energy guys took the lead at the front and split the groups to give traffic some room to maneuver around us. We lost Eric and Freddy for a while due a nature break and John got to spend some time in the Sag Wagon due to a broken pedal.
Dave Eckel hooked up with us somewhere out by Nashota. Besides one more team nature break outside of Lake Mills (Huge thanks to Julian Kegal from Wheel & Spocket for the Motorpace back to the group) the ride into Madison was uneventful. Just the way it should be, set the speed around 21 and ride……
However, I think we hit every light on the way into Madison. And there are a lot of lights on the way into Madison!!
alf the group was off to Noodles and the other half was off to Chipotle for lunch. This is always one of the best burritos of the year. Look at the faces on the burrito group ….. do you think we are enjoying the day?? Photo credit to random “Megan” on State Street.
The group met up at the Park at 1:15 for a quick team picture and we were back on our way home. Now the games begin!
The pace out of town is always a little crazy once you make it to Cottage Grove. Several times I looked at my Garmin to see speeds in the 30+ range coming out of town. A picture of the final selection coming up Gebhardt later in the day shows the carnage. Yep, that is Freddy at the front and Al doing his work in the final selection of 9. Impressive ride guys, impressive ride!
I have done the Bone enough times to know that this is not the ride to be a hero, so about 20 miles outside of Madison I dropped back knowing there was no way I was going to hold that pace for 60 more miles. I hooked up with three other guys and we started a rotating paceline. We slowly picked up riders one-by-one that were getting popped off the front group. Over the course of the next 50 miles our group grew from 3 to 25+. Lots of props and thanks from the guys in this group for the road organization that the team put out to get this group working and stay working all the way home. However, as you can see below. We did spend a lot of time at the front.
Dropped off Dave on the way into town in Nashota (thanks for the bottle!) and dropped off John and Kevin in Pewaukee. We ended up with just four for the final miles back to Tosa. Word is that Del fell out of the front group late in the day but was never caught by the 2nd group. He pulled to Schuler’s about 5 minutes after the first group landed. I ended up just tempo riding the rest of the way home with Eric and according to computers about 10 minutes after the lead group.
The Boneride is always an Epic day that cannot be fully described without experiencing it. You learn how your shoes fit, how good your bike fit really is, which leg muscles you are overusing, how important chamois cream is, how your body responds to an 8 hour workout, etc. It also truly gives you an appreciation when watching the Spring Classics. If you have never done it, put it on the bucket list.
I ride with this note on my stem for Crit racing. It certainly applied to Bone Ride also.
Huge shout out to KS Energy Services, Midwest Orthopedic Specialty Hospital, Emery’s, TREK, Country Financial, CLiF bars, and Hincapie for the support this season.
Some numbers from the day:
- 7:57 moving time
- 159.6 miles
- 4550 calories
- 203 Normalized watts
- 486.5 TSS