Utah Ulcer Century Ride
by Franz Kelsch
Franz and Ann finished the 111 mile Ulcer Century today.  This century is put on by the Bonneville Bicycle Club starting at Thanksgiving Point and going around Utah Lake. It is a very big event with a lot of riders. Unlike the Tierra Bella, it is rather flat but fast. It has a team time trial option for those teams that want to compete. The teams that were doing the team time trial went off at 7:20 AM and we left soon after that. Unlike last year, this year we saw a lot of riders go down. One rider was down at mile 5 as we passed by.
We initially stayed in a big pack and found it took a lot of concentration because some of the riders were less than experienced riding in a pace line than they should be for those 24 mph speeds we were going. One of the riders to the right of us hit a cone in the road when going through a round about and swerved to the right nearly going down and taking the rider to his right down too. It is a good thing that we left some extra distance and stayed on the side of the pack because at about mile 20, several riders went down at the front of the peleton we were in. We heard later that the front rider thought there was a right turn but then then suddenly corrected himself to go straight and someone touched a wheel.
We had enough of that so we decided to only pull, ride by ourselves or draft with a small group. We started to pass a lot of riders, including the teams and a large peloton formed behind us. We kept pulling for many miles until the rollers convinced us to slow the pace down and the riders went ahead. We saw a couple more riders who had gone down as we passed by. A bit scary.
Our first 62 miles was faster than last year, averaging over 22 mph hour up to the lunch stop. I think we went out too fast because we had to slow the pace after lunch, but still finished with a total time of 5:52, so we met our goal of doing it under 6 hours. We arrived at the finish line at 1:14 pm, compared with 1:37 pm last year. Ann had some cramping starting at around mile 70, but she kept working through it.
Franz’s average heart rate of 148 was significantly lower than last year;s 155, showing that Ann had really improved.
This table shows a comparision with last year.
Ulcer Century |
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Distance: 110 miles, Climb: 1,320 feet
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Date
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Start
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Finish
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Total
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Avg. Speed
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Max HR
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Avg HR
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8/09/08
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7:22 am
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1:14 pm
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5:52
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20.3
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167
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148
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8/11/07
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7:26 am
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1:37 pm
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6:13
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20.7
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176
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155
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Aug 13th 2008
>We saw a couple more riders who had gone down as we passed by. A bit scary.
Reminds me of the Cinderella event in Pleasanton last spring. There were riders four or five abreast going at slow speeds and tending to wobble into each other. Someone ran into me from behind at a traffic light, and I saw an ambulance surrounded by a large crowd at the side of the road only about half an hour into the ride. While I enjoyed parts of the Cinderella event, I found it overall to be unacceptably dangerous. Patrice’s recent experience on Tunitas shows that group rides really can create a hazard. Unsafe group rides inspire the kind of new rule that Alameda County (home of the Cinderella) are considering.