Mission Statement

The 24 hour VeloVulture is committed to bringing you 86400 seconds of mental anguish followed by a lingering physical exhaustion of caloric deficit and sleep deprivation during the 5th and 6th of September. This all we will trade for the small price of gathering the best stories, memories and pictures you are likely to acquire during the summer of '09.

UPDATE: We just set up a collective album on Picassa. Send an email to 24hourvelovulture2009@gmail.com and we'll give you permission to contribute to it. And if you have your own photo page we can put a link up to that too.


Sunday, September 20, 2009

Han Solo Ride Report

Velo Vulture Ride/Race Report – Team Han Solo

I was supposed to go camping this past Labor Day weekend, but lackluster weather cancelled that. Then I ran into Damien (founder and former organizer) who reminded me that this was happening. I spent 24hours trying to find a partner, then went to the start where my two leads and hope of maybe another last minute wayward rider dead ended. I’m there, I am determined and the organizers let me in. So I became the first participant to attempt a solo run, Team Han Solo.

The Velo Vulture is a 24hour race/scavenger hunt. It’s impossible to do everything, its 24hours long, and if you like frustration, physical agony, exhaustion, all while keeping your mental facilities intact, this is something you would enjoy. The endeavor is for those who are serious about it because to finish is a formidable task.

The event was organized grassroots and very well done. They did a lot of preparation and it showed. In a nutshell you can expect the following, “Here are the rules. Here is your manifest of tasks. Here is a phone number, just in case. Prizes for the winners will be at the end. See you in 24hours. Go.”

There were 137 manifest tasks: questions that need answers, objects to find, pictures to take, rubbings to make, and some bonus stuff. They ranged from Kelly Point, to the Gorge, to the West Slope, to the deep, deep, Southeast and everything in between. The fun part, figure out how to fit an impossible amount of things to do into a finite amount of time and deal with setbacks. Finally, my professional work life has meaning.

The tasks are developed by people who ride/commute/work by bike and are uniquely challenging from that perspective, the saddle. It was great to go to a place I have been by or to a hundred times, but now it was unique and interesting. There was also a number of very cool and interesting “landmarks” that are usually just a part of the background. I also visited a number of places that I have never been to, also refreshing.

Frustrating too, since you had to get into the heads of the organizers to figure out what they are cryptically referring to. The longest time I spent in one location looking for someone was nearly 90min. There are about a dozen tasks still heckling at me that I need an answer to.

Without giving too much of the race specfics away (someone is a future competitor), this is some of what I did: Rode up Saltzman road (twice), fought headwinds on Portland Dr, searched for a vent in Hollywood only to be thwarted, looked for something fishy in Ladd’s edition, ran across the St. Johns bridge, (damn flat tires), bit it on some RR tracks in the industrial NW, by chance found a statue without knowing I was looking for it, the sticker ball (estimated weight at 80lbs), and finally found a great new view of the Fremont Bridge.
But I ran this solo, everyone else was paired up totaling 29 other teams. To earn points, I had the same challenges as any other rider and I did well compared to the top teams. Winning team split score was 1300, mine was 1190. Being solo did have the following disadvantages to fully enjoying the race.

It was nearly impossible to make many of the group checkpoints. They are not mandatory; it would have been fun to meet up with the other riders.
Having someone else would have saved time in keeping organized all the materials collected and preparing them for submission.
Sometimes two half working brains are better than one.
Having a buddy would have been advantageous when out in the middle of the night being “suspicious” in some neighborhood searching with a flashlight for something your not even sure about what you are looking for.
A teammate would have prevented me from sleeping through my alarm. My two hour nap turned into a full night’s sleep of six hours. In the end extra sleep did not hurt me too much, just a little.
I had a 3 hour mechanical breakdown, which did prevent me from working for points. If I had a teammate, they could have helped and reduced that time or kept working.
Finally, drafting, hard to do that solo.
Overall this ride is more accessible than other “niche” events within the Portland bike culture scenes. It is true that 90% of the people racing would fall into some variety of the “messenger scene”, but this is not a “messenger race”. The true bar isn’t in how cool your bike is, how ridiculous your pre-pubescent mustache is (Ladies, really? Really?), or the cubic capacity of your bag, but the difficulty of the task. This difficulty is there to weed out the weak and if your not going to try to finish, its not worth showing up.

See you next year.
Race Stats for Team Han Solo
Points

Manifest (Pts) 137, attempted 57 or 42%

Total Pts (approx) 6344

Attempted 2047 or 32%

Awarded: 1190 or 58%
Race Stats

Race Time (Sec): 86,400

Race Distance (KM): 150.55

Race Distance (MI): 93.55

Time in Saddle (Sec): 32,100

Time Searching (Sec): 34,500

Total Time Racing (Sec): 66,600

Time Sleeping (Sec): 19,800

Other Stats

Total Flat Tires: 3

Punctures: 2

Ripped value stem (d'oh): 1

Crashes: 1

Miles Run: 4

Caffeinated Drinks: 1

Hours in Chamois: 18

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