Greg Olmstead's 2008 Flèche Ride Report

The flèche is a different sort of ride, so as I went in to it I was a little unsure about the best way to proceed. I'm usually a pretty slow rider, so the idea of taking a full 24 hours to ride 360km is not so alien to me. Last year I rode a 400km in 22 hours. But the additional rules of not stopping for more than 2 hours at any location, the prospect of staying together with much faster riders, and avoiding other teams and other riders had me a little off balance.

The planning took a long time because I would read the rules, make some interpretation (not always a correct one) about what that rule meant, then plan a route. When I realized that my rules interpretation was wrong, I would have to adjust the route accordingly. After everything settled down, our route had us starting in Goleta, CA, and hugging the coast southward to the finish in Oceanside.

Originally, I asked Wade Baker, Isabelle Drake, Tim Sullivan, and Dennis Stryker to join the team. Wade was involved in a cycling accident and had to bow out, and Ron Smith agreed to replace him. Then a month or so before the ride, I discovered that Ron's recumbent would have to be checked as luggage on the Amtrak train. That wasn't what Ron wanted to do, so he joined a team that was taking a local start, and Wade had recuperated enough to rejoin the team in Ron's place. I have a newfound respect for RBAs with all the logistics they must go through to host a brevet.

Tim, Dennis, and I boarded the Amtrak train in San Diego, headed north for Goleta; Isabelle drove to the Oceanside train station and joined us en route; and Wade drove south from his house to Goleta to meet us. We had a team meeting after dinner on Friday to talk about the ride to make sure we were all on the same page on how to get through the ride successfully, and make a few introductions.

All week, leading up to the ride, the weather reports were for clear skies, highs in the mid 70s and lows in the low 50s. That had me packing one way for the trip. As the start drew nearer, the lows started looking like high 40s and the chances of rain went from 0 to 20%. That had me packing another way. In any case, I ended up overpacking and when we left Saturday morning, I was ready for any weather.

As we headed south it stayed sunny and cool. Strangely, as the day went on, it got colder and colder. A marine layer set in and it was about noon that we stopped to put on knee warmers, arm warmers, etc. As we were heading to Malibu, I could see that is was sunny down south, so as we kept riding the warmers started to come off.

We stopped at a Starbuck's in Malibu, for our first control and met another team. Some of the riders on their team were old friends with some of our team, so we caught up and then had to head out.

At the Malibu Control. l-r: Dennis, Wade, Isabelle, Tim, Greg (photo by Greg Jones)

There is a stretch of road between Malibu and Santa Monica that is not very bike friendly. A couple feet off to your right, cars are parked on the shoulder and in driveways, and a couple feet to your left are cars driving way too fast. From time to time a parked car will try to merge into traffic with little warning, crossing your path, and sometimes fast-moving cars come to a sudden stop to take a coveted parking space. The best way to deal with this is to ride slowly to be able to react to these sudden changes. A couple cars backed up into the bike lane, but it turned out to not be too big of a deal.

We made it safely though this stretch, and jumped on a bike path that went from Santa Monica to Marina Del Rey. The path was great because we saw so many local characters. There was a bongo drum bonanza in Venice Beach, weight lifters, rollerbladers, beach cruisers, a tunnel under the Santa Monica Pier, models doing photo shoots. Tons of people. We had to slow down to about 8 mph, so we ended up giving up some of the time we had banked up to that point. From there it was a series of low-key coastal communities, through Palos Verdes and on to Long Beach.

As we approached Long Beach, we got on Pacific Coast Highway, which has hugely different personalities, depending on where you are. Our route sheet read: Turn right on PCH and ride 52 miles to Las Pulgas Road. Those 52 miles take you though dodgy neighborhoods, freeway cloverleafs, refinery traffic, port traffic, exclusive enclaves, tony bars and clubs, oceanfront mansions, and so on. We decided to get through Long Beach and look for a place to eat. We had about 2.5 hours in the bank and it was about 9:00. We found a restaurant at 9:20pm that was open until 11 and would have something for everyone to eat. We put our bikes on the patio and went inside. We ordered, and after a while the team started to quiet down. The restaurant was kind of casual, but was it casual enough to tolerate 5 bike riders sleeping at a table? Only one way to find out. The room we were in was mostly empty, and the waitress was nice enough and didn't seem to care we were nodding off. I put my head on my arm, on the table, and had a power nap. Visions of PBP. Everyone was pretty much ready to go at 11:00, and staying longer seemed like it was counterproductive - getting on a bike would be more recuperative than sitting down with eyes closed. So away we went.

The next stop was going to be San Clemente, about 35 miles south. I had always seen 24 hour restaurants while driving on I-5 through San Clemente, but never took the time to see if these restaurants were on PCH. They weren't, as it turned out. So, what promised to be another place to sit and eat turned out to be a desolate town to ride through at 2:30am. The next place that might have a diner was 20 more miles south. With nothing else to do and no other place else to go, we pressed on.

We rode fairly slowly through the state park south of San Clemente, and got to the onramp for I-5. This freeway is one where you want to get through as fast as you can. We agreed that we wouldn't draft each other so that everyone could have a clear look at the road for debris, and then set out in intervals, like a time trial. I carried my MOAB light for 185 miles just for this 7 mile stretch of road. I wanted to be able to see any debris that was out there to avoid a flat on I-5. It happened to me on last year's 600km and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. During my short stay on I-5 I saw a stiletto heel, wire, car parts, and so on, but the shoulder was mostly clean. No mattresses, pallets, chunks of tires, etc. Happily, everyone got through safely.

We got to a restaurant at about 4:30am, or so, stored our bikes inside, ordered breakfast, then slept until the food arrived. Sleeping techniques ranged from sitting with eyes closed, resting head in hands, heads on table top, and stretching out on a booth bench. We rested there until about 5:45 then pressed on.

The last bit of the ride had us doing a series of long rolling hills for about 6 miles, then smaller hills and flats for 10 more miles until the 22 hour control. We were closing in on this control with a little time to spare, so we pulled into a Starbuck's for a warm drink. As soon as I sat down with my cocoa, I could feel my body starting to settle into nap mode. Dennis and I thought it best to keep moving, even if only slowly, instead of drifting off further. We went ahead and Wade, Isabelle, and Tim followed 10 minutes later to meet us at the 22 hour control. After that, we pedaled easily to the finish to wrap things up right on time.

Once we got to the finish, we had some chocolate chip cookies, said hi to a couple other riders, and then all kind of scattered. Isabelle and Wade headed to the Amtrak Station, Tim rode his bike home, and Dennis and I got a ride home from my wife.

Looking back, I'm really pleased with the team I rode with. I was a little nervous initially about having teammates so much faster than me, but it wasn't a problem at all. That's because the four other riders are helpful, gracious, amenable, knowledgeable, cooperative and friendly. It sounds like a Boy Scout oath, but that's who Dennis, Tim, Wade, and Isabelle are. They made the fleche a great experience.