Well, it is finally time to ride this year's edition of the Hill Country Randonneurs 1000K Burnet New Braunfels Burton. This ride is a challenge. I rode the first edition of it (back when it was called BKB for Burnet Kendalia Burton). The original version was designed by Jim Bronson and was very beautiful but also very challenging due to the day 2 route out to Kendalia. Many of the roads on that original day 2 were rough and hilly. This meant you would be challenged to finish with enough time for sleep. In addition to the tough hilly roads, there was also a river crossing where shoes and socks might be removed and bikes hoisted to avoid damage to bottom brackets.
Above, you see Jeff modeling one way to traverse the Blanco River crossing. He had clean dry socks in his bag to change into.
The original BKB also tentatively required help from volunteers. Due to the controls and services not guaranteed to be open, there was the need for a volunteer to man a cooler at the Dripping Springs control and be the witness to sign cards (back when cards were a thing).
Wind the clock forward to 2018. After Jeff and I were the only 2 riders to finish BKB in 2016, we opted to revamp the ride and try to make day 2 a bit less challenging to attract more riders and hopefully avoid the need for any volunteers.
In 2016, we started with 3 riders, but we lost stalwart rider Gary G on Day 1 due to stomach issues. That left Jeff and I as the only riders left to complete the ride. Even in 2015, the ride had 5 DNFs which is a testament to its difficulty.
So with the this data in mind, we went to the drawing board and decided to revamp day 2 by replacing it with a 300K called How Gruene Was My Valley. This 300K had been created using part of the Texas Stampede 1200K route and featured climbing, scenery along the river heading to Gruene, and then an easy finish back from New Braunfels. The climbing in day 2 is primarily in the first half so that you get that part done while you are fresh and then you hopefully enjoy the last half with a better than even chance of getting a central Texas SSE tailwind to help push you home.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/35258839
The changed route seems to be working out well as we have now had 2 successful brevets with the modifications. Last year (2020) would have been the 3rd, but COVID-19 and the pandemic put that brevet on ice.
Now for some Garmin history on Day 1. Here are my results to analyze:
I also want to point out that the time for 2015 is not to be believed for me. It was back before I re-programmed my Garmin to not auto-stop. So that result represents a moving average and moving time. My guess is that you add 2 - 3 hours to that to get the real finish time. The 2018/2019 are more what I expect to see when using the Garmin in rando mode.
For 2021, my fitness level feels adequate. I rode a 400K two weeks ago which took just over 24 hours to finish (you can see my write up about that in the previous blog post) My asthma was a bad problem for that ride and I didn't start feeling good until late in the ride when I could breathe without wheezing. Last weekend, I met Jeff and we did a tune up 100K on a hilly route we ride frequently here in Austin (Meander to Leander). It features 3500 ft of climbing including Mount Bonnell, Scotland Well, and Far West climbs. I felt pretty good on this 100K and my asthma didn't trigger at all.
This year will be my first year to not use the hotel as my staging area for the ride. Normally, I would check in to the hotel used as the ride start and just stay there the whole weekend. This time, I plan to drive to and from the start each day from my house. With COVID-19, I am taking no chances with my health and asthma. I have received my first dose of the Moderna vaccine 2 weeks ago so that is reassuring, but I don't want to take any unnecessary risks so I will drive my bike to and from the ride start each day. This will eat into my sleep time, but it is a price I will pay for safety
Jeff and I have done a lot of work to improve the RWGPS files and cue sheets for this year's ride. We brought the RWGPS files up to perm standards so that there are cues for every control and details in the RWGPS notes about each control. We then printed these cue sheets and Jeff made some additional notes for the Excel versions. We always find things we want to improve so this is an ongoing process every year as we learn things that should do to make the route better and better.
A part of me will always miss the "slime bridge". I only had to traverse that once, and it was memorable.