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Come this October (2006) one of my more masochistic buddies is going to subject himself to a 508 mile bike race through the Southern California desert. Behold the glory that is The Furnace Creek 508.
I've agreed to be on his crew, and this is my blog about the whole experience. So far I know that he has officially entered, I know the race is 508 miles long, and I know that our totem is 'Wookie', which is extra sweet.
I don't think there will be many updates leading up to the race, and probably just one big one after it's over, but feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed by clicking on the link to the left.
Kelso
Stage six in The 508 ends in Kelso, CA. Can you believe that I've actually been through Kelso? Look for it on a map. There's nothing within 50 miles of there. I decided one time to take the scenic route on the way back from Vegas, and this is where I ended up.
Kelso is basically the remnants of a ghost town. I believe there was a phone on the street there, and a little general store that may not have been open in 50 years. It was hard to tell.
This picture is looking roughly south. The street in the background is Kilbaker, which you ride in on just before you cross Kelso Cima road to get to Checkpoint 6.
Google Earth Route Map!
As my little gift to 'the community' I took some time and drew the route for The 508 on Google Earth. I had purchased Google Earth Plus some months ago to play around with but this gave me a good excuse to do something 'real' with it. I think it turned out pretty well.
If you don't have Google Earth, download it. Install it. Play with it. Love it. It's actually pretty cool. Once you load the map file in you can do flyovers of the route and individual stages, find checkpoints and best of all observe the terrain. The elevation reporting and mountains look to be pretty accurate to me, but what do I know?
Tip: In Google Earth, adjust your 'driving directions' settings to see the route faster and closer. Here's what I used:
Camera Tilt Angle: 80 degrees
Camera Range: 1000 meters
Speed: About in the middle
Windows users can set these by going to the Tools -> Options menu, selecting the Control tab and clicking the 'Advanced' checkbox. Mac users can look under the Preferences menu to find these settings.
Download the file here.
If your browser does not load the file automatically (after you download and install Google Earth) Windows users can right click on the link and select "Save As ..." to download the file manually. Mac users can control click the link to download the file.
Helpful hints:
1. The first time you load the file in Google Earth it will be listed under 'Temporary Places'. Drag it up to 'My Places' to make it a permanent entry on your Places list. Subsequently you only have to open Google Earth and it will be there. If you double (or single for Macs) click on it a second time, it may show up in both My Places and Temporary Places, which will result in all the Time Checks and other labels being listed twice on the map. If this happens, just delete The 508 from Temporary Places and remember that you don't have to double click on the file each time you want to see it.
2. You will notice that there are two folders in the listing under 'The 508' once you open the file in Google Earth: Stages and Continuous. Stages has the route broken up with breaks between the stages. This way you can click on one stage at a time and play the 'tour/flyover' for just that stage. 'Continuous' traces the route of the entire race in one long piece so you can fly over the entire race at one time, watching the time stations pass by as you go. Click on the 'Entire Race' entry in your Places list then hit the play button to follow the entire race route in one shot. Also note that if you have both the stages and continuous folders checked, all the labels for the route will show up twice because you are effectively drawing both routes on the map at the same time. Turn one of the routes off so it doesn't look so cluttered.
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Lastly, I used a combination of the Linux and Windows versions to map out various stages in this map. I notice that when I flip back and forth between the two versions the checkpoints sometimes jump around. It should still be obvious where the break in the route is, though, which is where the checkpoint should be placed.
If you find any inaccuracies or mistakes on the map, please do not hesitate to E-mail me using the link to the left! Thanks!
Road Trip!
This coming weekend I'm going to spend a day (hopefully not more!) driving the course to get familiar with it. Google Earth can only do so much! I'm hoping to get some good pictures, get a feel for where the temperature gets hot or cold, etc.
My used '93 Isuzu Rodeo came with a digital thermometer thrown on the floor of the cab. I've never used it but I've kept it in the truck for two years. I decided to break it out the other night on the way home from playing hockey. It has a wire so you can hang it out your window and get inside and outside temperatures at the same time.
So after driving home with it hanging out the window I stopped by the bank to see what the temperature was. By the way, when did banks become the authority on the temperature? What makes banks uniquely qualified to report the weather? Or even the time? Who cares what time it is when the bank is closed?
The bank reported that it was 60 degrees out. My thermometer reported 68. Hmmmm. After I got home I checked weather.com and it reported 66 degrees. I think I'm actually going to trust the cheap plastic digital thermometer more than the bank.
Thanks for reading the filler. I'm sure you care all about my thermometer. Hopefully I'll have some good pictures and comments about the course this coming weekend. I'm looking forward to passing by the Mojave Airport.
*** Update *** Due to a family emergency this weekend I was not able to drive the route, and I'm not sure I'll have time to do it before the race. Bummer. I apologize to the one person out there aside from myself that was looking forward to it.
The Day Has Arrived
After a few days of worrying about a little foot tenderness, my rider decided to go forward with the race. It's prep day and we're currently loading the van (well, he's loading the van...) We're heading out from my house later today to partake in all the pre-race rituals: check-in, vehicle check, bike check, pre-race meeting, naps, nervousness, probably a little bickering...
Let the adventure begin!
Race Day
Team Wookiee did not fare as well as we had hoped. We took a DNF at Shoshone, about 325 miles in. Our rider had stomach problems pretty much from the start. The crew tried everything to try to calm it down, but I think the end result was less eating, less protein, no energy. At first we thought it was nerves but it never calmed down and I secretly wonder if some sort of virus or food poisoning is to blame? Either way, it just wasn't our day. It was bad enough to where the crew was going to ask him to stop (did we even tell him that?) but he toughed it out to the next time station and wisely threw in the towel. It's not worth the risk to one's health.
However, it was Team Tapir's day. Our 'sister racer/team' managed to finish The 508 with about two hours to spare. Congratulations!
The trip through Death Valley was awesome and I had a great time. Hopefully Wookiee will try again some day and I'll be right there on the crew. It was such a good experience and a great overall atmosphere that if a total stranger read this and asked me to help crew some day I would probably do that, too. Great event. Great organization. I met a lot of good people who I will never meet again, and some I will only remember by their totem (Red Wolf.)
I'll have a full write-up and photos for the race sometime in the coming weeks. I promise!
The Write-up
I finally had some time at work to do the write-up. I'm not actually slacking, it's almost 10:00pm and we're rolling a big project to production. I'm kind of here to answer questions and sit around killing time for a few hours. So there you go.
Also, you can read Wookiees blog, which has items about the race, here:
Grossklein.