I found this link on mapmyride.com. It maps the ride nicely.
Here is the 2010 62 mile Cue sheet.
| Elevation Map | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mansion Ride |  |
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On the plus side, everyone I talked too who has done it, only has good things to say about it. Same goes about race reports. Once I have the cue sheets I'll scan them in and post them but so far the only thing I know is that we will visit 14 mansions in LI.
Here are the mansions. I don't know about the order:
I haven't really heard of too many of these. The Tobay Triathlon goes to The Planting Fields Arboretum and we took family pictures there once. Saw signs for Nassau County Museum of Art and The Holocaust Museum but I don't know where they are. My Boss sometimes goes to Garvies Point for some mental R&R. Last year, I volunteered at The Webb Institute of Naval Architecture and it's beautiful. Most people don't know that they filmed it for Batman 2. It was Wayne Manor.
Anyway, beautiful, well organized ride that gives me most of the distance I need with full support and good on the Karma side. What else to ask for?
Unfortunatly, the YMCA (in it's infinite last minute wisdom) decided to schedule their kids mini-triathlon on Sunday. At the same time. Gonna miss it. Never missed a kid thing yet so this sucks but this isn't just a race, it really is a good cause. In any case, J1 will be doing the tri. He's gonna swim a 400 in the pool, followed by 10 laps on the bike and then a 1 mile run (8 laps on the track). Last year, their first year, they had them do 10 minutes on a spin bike that didn't fit them. This year, they will bring their own bike. Jeremy has done some tri's before so I am not worried at all but still to miss it...Apparently, J2 could do it also even though she is too young. Gotta be a shark level or above swimmer and she is a shark but she decided not to do it this year. OK - no pushing. There's always next year.
Friday headed to the pool for a short swim. My goal was a really short, don't count the laps, be done at 8:30 kind of swim. But...And this is a good but...Things got better in the pool. Wednesday, Andre and I talked though email and he finally got out his frustation. No more of that misplaced frustation balognia. Wednesday he did an extra long set of warmups/drills/kicks in the slow lane. I did a 900 with Chris. Then he joined me and we did 2,100. I then did another 1,200 after he left and kicked also. Friday, again he was in the slow lane while I was with Chris. Swam some fast sets. Then Andre came in to finish his main set. Swam with him a little. I was gonna finish when I saw Francois come in but then Andre finished too. I wanted to leave at 8:30 and get home very early, instead I finished at 9 and got home at 9:30. Ate some watermellon (hydrate) and made sure not to watch TV. Was in bed by 10:30. Woke up at 2am, got ready, walked the dog at 4:30 and off to run with Jim at 5. Did the water plus a little in AP. Totalled 11.4. Nice.
The funny thing with Jim is is that he gets a second wind. Originally, he killed himself on thursday on a run. Wanted to make sure we weren't gonna break any speed records on the run. Funny....He's faster than me (except for sprints). Anyway, half way through he tells me "we are really booking it". We were doing low 8's and about 6 miles in. I told him, that it's him and his pace and I am just tagging along. Ended up with an 8:43 average pace. Told him, glad he wasn't feeling it - what would happen if he was...
Afterwards spent day at the YMCA with kids. Took a little nap when J1 was swimming and J2 playing in the gym. She already had gymnastics and swim. Figured I could shutdown for 20. Laid there on the blue mats with no shame and went out. How do you spell P-O-W-E-R-N-A-P?
Sunday. So, here's where things get a little tricky. I went to sleep Saturday night at 9:30. And since I was gonna leave the house at 6 instead of 5, I could get up at 3. That's 2 more hours than the night before...
The plan: Wake up at 3 and get ready. Wake up Lee at 5:15 (usual time) and she would walk the dog. J1 had to be at the YMCA at 7am for check in. His tri was supposed to start at 7:30. Gonna wake up the kids at their usual school time hour of 6am and then leave. The bike check in for Mansion ride was 7 with a 7:45 kick off. I didn't want a crazy morning and I wanted to finish asap. My plan was to do the 62 miler and then (potentially) to ride back for another 20. Jim had to be at Brickwell between 12:00 and 2pm to pickup for his first tri. That's why we agreed on a 6 am departure.
Woke up at 3. Got ready. Woke up Elizabeth at 5:15 and on the way to the stairs, Jeremy calls. He's awake. Instead of letting him read, I told him to come downstairs and get ready. He did. Lee dawdled in the bathroom and finally took LC for his walk. I finished getting ready and decided to wake J2 up a little early. So, at 5:55 the whole house was awake, Jim was outside and Lee and LC didn't come back yet. Gave Jim the bike and my stuff, made sure J2 was ready and Lee and LC made their way back.
Said goodbyes/goodluck and left at 6:10 to pickup Pepe. Luckily he's close by. On the road by 6:15ish.
The ride starts at the North Shore Synagogue but you park about 1/2 mile away at the Syosett train station. Found the place, found the parking and at 6:45 there were many many bikes at the train station. Other people had our bright idea? I sure hope that Dunkin Donuts was a sponsor because the smell at the train station was overwhelming. I don't eat the garbage anymore but man did I wanna go in there.
At the start it was incredible. All food was donated and they had a huge spread.Tons of bagels and rolls, cookies, pastries, bars, pretzels, juice boxes, water, gatorade, pies. Oh my God....Oh yeah, they had a BBQ grill for later too. Picked up the cue sheet and we headed out. Oh yeah, I forgot something...At the train station, we saw a guy...Olderish, long hair riding on a hybrid/mountain bike with a California license plate (###-NZL). I don't remember the numbers but the NZL kept making me think of New Zealand. The really weird thing about the bike was the handle bars. He had 1 of those motorcycle (chopper) handlebars. Dude had to raise his arms the whole way to hold the handlebars. Is this guy for real?
Anyway, as the 3 of us were leaving, I realized he had left too. Wasn't oo much of anything to catch up to him, wish him luck and leave him.
Can't say I remember the exact route of the ride or what we saw chronologically but the first thing we did was part of the wheatly loop. The muttontown/brookville richy area where the servants house is bigger than my house. Hell, their pool house is bigger than my house. Lots of rollers in there. I'll post the cue sheet later.
Anyway, dude in the weird bike? He introduced himself to me. His name is Kenny but we sorta of just called him California Loving. Anyway, Kenny held on. Stayed with us to the first rest stop. I rolled in first to the cheers of "First Biker!". This was the first time I have ever came in first to anything on the bike. Probably the last time too. Still it was Uber-cool. Kenny hung with us to the second rest stop. We hooked up to 2 other people too: Older guy in a US Postal jersey and another guy.
At the 3rd stop, postal and other guy didn't stop and neither did Kenny. I figured we would pick them up later.
Andre told/warned me that the route would be comparable to the Gold Coast Century. Parts of the route I saw the GC's on the route and parts we were on our own. Follow the pink "M" on the road. Well, it was a great/hard ride. Getting bored with my usual routes so this was a welcome change. It was a hard ride. I do wish that it was better marked in some areas. you can tell some sections where done by people who loved to grafitti the street (bikers) and other areas by minimilists who don't bike. There were certain areas that I was wishing, searching for a pink M.
And now for a little tangent. Pepe has a tri-bike (Cervello) and a road bike. Now, he went and bought a single speed and let his daughter pick out the tires. What color does a 2 year old little girl pick? Pink. I told Pepe that he sould have ridden pinkie. He could have become the mascot, riding a pink wheel bike chasing after a pink M.
The route was a mixture of rollers. Seemed like we were constantly up and down and mostly up. We didn't do 25A (fish hatcheries), snake hill, avery or lawrence. None of those big hills but we did have 2 major climbs. The first major hill goes to show you that some neighborhood names do actually make sense. Seacliff is a little town on top of a sea cliff. Hm...Major hill. Here we climbed and climbed and climbed. During the gold coast century we climbed, made a right turn at a stop sign and climbed and climbed. Not sure which sucked more...I think the Gold coast with the stop sign was worse but who cares. It's over with. The other major climb was Beacon Hill. Beacon Hill is a major hill that links Port Washington with Bar Beach which is where the Gold Coast Triathlon is. Same route as in Gold Coast Century. You're riding on this road with all this wind hitting you. Not really making any headway and then the hill. Jim headed out first. Makes sense since he will be riding there on his tri next week. Same route except for Beacon. Pepe and I are together. I spy Kenny struggling on the hill and Jim catches up to him and passes him. Jim waited at the top for us while Kenny didn't. Pepe and I made it up.
Really gotta give it to Kenny. During the Seacliff climb, he got off the saddle and stood. With the handle bars so high up it looked like he was doing the stairmaster. I mean the handle bars were at his waist level. During Seacliff, he was actually drafting against me up the hill. I told him to go ahead if I was in his way. He said that he was using me as an inspiration. Funny how later he disappeared on us and we couldn't find him. I kept wondering if he got lost. Actually ran into him at the last rest stop, sitting pretty against a tree eating watermellon. Had his bike on a kickstand. Dude was amazing. Did I mention that he was wearing sandals? No clip on bike shoes - sandals!
We also saw him at Sand point preserve but that was before we lost him. I told you my chronology was gonna be off.
Did I mention that this ride was hilly?
The rest stop at the science museum (I think) was worth mentioning. We turn into it and it's up a freaking climb. Suddenly I see on the driveway, in chalk, ALMOST THERE!. As we were climbing (wasn't horrible up but really?), we were all bitching about a climb to a rest stop. When I saw that sign, I comment out loud "What a good idea..." when suddenly I hear "That was my idea". Found a volunteer loading/unloading her car. Funny. Really nice 2 women. Actually got my picture taken as I was getting some Gatorade. Gatorade sponsored so they wanted a picture of a rider drinking the product. Now, I gotta look for my picture... Jim had a bike mechanic tighten a cable for him.
You see before we got to the rest stop, we were going down a hill to a stop sign. Only choice was a right turn or a left turn. Jim approached the turn to fast and managed to stop facing traffic doing part of the left turn. Bad guy. Lot of cars but I ballsied my way out and the rest followed. Jim had trouble because his chain derailed at this point. It sucked. Left turn from dead stop up a hill and a chain goes out. He was VERY happy to see the mechanic.
Pepe was convinced that was it for the hills but I kept telling him that I don't think so. Guess who was right? Remember I said it was a hilly ride?!?
When we left, we were heading back to Beacon hill but this time going down. It's a crazy down with a turn to boot. From there straight on shore road and the holes in the ground which still haven't been fixed and the heavy winds. Out of nowhere, two cyclists working together (drafting) came out of nowhere and passed all of us. They were strong.
At this point we started encountering other cyclists. These guys were doing the 35 miler. Some tried to hang with us. Took a light and Jim was nowhere to be found. At the top of a looong hill, Pepe and I waited. He missed all the lights. Soon, we were at the last rest stop. Kenny was there and they had PBJ sandwiches, salad, watermellon, and all the rest of the usual fare. I didn't want to stay too long and pushed these guys out. Lots of the 35 milers were there.
We had 12 miles to go and eventually made our way back into Brookville/Muttontown or basically the wheatly loop.
At this point, a guy on a mountain bike, sneakers decided to teach me a lesson. Sprinted right past me. Cool. I let him go. No point in sprinting. Bigger picture here. Took nothing to reel him in in the wheatly loop. He tried to stick with us as best as possible. Eventually we lost him. Finally the 2 miles and eventually we hit the 106. Only about a mile left. I'm with 2 guys wearing "Brands bike store" yellow jerseys. We cross the light and another guy decides to spank me a lesson. Heavy set guy on a mountain bike sprinting to the finish. Now, as someone who LOVES to do that on a run, you gotta know where and when to do that. A mile away on a bike is a marathon away. Yellow guy number 1 takes off as I yell to him that there is no point. Guy number 2 sticks with me. I don't sprint. Steady - steady and a "good job" to the sprinter as we pass him.
The finish area was unbelievable. Fresh hot dogs off the grill, pizza, pasta, drinks, snacks. Stuff that I don't eat until I see Mujhadara. Love that stuff. The woman serving it didn't know what it was. It's this yellow rice with lentils and sauteed onions and it was donated from Tavlin which is where my mom gets it from. Wonderful hot or cold, it was delicious.
Bike clock said 64 miles and change. Party atmosphere. Jim had to drive back. I was hoping that Pepe would ride with me but his legs were beyond toast. My legs were dead too but had no choice. Needed the mileage - had a green light from family - had to do it. Took the 106 to the LIE and rode home.
Few side notes to follow.
We kept joking that Kenny rode his bike all the way from California. Guy was awesome and if you ever read this, please know it was all in good spirit. You're the man.
The weather was interesting. It was either overcast and humid (I was sure we were gonna get dumped on) or the sun was out and we were baking out there.
Hunger. Wow...Unlike the Gold Coast Century last year, I was starving. Ate 3 power bars and pretzels and other junk. Also finished 3 of my bottles filled with Gatorade and a bike bottle with water. Everytime I went into a funk, I realized I was starving and the calories helped me out a lot. Gotta keep my eye on that.
Got home. Hoped to run a little but my crew wasn't there so I made the dog very happy and took a walk with him. He loves when I caome back from runs and bike. My skin is so salty, he loves it. Anyway, a hollywood shower, food and all was ok.
Later during dinner I was ravenous. Eating and eating. Couldn't get enough of anything.
And now for my crew. J1's swim went well. Had his counter in the pool. Did the 400 swim. Tried to sprint it. Had a plan toward the end to do backstroke for 50 and then really hammer the final 50. Apparently he counted wrong and the counter told him to stop after the backstroke - he was done. Did I mention that he played tennis for 2 hours the day before and swam a mile right after that? Anyway, transitioned and biked in the East parking lot. Then he ran a mile around the track. Except for the first lap he ran with Lee. Well, he ran/walked himself to a 9:20 mile. WHAT? Now, I really need to get serious with him so he could do a 5K. Lee couldn't keep up with him at certain points. Another medal for him.
