Bali, Indonesia - Race Report

Gran Fondo New York - Bali Edition
A lot has changed in cycling over the past thirty years, most notably the invention of the "fondo."  It's a race but if you don't want to treat it as such, you can take your time and enjoy.  It was the answer to the overly stressful race scene and it worked.  Fondo participation is through the roof because they attract both serious and casual racers.  Like most, this event has a long and medium route - what they call a gran fondo and a medio fondo.  We started lining up at 5:30 am in our corrals.  The VIPs at the front, the gran fondo riders (of which I was one) and finally the medio fondo riders.  We watched the sun rise and chatted for an hour before the race began.

Fondos have become so popular that they're mushrooming around the world.  This is a fondo that started out in New York City and now has events all over the globe.  The Bali edition starts on the eastern coast and travels for a flat 25 miles then takes a sharp turn westwards for the first major climb - about 1,500 feet over ten miles.  Mt. Agung is on your right as you head towards Mt. Batur.  The turn north starts you on the big climb.  4,500 feet up to the edge of Mt. Batur's crater.  Once you reach the crater's edge, 60 of the 84 miles are complete.  The last 24 miles are a straight shot downhill.

In the lead up to the race I stared at this graph to come up with some sort of strategy.  Of all my subpar cycling skills, climbing is the best of them so I decided to latch on to some big boys for the first 25 flat miles and then hit the first climb hard, but under control.  I would treat the race like a 60-miler - get to the top of the volcano as fast as possible, drop as many people as possible then speed downhill and try not to let the heavier and faster descenders catch and pass me.

The day before we went to the race headquarters which were in a hotel a few miles from our AirBnB.  You sign in, show id, pick up your jersey and race number.  The number contains a transponder with a timing chip that logs your start and finish time.  There were photographers there to shoot your photo.

After I got back from the hotel I plugged my bike in one last time.  Yes, now a days you plug in your bike. 

One plug goes into the end of your handlebars and charges a battery in your seat post which is connected to the front and rear derailleurs.  The gear shifters are electronic and are embedded in the brake levers.  You no longer have to reach to shift gears, you simply click one of two buttons on your brake levers, one that shifts up and one that shifts down.  Wiring runs inside the frame down to the derailleurs.

The other charging cable is for the left pedal, which houses a power meter.  Everything now is about power.  There is a strain gauge in the pedal which measures the amount of force applied to the pedal and that in combination with cadence determines the watts of power you can generate.  You train to a certain power and you get to know how much power you can create for certain time periods.  This information is passed to a small computer on the handlebars which displays power data as well as speed, cadence, heart rate, etc.  Knowing your power is extremely helpful as it gives you guidance on how much to put out and where the red line is that you shouldn't cross or risk a blow up.

When the gun went off there was a mad dash.  A lot of people paid to be in the VIP corral at the front, they had numbers of 399 and below.  There had to be 200 of them in front of me so I zigged and zagged and looked for the biggest guys I could find to draft behind.

After a mile there was short downhill leading to a bridge and I managed to make up a lot of ground.

I got into a group of about 10 and stayed with them for the first hour or so.  We were flying, averaging around 23 miles an hour.  The road was closed to traffic and there were motorcycle cops patrolling as well as photographers sitting backwards on scooters, back to back with the driver, taking action shots.

It was absolutely beautiful countryside as we made our way to the coast.

Most of the racers appeared to be from Indonesia so the hot and humid weather was a non-factor for them.  I've been training in Singapore at mid-day on purpose and it felt like a normal day to me.  I did meet a guy from NYC at the hotel the day before, who was coming straight out of NYC winter.  I wonder how it felt to him - probably like a sauna.

At ground level you thankfully never see the climbs like this.  That is Agung in the foreground and Batur on the left.

When we hit the first climb at mile 25 I kept a nice steady pace and slowly pulled away from my group.  I kept an eye on the power and kept telling myself "keep it under 200."  I can hold 200 watts for an hour or so but more importantly, since this was a 5 plus hour race I was looking to not blow myself up. 

As we climbed we left the open coastal roads and made our way into the jungle.  The temperature slowly started to retreat.

I slowly caught up with small groups of riders, passed them and looked for more on the horizon.  I kept looking for grey beards (people in my age group) and found a few here and there.  At the top of the first climb there was a water stop, where I topped up on water.

I filled both water bottles and carried another with me as the next 5 miles were flat to rolling.

I was feeling pretty good, way better than on my climbs in Thailand, where I went out way too hard in the beginning and paid for it for the next 3 hours.  I was determined to stay under control, basically just race against my power numbers and ignore everything else.  I kept waiting for someone to come up from behind, pass me and put my discipline to the test.  However, surprisingly, after mile 25 I didn't get passed by a single person the rest of the race.

I was keeping an eye on the time.  My hope was to get to the top of the volcano at the 4 hour mark and then zoom down the last 24 miles in less than an hour.  I was off that pace but not by a whole lot.  Then, after this bridge, we got smacked in the face with a half-mile of 22%.  It was such a shock to everyone that it created a mini-traffic jam.  I took it at close to 350 watts, a big no-no but I couldn't resist.  I must have passed 20 people.  At the top, everyone was taking in deep haggard breaths.  I spent the next few minutes getting my heart rate down and then got back to work.  This was the beginning of the final climb to the top.

From this point all the way to the top I was alone.  Nobody to suffer with.  I passed people who were clearly digging deeper than I was.  The look on their face and the sound of their breathing was pure pain.  Some were stopped on the side of the road, legs cramped.  We passed through small village after small village, and at certain parts of the climb, it felt like the Tour de France.  The villagers were pressed into the road, cheering, some running along side.  I high-fived countless kids and answered their "hellllllloooooos" with my own or a thumbs up.  Some of the riders must have been from that part of the island, because they were grabbing onto scooters for assistance, and chatting with the drivers. 

I remember this guy with the blue socks.  He and I battled for a while, taking turns at the front.  It is so much better to climb this way, it gives you a bit of motivation.  After five minutes of back and forth, I pulled aside to let him take the front and he was no longer there.  I pressed on and with a mile to go to the summit I got the strangest sensation in my legs.  On the inside of my thighs between the quads and hamstrings, I felt a line of tightness running from my crotch to my knee.  I was so strange, I'd never felt this before.  It took me about two minutes to realize I was on the verge of cramping.  Never had cramps before.  I eased off a bit, stood up for the final mile and managed to fight it off.  At the top of the climb there was a drinks stop and I pounded down a coconut water.

We only spent about a mile at the crater until we headed back downhill.  It was epic.  Very steep to start off, I shifted into my biggest gear, tucked down and pedaled as fast as I could.  I knew all those people I passed on the way up could catch me but at 40 miles an hour there is no way to look back and find out.  Also, to make it more exciting and interesting, this part of the course was not closed to traffic, so you had to weave around scooters and cars.  Police manned every intersection and gave a wave through, but it felt like a high-speed video game.  After 20 minutes I heard the sound I dreaded, someone had caught me and was free-wheeling behind me.  He came around me on a sharp bend and it was on!  Bib number 777 and I took turns weaving in and out and around traffic and flying at high speed, almost egging each other on.  We caught and passed dozens of riders.  Neither of us attacked the other, we worked together and as we saw the finish line we sat up and chatted.  "Where you from?" he asked and when I told him "New York" he couldn't believe it.  "I am from Jakarta" he told me and it all made sense.  Two city riders used to major league traffic.

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I sat in the shade at  the finish line, downing bottle after bottle of water.  I took off my helmet and shoes and watched as riders finished.  I then rode over to the hotel and as I made my way up the driveway, Dodo took this shot of me.

We ate the complimentary buffet, took a final victory shot and headed back to our AirBnB to pack up for our next move - we were changing locations, going half-way up the volcano to spend the next four days at a rice farm.