Last year I’ve successfully completed a 300km bicycle day ride and earned a new personal record for distance. On a wonderful day of today I’m going to set a new personal record and ride for 400-or-so kilometers across Switzerland in less than 24 hours.
My route follows a slightly shortened version of the official Swiss route number 9:
The preparations are off to a rocky start. After thoroughly cleaning the bike and relubing mechanical parts I couldn’t get flat pedals off. I’d like to ride this distance with clipless pedals for higher efficiency.
I’m going to pay a visit to a local bike shop today and see if they can get them off. If not I’ll have to keep using the flat pedals and possibly replace the whole crankset upon returning. That’s an expensive way to learn to apply liberal amounts of anti-seize compound! Anyway, I’ve somehow managed to ride 300km on the flats last year so perhaps it’s not such a big problem after all.
I’ve studied the route and divided it into 3 parts. The first 160km are the hardest: there are a couple of hills and one pass on the way. The second section is 80km and is of medium difficulty. The last part is almost as a flat as possible on this planet, starting with a fast descent.
As soon as I get over the first part I can make a deep breath. And once two sections are behind it’s a piece of cake and I just need to make sure I don’t fall of the bike due to sleep deprivation. I’m also going to turn off any time-keeping and elapsed distance displays to keep my spirits going against the monstrous remaining distance.
I’m packing lots of high-calorie snacks and substances, such as protein and sport bars, sport drink mixtures and magnesium tablets. I plan to make one stop for lunch in Pfäffikon at about 14:00 in a cafe Cello’s ESSBAR. My wife plans to join me.
I am starting the ride today **“2015-06-23”
I will be posting regular updates on my Facebook as I go and I will publish a full write-up once I come back and recover after a healthy amount of sleep. My dear friends, I need your full support to get through this!