Battle of Bunker Hill Team Report

This ride was a virtual Fleche held under the auspices of the virtual "Hudson Valley Randonneurs" region. The rules for the vFleche are appended at the end.

The name of our team was "Team B.S.A.G Bunker Hill Battlers". The acronym is based on Jim Collins book "Built to Last" which introduced the term "Big Hairy Audacious Goal" into the lexicon. During the late 90's, "What's your BHAG?" became the corporate equivalent of "What's your star sign?".

So B.S.A.G stands for "Big Stupid Audacious Goal" which for the three of us on Bunker Hill meant doing repeated climbs to achieve the distance. This would amount to just at 9K feet of climbing.

Ouch.

I was joined on Bunker Hill by Bob Booth and Dawn Piech. Carol Bell and Eric Peterson were the other two team members with both of them doing rides in Iowa City, IA and Naperville, IL, respectively.

So how did it go?

Most importantly, all team members completed the ride within the official time limit - way to go team!

Dawn, Bob and I got to Bunker Hill between 8:00 and 8:30. Bob arrived first and, overachiever that he is, did 3 laps while the others were getting set up. Here is Dawn's setup at the top:

The day was quite warm with a high temperature of 75 forecast. It was also pretty windy with gusts to 25 MPH. The wind was out of the NW at the start and moved to more westerly through the day. In general, this worked in our favor. There is a section at the steepest part of the climb where we were going straight into the wind. This increased the difficulty of getting to the top but the wind did a good job of cooling at the hardest part of the climb so it was a worthwhile trade-off.

One difficulty the wind created (for me) when it switched to more westerly it gave a small push up the hill but there was zero apparent wind and thus no cooling. I'd get to the top really hot but then descend into a headwind which did a great job of cooling and drying me off. As a result I didn't fully realize how much water I was throwing off and became pretty badly dehydrated. I was cramping really badly the last two climbs but managed to finish.

Dawn and Bob both rode really strongly through the day. Bob was a particular standout as he both rode well and because of his extra laps and because he continued after he finished the vFleche distance he ended up with more than 11K feet total climbing. Great job Bob!

Here are links to our rides:

• Bob https://ridewithgps.com/trips/48142002
• Dawn 
  
• Carol
  
• Eric https://www.strava.com/activities/3387171674?share_sig=279032481588450963&utm_medium=social&utm_source=ios_share
• Greg  https://www.strava.com/activities/3387923417

Here is a collage of pictures that Carol took during her ride:

And here is a shot of the happy Bunker Hill team at the finish:

vFleche rules:

• Each team must have between 3-5 riders.
• At least three riders on each team must complete the distance successfully
• All teams will complete a ride of at least 100 kilometers in less than 6 hours, 4 minutes
• Each team must select a team distance and all riders must complete the same distance within the maximum time allowed.
• Each team shall determine a Virtual Captain (me, in this case) who will notify the Virtual RBA of the team name, the team roster and the team distance.
• Indoor riders may use social riding apps like Zwift to ride "together" but may also complete their rides separately on standard trainers or rollers and should coordinate their starts to begin at roughly the same time.
• Outdoor riders need not be in the same location or even in the same state to complete the ride successfully as a team. If riding separately, riders should coordinate their starts to begin at roughly the same time.