r4c ‘24 DISPATCH: PART 1
This year's Ride4Claire was truly one to remember. Each year, I am overwhelmed by the generosity and support shown for this fundraiser. It took me a while to decide what this year’s ride should be, as I never want to be repetitive, and it’s important to me to truly earn all donations. The idea to ride for 24 hours straight felt like a great choice, mainly because it yielded a catchy tagline: "24 in ’24." In all seriousness, it was something bigger than myself, something I had never done before. It was full of unknowns and “what ifs.” Frankly, having a new challenge is an awesome thing. Not knowing how my body, mind, or bike would react, or if we’d have flat tires or other issues, made it novel and motivating.
I started floating the idea around to my friends, and Logan reached out almost immediately, saying he was 100% in—just tell him the date, and he’d be there. I can honestly say I don’t know if I would’ve made it through the whole 24 hours without Logan. The ride details will follow, but for now, I’ll just say there was a period between 3 to 5 a.m. where I couldn’t fathom being on my bike for another 12 to 14 hours. These periods of lulls or troughs are something anyone familiar with endurance events will understand. They bring this whole fundraising event full circle. As one of the first things our amazing eye doctor at Boston Children’s Hospital told us about Claire's journey is that it’s going to be a roller coaster with many ups and downs. There might be times when things are going well, miles are clicking by, and eye exams are nice and clean, but before the job is done, you will encounter lows that must be overcome. You don’t know when the lulls will show up, so you just have to keep moving forward when they do. Just like our family’s journey, that’s what Logan and I did during this year’s Ride4Claire. I’ll tell you what, we finished really strong. I believe this was all due to the amazing support system we had throughout the entire ride. Having people and places to help exactly when we needed them mirrored the support the hospital provides for countless families and children. It really drove home to me that the support we had for this ride and for Claire’s eyes truly makes all the difference.
THE PLANNING
Leading up to the ride, I’ll be honest—I had no real training plan other than to get a few rides over 100 miles in when I could. Over the last month and a half, I managed to ride over 4.5 hours a few times. After that, I relied on my past almost 15 years of riding to help me get through it. I felt that was enough for riding 24 hours in a row, as the thinking is that riding for that amount of time is more about mental fitness and all the other little things than just how many watts you can produce.
I bounced some ideas off Logan about what kind of bags I would need and tips he had picked up along the way, as he has done countless long-distance rides and races, as well as route options. My first routing idea was based on doing this ride solo. I figured I’d ride a bunch of loops at night around roads near my house and during the day do a larger loop down to the Cape and back. The thinking was that it would force me to do an out-and-back at the end when things got tough, and there was only one way home. Thankfully, I didn’t go with that option, as it would have been quite awful with monotonous loops at night and open/exposed/busy roads on the Cape when my mind was on the verge of cracking. Plus, it would put me far away from potential meetups with other friends who could join us for the final miles.
Since I had a partner in crime for the whole thing this year, I pivoted to a different approach. We would first head south and do an almost complete perimeter of Cape Cod. This would be done mostly during the night when traffic would be lighter on the roads or rail trails. As a bonus, it would be really cool to ride through the night in remote areas, with nothing but the stars in the sky and an open road…and I have to say the Cape in the middle of the night is fantastic!
With the plan in place and a general map to follow, we left just before 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 13, and headed south towards the Cape. The route took us down towards Falmouth, through Hyannis, and up to West Yarmouth. Once there, we made a quick refuel stop at my in-laws’ and continued up the Cape Cod Rail Trail to the neck of the Cape, ultimately leading us to Provincetown (PTOWN). We then came back down more or less the same way to West Yarmouth. Barring any issues, this had us leaving West Yarmouth, heading back over the Sagamore Bridge, and eventually landing back where we started in Millis, MA. This would be approximately 300 miles or 3/4 of my internally driven plan of 400 miles for the effort. I didn’t really promote that I hoped to achieve 400 miles during the rolling 24 hours. However, if we got back to Millis with 300 miles in the bank, I figured we could somehow get those extra hundred miles in close to home. So, I put out the call via social media to see if anyone around wanted to do a few loops of some local routes with us to finish the ride. Thankfully, a couple of loyal friends answered the call, and via the legendary Tuesday Night World and CRW loops, we wrapped up our final hundred miles somewhat comfortably within our target, ending at about 403 miles in total for the 24 hours of Ride4Claire 2024.
-Matt
