Congratulations to the team of  Team of :Jon Ornée, Sean Murphy, Ben Blake, Nick DeHaan, Jesse Gould – Michigan W-E Record Attempt – Sept 23, 2019

They rode the 204.5 miles in a record time of 8 hours 18 min for an average speed of 24.69 mph

 

Here is their ride report:

Rider’s Narrative Summary

 

  • Record attempt: Michigan (W-E)
  • Name of rider(s): Jon Ornée, Ben Blake, Nick DeHaan, Jesse Gould, Sean Murphy
  • Start date and exact start time to the nearest minute: 9:03a
  • Exact start location described so that someone else could find the same spot: West End of Sherman Blvd in Muskegon
  • What were conditions like? Perfect day. Mostly overcast. About 60 degrees at the start. High of 75ish. Mostly hovered around 70 degrees. NW wind at 5mph at start. WNW at about 14mph by the end.
  • Why did you want to do a record? We had a hunch we could maintain a pretty fast pace for 205 miles and wanted to see what we could accomplish. Our goal was to at least break the 2 person record (9:12) and we hoped to average over 24mph (8:30). We beat our goal by averaging 24.7mph!
  • What equipment did you use? Anything special? Nothing special. 5 standard road bikes.
  • What did you eat & drink? We each packed our own nutrition and had rolling feed zones at approximately 2 hour intervals. I (Jon) had 9 bottles of electrolyte sports drink, 2 bottles of homemade smoothie, 2 clif bars, 1 Gu gel, 2 turkey and cheese tortilla wraps, a banana and pickle juice. Others had sandwiches (PB&J), grapes, bananas, dates, maple syrup, gels, granola bars, coke, cold brew coffee and electrolyte sports drinks.
  • What was the best part? Doing it with a team. It was really fun having others along to share the experience. And having a tailwind most of the day was lots of fun too! We were absolutely flying at the end knowing we didn’t need to conserve any more energy. We averaged 28 mph the last 10 miles and 30 mph the last 6 miles. It was a great way to end!
  • What was the hardest part? The roads were worst on the 20 mile north stretch (Northland Dr/Federal Rd) and through Saginaw. The North stretch was our only real headwind of the day as well. We had 3 flat tires to deal with and took 2 super speedy bathroom breaks trying not to cough up too much time.
  • Did anything particularly unusual happen? 3 flats were the only real drama of the day.
  • Exact finish location described so that someone else could find the same spot. Where Main St/M46 dead ends into a parking lot/dock at Lake Huron!
  • Exact finish time: 8:17:46