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This Saturday is the great YK200.1 (a made up name for a non-organized ride). Last year 3 friends and myself did the YK200. That ride was a personal best for 3 of us on the ride. We all had a lot of fun working out the details and then getting out there and doing it (see details on the bike I rode HERE).

Who is going to show up to do the ride is unsure (similar to last year). It's a difficult to thing to wrap your head around riding 200 miles in one day and thus it's difficult to feel mentally and physically prepared to do it or maybe I should say that it's very easy to feel unsure about one's ability to do a double century.

This is my training ride

I tend to be really big on the mental side of such an event and maybe a bit lacking on the physical side (shortage of riding time). Clearly you have to have a balance of some degree, but I think the mental side is very critical. It's easy to say that you'll get mentally "up" for the ride after enough miles are logged on in preparation (training), but it's also easy to keep saying that you'll be prepared after one more big ride...

The plan is to meet at 5am and start the epic ride. 5 minute water-filling breaks will be taken every 2 hours. A 30 minute lunch break will happen at about the 115 mile mark. I'll be drinking 1 large water bottle (28 oz.) every hour. I mix the water with Cytomax as well as Hammer Perpetuem. I also will have a mix of powerbars and gels along with some trail mix. Obviously nutrition is rather key to finishing a double century. I will expect to burn up over 10,000 calories.

I'll carry minimal tools. Flat kit, pump, chain tool and small allen multi tool. We'll leave in the dark and get home in the dark, so clearly having some lights will be part of the gear coming on the ride. I will have a camera along for pictures along the way.

It was early spring that we received our first shipment of 2008 Bromptons and we took them to our warehouse for some photo shooting. Very nice bikes indeed!

The 2008 Brommies are looking fantastic. Very nice paint jobs with sleek, good looking decals and a mix of very special folding features. This is the quickest AND the smallest folding bike on the market. It would be hard to check it out and not be completely wowed.

Our photo shoots are fast and furious, but we do out best to get nice shots of the actual models that we are selling. While there are many, many options from Brompton, we have very carefully selected models to sell. The choices we made are a nice balance of good quality options mixed with an eye towards getting a great value out of your money.

You can check out out Brompton Bikes HERE.

Brompton accessories can be viewed HERE.

I did my first double century at the end of last season. This is the Bacchetta Corsa that I used for the ride. I felt that this was a perfect bike for the ride and the set up I had felt just right.

I used a wide range rear cluster (11-32) mixed with a road crankset. This is a good mix of gears for my style of riding. The wheels are 26" with Schwalbe 26 x 1.35 Kojak tires. These tires are nice and durable with a supple sidewall. This makes for a speedy touring style tire. Perfect!

200 miles is a long day and a true test of mental and physical strength. That said, we had a blast and doing the ride on this Corsa was perfect!

Under the seat is a camera bag that allowed me to pull out and take pictures while riding.

I caught this bike before it went out the door with it's new owner. I thought it would be nice to show a few pictures of this bike as it's set up. Sweet ride, eh?

The Bacchetta Giro 20 TT is Bacchetta's newest model. A 26.5 pound recumbent with a high quality component package including Avid disc brakes... Nice Going! The Giro 20 TT is Bacchetta's 2nd model (Corsa was the first) using an aluminum frame and the frame is making this bike very special indeed. Keeping the weight down and the performance up. It's difficult to categorize this bike as it can be set up and used in a very wide variety of ways. I'd be just as comfortable selling this bike to a daily commuter as I would to a weekend century rider.

This customer is set up for a nice mix of commuting and weekend day rides. The bike has an Evo Lite Mirror and Sigma 1106 cyclometer on the handlebars. The bike is also set up using a RANS HT rear rack that is shown with the customer's Arkel Commuter pannier (which has a built in laptop sleeve). To mount the HT Rack we used a Disco Rack Spacer to clear the disc brake.

Ride Away... Fast!