Quote Originally Posted by maillotpois View Post
One of the stores used frequently as a control here is famous for its clam chowder. Creamy, New England style clam chowder. While I love soup on a brevet, I can't even imagine clam chowder on a ride of any length.
I had some great tomato basil soup at the Safeway at 135 miles. We had a tube patching party in the deli while we ate.

Quote Originally Posted by maillotpois View Post
It's funny trying to compare distances on events. Every ride is so different that it would be hard to say categorically (as we both have just done) that we prefer X distance over Y distance. ... It seems like you have really nailed (and been able to be consistent about) the sleep stop issue. For me that's been harder.
It IS very hard to compare events. For me, a lot depends on weather. We have soooooooo many wet and cold brevets. And I struggle terribly with my body temperature. I didn't feel my feet for at least half this ride. It makes for some longer controls, especially at night, if I need to warm up, or change socks or toe warmers, etc. My feet are very tender today from being so numb for so many hours this weekend. OTOH, I do really well in heat. It doesn't seem to affect me. Perhaps I should move to the desert.

As for sleep stops - I've done three 600s on anywhere from 1:45 to 3 hours sleep at ~360K. I wake up feeling really good typically. I've not yet woken up in the middle of a 600K so sore or tired that I didn't feel like I couldn't go on. After this 400K, I only had 2.5 hours sleep before needing to head back to Portland. I felt totally fine and wasn't particularly sore (I'm still not sore, actually) and could have gotten up and ridden another 200K. (Though, the April 400K destroyed me. It rained for the first 180 miles and it took me a solid week to feel mostly OK again. I couldn't have ridden another 200K THAT day!)

PBP 2015! I'm going to hold you to that...