We are Vespa Orlando customers John and Lori. We were invited by a co-worker, Sway Lively to be race officials for the bicycle portion of the 2015 Ultraman Florida marathon that took place February 20-22. Ultraman? I didn't know what Ultraman was, but she briefly explained what we would be doing and I ran it by my wife, Lori and we thought, "We wanted to start taking longer rides anyway, so... okay."

Ultraman is an elite triathlon event that truly challenges the athlete's abilities and endurance. In my opinion, it's more of a survival challenge. Swim 6.2 miles, bike 261.4 miles, run 52.4 miles. Ultraman is not to be confused with Ironman. Ultraman is more than double Ironman in every way except numbers. There are only a little over 600 people on the earth that have finished an Ultraman marathon. This was a three-day event, but the bicycle portion of the race covered two days, Friday and Saturday. 

261.4 miles seemed like a lot of riding on our Vespas, but when we figured out we would be backtracking several times to check up on the athletes and their crews the mileage kept adding up. We had to prepare.

The route on freezing Friday started at Lake Conway and ended in Cocoa, Florida. The racers started at 9 am swimming in the cold waters 6.2 miles around the lake. The first one out of the water was at about 11:30 am. That's when we started the day. They had until 9:00 pm to finish this first part of the bicycle course. The second day was from Cocoa to various locations like Mt. Dora, Clermont and ending in Oakland. Here's the route: Friday | Saturday

Our job: 
The job of a race official is to basically make sure everyone is being safe and following the rules of the race. In other words, we're helping them survive the brutal course. With 40 athletes and each athlete having a 2 or 3-person crew covering 91 miles on Friday and 170 miles on Saturday, each competitor wound up being miles apart from each other on both days. We would cover one part of the course, then head back to cover another part. Repeat. A lot. If there were areas of concern, we would hover around that area for a while. Back and forth. Once each day we would meet to eat lunch together. That was basically the only time we saw each other during the course. Otherwise, we were about 50-60 miles apart, depending on where there were more racers.

By the way, we each have a Vespa GTS 300 Super. Mine is a Red 2010, Lori's is a Titanium 2012.

Planning:

We drove the course in advance of the race. We were tired just driving it! There were parts of the course where gas wasn't seen for many miles. Add that to the backtracking and we could be in trouble. Furthermore, how would we talk to one another, or call anyone or receive calls? How would we navigate the course? What about warm clothes, rain gear, tools and food? How were our butts going to survive riding for 10 to 13 hours a day?

Well, we had two months to plan and we needed it. I won't go into every detail, but here's our shopping list:

• GTS 12v accessory plug.
• Spare 1-gallon gas containers. They fit under the seat perfectly in the GTS!
• Sena 20s Comm system. Great for hands free communication.
• We tried a couple less-expensive Garmin GPS systems, but these didn't quite cut it. The proper GPSs for riding were too expensive for this go around, so we put it on our wish list. Our Android smartphones worked well enough. In fact, we were able to import the entire course into our phones and ride along turn by turn. 
• We obey the ATGATT rule. (All the gear, all the time) So it was no problem wearing all the protective gear and we each have winter versions. We knew we would need this for Friday. It was in the 30s all day and we would be riding well after dark and it was bitterly cold. You know those Hothands heat packs you get at OutdoorWorld? They work. Really well. We got a bunch of them. It was this one item that made Friday's ride survivable. Seriously, we would not have lasted two hours without these. 
• Since the storage under our seats had gasoline, and our 42 liter top cases had items like straps, spare battery, clothing and our rule books we needed more storage for our tools, rain gear and food. Saddle bags. Sedici saddle bags. They are just the right size and look great on our Vespas. 
• If you want to ride for extended periods of time, there is one must-have for your seat. Airhawk. Look it up. Worth every penny. I truly don't know how the athletes can ride that long with those tiny seats with barely any padding. I'm certain it took years of training to get used to it. 
• We also picked up emergency flashing lights for the front and back of our bikes. Bright ones.

Over the course of these two days, we acquired many good memories. We also found some new great places to ride. We got to know many of the athletes, expecially with the team from Spain. We also made friends with many of the crew members and other officials. However, out on the course, we were focused on protecting the athletes and watching the crews carefully. Although the rules were simple, there were alot of them and people counted on us to know the answers. If we didn't know, we had to confer with the race coordinator or one of the bike officials. These folks are serious about their sport and we had to uphold their high standards.

There is so much more, but this is a blog, not a book.

We would do it again. 

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