“Ride #70: Solo Century!”

Corinne was at the local cat club's annual show all day today, so it was a perfect day to ride my second (ever) solo century. The weather *could not* have been better, either: temperatures in the low seventies, and humidity around 50%. Perfect.

I had planned to head out as soon as Corinne left, but decided I should eat something first... so I had a whole bowl of Spicy Penne Pasta (a dish Corinne has me addicted to). Then, of course, I decided I shouldn't ride until the food had settled a little, so I actually went back to bed! I slept from 9:30 to 11:00. Hah! I never do that.

I was on the bike by 11:30, though. I headed up towards Ledyard and found hundreds of people walking around this normally sleepy little town. (Then, I saw the ferris wheel at the Ledyard Town Fair.)

Rather than bore everybody with all the details, I'll summarize my route. This was a combination of my regular training ride (which also starts with a trip up 117 to Ledyard) including all the nasty side-road hills like Pumpkin HIll Road, plus the Westerly / Watch Hill / Misquamicut loop, plus an extra thirty miles on Route 1 from Westerly to just past Perryville, RI and back to Westerly again, then I just headed home. I stopped in Dunn's Corners, Westerly, to refill on water and Gatorade, and the bike computer was at 80 miles.

My last stop before home was at Mystic Cycle. I took the computer off the bike and walked in just as they were closing. I didn't say anything, just showed the mileage and average speed to Rick, Rob, and Graham. At that point, I'd been 96.8 miles and the average was 19.6 mph.

Unfortunately, it took a while to thread my way through downtown Mystic, due to the "Taste of Mystic" festival and a lot of traffic, so I lost some time. I wouldn't mind subtracting a little time from my total for that reason, but I don't really know what would be fair. (It's not a big deal, though.)

Stats: 102.99 miles (165.8 km) in 5h 16' 31" for an average speed of 19.52 mph (31.43 kph).

If anybody cares, you can compare that with my first (and only other) solo century, two years ago. Big improvement.