“Ride #94: A Beautiful Day for a Century”

My original and very tentative plan for this year's Birthday Century was to make it a double. Two hundred miles. I felt strong enough to attempt it, and crazy enough to think I might be able to do it.

I was not, however, crazy enough to attempt my first double century by myself... and none of my friends could spare the time to do it with me. I couldn't even talk them into doing more than a quarter of it (with one exception, but that would also have required that I add more than three hours of driving to a very, very long day).

By the beginning of the month, I had given up on the double century and settled on a slight redefinition of the "birthday century." This year (from now on?) it's to be a century plus my age. That's 134 miles this year, for the numerically challenged. ;-)

My previous longest ride was 114.59 miles with Steve, last October 27th. A ride which will forever be famous as the "Unknown and Undocumented Century." (Sorry, Steve.) It's the only century I haven't written up in detail, and I really don't know why... I still remember most of it, and we had a great time. ::shrug::

Saturday morning I was up at 7:30 and eating Pizza Pasta Salad for breakfast. The weather was perfect (and remained so all day long). I waited a few hours to let the food digest, then hit the road at about 11:00 for a warm-up lap of twenty-something miles.

Until I was actually in Ledyard, I had been intending to ride through it, stay on 117 to 2A to Route 12 in Norwich, then turn around and ride back to the house. That would be about 23 miles. However, there's one ridiculous hill on that route (a 50+ mph descender that I'd have to go back up again), and I didn't want to burn so many muscle cells that early in the ride. Instead, I turned onto Col Ledyard Highway (what a misnomer!) and rode the outer shell of 2/3 of my normal training route. I was back to the house with 23 miles on the trip odometer.

I returned to the house so that I could eat a light lunch without having to buy it on the road, recharge my bottles (again, to save money... the alternative is buying more gatorade at a store), and do any necessary tuneups on the bike. The bike didn't need anything, but I should have paid closer attention to the time! I sat at the house for almost an hour, so I didn't head out again until just before 1:00. What A Dope!

Now carrying three bottles and what felt like a gallon of Gu in one jersey pocket (remember, I bonked last year...), I headed out for the rest of the trip. First stop: Mystic Cycle, to have a tiny adjustment on the rear derailer (it was up-shifting a little late, and my barrel adjuster is frozen). I was there for maybe three minutes.

From there I rode out to and along the Pawcatuck River, into Westerly. Out to Watch Hill, around the loop, out to Misquamicut to Weekapaug, to 1A, to good old Route 1 North.

On Route 1 I had a slight tailwind. All day I'd been careful about keeping my cadence high (about 100), and with the tailwind I was able to shift down one gear and still maintain that cadence.

Somewhere around mile 60, I felt "bump bump bump" and saw something stuck to my front tire. Uh-oh. I stopped to check, it was the spring from clothespin, and one end was fully embedded in the tire. When I pulled it out, all the tire's air came with it. (Well, it wasn't quite THAT fast, but it was flat fairly quickly.)

When I packed my jersey pockets before leaving the house the second time, I'd left my tire levers on the shelf. I made do with the little nozzle-tightening lever on the end of my frame pump, and a piece of smooth metal I found on the side of the road, but it took three times longer than it otherwise would have.

Another rider came along just as I finished. He bragged that he was doing 40 miles, so I congratulated him (sincerely!). That wasn't good enough for him, he needed to compare himself with me, and pestered me to tell him how far I'd been. "A little over sixty miles." He didn't feel too bad about that, and asked how much further I had to go. "About seventy," I said. "Ten more miles, then?" So I explained that, no, I had another seventy miles to go. He seemed quite frustrated by that, said he had to go "while he had the wind," and rode away. I caught him a few minutes later (after I finished pumping my tire), said hi, and let him draft me until his turn.

I continued all the way to Route 4 (in RI). That's a very busy road (like an interstate, but it's not), so I'm quite glad I only needed it for a half mile. From there, I took a few back roads to a friend's house to pick up my wallet. I'd left it there last week, in my absent-minded way.

Yes (Daniel!), you read that right. I actually did something useful on my bike ride. You're not the only one. Just don't tell anybody.

The friend gave me some fruit (a peach), which I gobbled down quite happily, and refilled my bottles with ice water. Thank you!

From his house I hopped on Route 2 South, which runs almost parallel to Route 1, finally joining it all the way down in Charlestown. (Now I had a headwind... that's always nice on a very long ride. ;-)

I'd never ridden on Route 2 (in RI) before. I have to say that's some of the nicest road I've ever seen.

Only stopped once on Route 2, at a convenience store to refill two of my bottles with Gatorade.

At 99 miles into the ride (still on Route 2), my average speed was exactly 20.0 miles per hour. It was coming down, though, because at 83 miles (at the friend's house) I was at 20.3.

To my utter disgust and amazement, it clicked down to 19.9 mph just seconds before I hit the hundred mile mark. I couldn't believe it. (I'd been watching the average speed on the computer. When I saw it drop to 19.9, I switched to the trip odometer... I was at 99.8x miles.) If not for the flat tire, or the stop at that gas station, or any of a dozen other little moments, I would finally have completed my first 20 mph century. How annoying.

I exited Route 1 onto Route 1A, then rode back through the (practically evacuated) Misquamicut Beach, just because I needed the miles. Unfortunately, it was starting to get late, and it was obvious that I wasn't going to make it all the way to 134 miles without finishing in the dark of night. I've promised Corinne I won't do that until I have a blinker light on the back of the bike (at least).

Back in CT, at the top of the hill on Route 1 near Seafood, Etc., I called Jed and asked him to pick me up. It was after 7 already, and the sun had set. I still had the residual twilight, but home was still fifteen miles away. I told him what route I'd take home, so he drove in that way so we wouldn't miss each other.

When I called him, my average speed was down to 19.5. From there to downtown Mystic, I somehow managed to raise the average to 19.6. I was full of energy again, even though my break only lasted long enough to make that phone call and I'd already ridden 115 miles.

He'd forgotten about the Taste of Mystic food festival — also known as Taste of Mystic's Worst Ever Traffic — so it took him a long time to pick his way through the town, and I caught him before he was through. The whole area was just wall-to-wall people!

So, I didn't manage the full 134 miles. I had the legs and lungs for it, but I just didn't have the time (which was obviously my own fault for leaving so late). Not that I'm really complaining... this was still my longest ride ever, and I've learned some lessons about preparation and departure times.

Stats: 123.89 miles (199.4 km) in 6h 19' 12" for an average speed of 19.60 mph (31.56 kph).