“Ride #67: First Century of the Year, with Tom Tinory”

Rawson Hubbell, who joined us for the first time on the Huckleberries Ride last year, wrote to ask me if we were doing it again this year. I knew we were, but there hadn't yet been any communication between the group, so I (eventually) wrote to everyone to talk about starting times. Even tried to fool them (half-heartedly) into thinking we should start at 6, to beat the heat.

We'll be starting at 7:30, at the same spot on the MA/NY border, on Friday, August 1st, the morning before the PMC.

In the burst of email which followed (between the fifteen or so riders on the cc list), one mentioned being in CT for vacation so he wouldn't be available for a proposed hill-ride sometime in the next couple weeks. "In CT?" I thought. So, I asked him if he was in my area, and (if so) if he would like to go for a ride.

Not only was he in my general area, but he's staying at his mother-in-law's house right in the very same town. Another Huckleberry right here in town? There's only one thing to do.

So, at about 5:40 on Saturday morning I set off to meet Tom Tinnory somewhere between...

Er, what's that, you ask? No, it's not a typo. 5:40 a.m., that's right. FIVE FORTY IN THE MORNING. No, really, I'm not kidding. Stop it, I'm serious!

As I was saying, I left the house at 5:40 AM, just a few minutes after sunrise, to meet Tom somewhere between his place and mine. That place happened to be on Route 117.

I mentioned the ride on Twitter, yesterday, and someone asked me for the route. My response managed to compress the whole ride into a twoosh! (A twoosh is a post on twitter that uses exactly the limit of 140 characters.)

@dreimiller 184->201->Cossadduck->49->184->River Rd->1->Watch Hill->Misquamicut->1a->1->215->117->184

That doesn't include the approximately 4 miles from my place to the meeting point on Route 117, but it says, in English: Route 184 to Route 201, to Cossadduck Hill Road, to Route 49 (actually, I forgot to include Route 165, as 201 never intersects 49 as far as I know), to Route 184, to River Road into Mystic and Route 1, to Westerly and the back roads into Watch Hill Road then Misquamicut, to Rotue 1a, back onto Route 1, to Route 215 in Mystic through Noank, back onto Route 117... er, hang on.

In fact, that route was wrong. After Route 215, we turned right on Long Hill Road (still Route 215?), which ends on Route 1 at the top of the hill. Tom turned left to head home, I turned right — away from Route 117 — and took Flanders Road back to 184, then to Haley Road and home. Whatever, it was close enough.

There were two mechanicals on the trip: the first was Tom getting a flat on Route 49 after riding over some glass. We saw quite a bit of glass, in fact, because we haven't had rain in ages so there's been nothing to wash it out of the road. The second mechanical was shortly after his flat: my bike started making this incredibly annoying metallic ringing sound! Turns out it was just a broken bottle cage.

With Cossadduck and Route 49 in the first half of the ride, we were mostly done with the hills before the temperature went too high. Our first water stop was actually my house, where we went for a little side trip after returning from Route 49 (about 45 miles into the ride) because I had left my Gu (energy gel) there. Second water stop was a gas station on Route 1 a couple miles East of Mystic Cycle and just a couple minutes after 9 a.m.

Another bit that my "twoosh" left out: from Route 1 in Stonington we turned right onto Greenhaven, followed that to the Pawcatuck River and swooped left onto River Road. This takes us into Pawcatuck, right on the border with Westerly.

Tom had never seen Watch Hill from the road, only from his boat. Not sure he really saw it this time, either, as he was focused on both not being hit by any tourists in their big cars and not running over any of the many careless pedestrians.

In Misquamicut I did what I always do: pick my way through the stopped cars waiting to enter the beach parking lot, and then crank up my speed to whatever maximum I can manage all the way around the big curve of the parking lot. This time, that speed was 30.1 mph, for about 30 seconds, then about 26 mph for another 45. Slowed down at the far end so Tom could catch me (I didn't warn him), then told him Steve Davis hates it when I do that. It's nice to stretch my legs a little, sometimes.

After the beach area we had rabbits: five cyclists ahead of us, and I wanted to catch them before the end of the road in Weekapaug. It was a struggle, but we did it with just a few dozen yards to spare. Rode with them to our next water stop, the Mobil station Dunn's Corners. Turns out they were all from URI, and were also doing a century.

Tom was a little concerned that we were going to end up with a lot more than 100 miles, but instead of retracing our route we took the most direct route back to Mystic Cycle. It took almost 30 minutes for them to replace the bottle cages on both bikes, because one of my bolts was completely stripped (the inside, where you put the allen wrench). They finally ripped the cage off and then used pliers to grab and turn the round bolt.

After last year's disastrous PMC ride, I was really worried about how I'd handle my first century this year. Would I be ready for three days in a row?

Once this was all done, though, I felt great! Tired, of course, but still far better than I expected. Plus, I got to ride with a friend instead of going out solo. Thanks for a great time, Tom!

Stats: 101.46 miles (163.3 km) in 5h 30' 13" for an average speed of 18.43 mph (29.68 kph).

My weight for this ride was 244 pounds. Last year at the PMC I was 253, and my lowest ever at the PMC was 250. (I've been down to 239 later in the summer, but never this low so early.)