li10up
07-30-2007, 09:56 AM
The alarm went off at 4:00 a.m. Forecast was for Intermittent Thunderstorms in Cleburne, TX. I was hopeful that the weather would cooperate and we would have a dry ride. Picked up a friend at 5:00 am and off we went.
We arrived at the high school at 6:30. It was a long walk from the parking lot to the registration area. I hadn't preregistered but I filled out my form and walk straight to a registration person. Took about 3 minutes. Lines did develop shortly after that but I had a good experience.
We got our bikes and I worked my way over to one of the vendor's trucks and had my rear dérailleur worked on. The guy knew his stuff and had my drive-chain singing like new!
Off to the start line. We got there about two minutes before the start at 7:30. The 100K was started first. There were a ton of people on this ride! Wish I knew how many. They had volunteers at every intersection...there was NO WAY you could have taken a wrong turn. They were fantastic.
We skipped the first two rest stops but hit the third one. The rest stops were awesome. I never had to wait in line for anything. The Gatorade wasn't watered down and everything tasted great...not that I'm a big eater on the bike. But I was introduced to something new - pickle juice. That stuff is the bomb! No cramping at all and I think it's because of the pickle juice.
Here's what I ate over the course of the ride. One Power Bar gel, three oatmeal cookies, one small chunk of chocolate, a tsp of peanut butter, one banana, about 8 orange wedges, half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and four small bottles of pickle juice...plus some Gatorade and water I carried on the bike. I think I ate OK.
I felt really good at the last rest stop with 7 miles to go. I was thinking I would be able to do the extra 30 miles needed to do a full century. But, with about 3 miles to go I felt really fatigued. I was glad to get off the bike at the end. I was pleased that we were still riding pretty strong at the end though.
This course was a lot of rolling hills with about 2 good sized hills thrown in. Ride time was 4:22:38, distance 71.11 and an average speed of 16.2 mph. I reached a new max speed of 40.7 mph going down one of the hills...and that was just coasting...wasn't even trying to go fast. That was way cool!!! We never got any rain and the clouds kept it cool. We had great weather.
This was a great ride!!! Thanks to all the volunteers that made this ride happen!
Anyone else do this ride? What did you think?
We arrived at the high school at 6:30. It was a long walk from the parking lot to the registration area. I hadn't preregistered but I filled out my form and walk straight to a registration person. Took about 3 minutes. Lines did develop shortly after that but I had a good experience.
We got our bikes and I worked my way over to one of the vendor's trucks and had my rear dérailleur worked on. The guy knew his stuff and had my drive-chain singing like new!
Off to the start line. We got there about two minutes before the start at 7:30. The 100K was started first. There were a ton of people on this ride! Wish I knew how many. They had volunteers at every intersection...there was NO WAY you could have taken a wrong turn. They were fantastic.
We skipped the first two rest stops but hit the third one. The rest stops were awesome. I never had to wait in line for anything. The Gatorade wasn't watered down and everything tasted great...not that I'm a big eater on the bike. But I was introduced to something new - pickle juice. That stuff is the bomb! No cramping at all and I think it's because of the pickle juice.
Here's what I ate over the course of the ride. One Power Bar gel, three oatmeal cookies, one small chunk of chocolate, a tsp of peanut butter, one banana, about 8 orange wedges, half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and four small bottles of pickle juice...plus some Gatorade and water I carried on the bike. I think I ate OK.
I felt really good at the last rest stop with 7 miles to go. I was thinking I would be able to do the extra 30 miles needed to do a full century. But, with about 3 miles to go I felt really fatigued. I was glad to get off the bike at the end. I was pleased that we were still riding pretty strong at the end though.
This course was a lot of rolling hills with about 2 good sized hills thrown in. Ride time was 4:22:38, distance 71.11 and an average speed of 16.2 mph. I reached a new max speed of 40.7 mph going down one of the hills...and that was just coasting...wasn't even trying to go fast. That was way cool!!! We never got any rain and the clouds kept it cool. We had great weather.
This was a great ride!!! Thanks to all the volunteers that made this ride happen!
Anyone else do this ride? What did you think?