My First Century - Long Report!
This might be long so bare with me!
It was the Tour de Fest in Kimberly, Wisconsin. This is known as a very flat ride but the century loop was new. My sister lives nearby so I came up the night before.
First thing in the morning as I'm checking my gear I noticed my front tire is flat. I tried to put air in and the valve stem busted off. We get to the ride at 6:30 to register and the sponsoring bike shop is not present to help with the tire. I change it myself (ok, partially - a guy had to help me so I let him). That was my spare tube and now I'm without a tube. I take off at 7:30, a half hour later than I had hoped.
The ride was very poorly marked. The arrows were only 3 inches long and right at each intersection. Ten miles into the ride a FedEx truck rides past me and kicks up a piece of metal which embedded in my back tire. Flat number 2. Since I am tubeless I call the SAG number on the cue sheet. The course is so well marked they can't find me:p They call me 3 times asking where I am. Ironically, I'm still in the same spot and getting a bit ticked off:mad: . Finally 3 guys stop and give me one of their tubes and change it for me. Then the SAG vehicle shows up to see if I need help!:confused: So now I've lost another 20 minutes and I'm thinking maybe 70 miles is good enough. See, I've been reading the cue sheet and there's a stretch called 7 hills road on the 100 mile loop with a comment: SAVE YOUR ENERGY FOR THIS APPRORIATELY NAMED ROAD!. I'm thinking that can't be good.
I had some food with me and was thankful since I figured I'd skip the first rest stop. Good thing - I never saw it. Word had it it was a half mile off the course and a lot of people didn't see it. So my first rest stop is 28 miles into it. The weather was gorgeous but there were not many riders out. Come to find out only 190 people were riding that day and only about 53 were doing the century because of the hills. And the first 50 were from a local cycling club and they started at 6am - before the ride started! I didn't think that was very nice but hey, I'm still debating if I should ride 70 or 100. Now I know if I do the century I'll be doing it alone. Great.
At the cutoff for 70/100 my sister met me and was supposed to have a tube. No tube and I still haven't seen the SAG wagon since my flat (won't see them until 50 miles). I decided since I was out there alone already, what the heck. I'm still waiting for the people that SJCzar promised to send me to keep me company:p Little did I know they were right behind me.....
As I start on the loop leading to pain, 2 older guys catch up to me - one on a recumbent. We ride and chat and one is a gentleman I had met the week before on a ride. We determine we are the last 3 people on the century and we stay together for a bit. Then come the hills.....
The first few hills were big but doable. I tucked in behind recumbent guy Bruce with Bob behind me. They get me over the first couple then pull ahead. Here comes a hill that I had to do a double take on. You know when you see a hill coming and it looks tall and as you get closer it flattens out and you can break it down a bit? You couldn't on this hill. It was a 16% grade hill and we found out later it's called "The Wall". Well named. Now, I have never walked a hill (I've also never biked a mountain:p ), but I seriously thought about it halfway up. Then I remembered someone had posted CSC's black wrist bands that said "Toughen the F*** up!" That became my mantra!
I met the boys at the top to catch out breath and then they proceeded to stay well ahead of me but in eye sight. There were more than 7 miles of hills but that was the worst of it. Fifty miles into it is the next rest stop and my legs are toast! Only half way there and my mind starts putting the doubt in my head. I ate, prayed and hopped back on the bike.
The next 15 miles were the hardest. I was cursing the course directors at this point: for the poorly marked course, for the freakin' hills, for the bloody gravel roads they were making us ride, for my sore bum, legs and the blasted wind that had picked up. When I looked up on yet another gravel road and saw another hill I almost cried. Toughen the F*** up! The Lord answered my prayers and I turned before the hill. I started to sing to myself. I started with "100bottles of beer on the wall". I got down to 96 bottles of beer and said screw it:rolleyes: So I pretended I was riding in an ironman (hey, you gotta do what you gotta do!), I tried humming, I thought of my little guy, I said hi to the cows and horses, etc. Whatever I could do to get the negative thoughts out of my head. My mph had dropped down to 10-13 in the headwind. At one point 2 farm dogs came charging down barking at me and I told them that if they wanted a piece of me they could have it - I couldn't pedal any faster! At 70 miles I hit a rest stop and rang my bell - 65 miles had been my previous PB. Every mile I rode was now a personal best, and the volunteers, Bob and Bruce cheered me in!
They knew I was a bit frustrated so the SAG guy hung around and kept asking me if I wanted to ride in. He wasn't helping:eek: I came out to ride a century and I wasn't leaving until I did it! I did have him give me a tube so I had one with me though. I ate enough to give me a second wind and got into a groove coming out of this stop. I finally picked up speed but still couldn't catch up to the guys. They were riding slower so I could see them but I would have preferred they rode with me in a group to help with wind and speed. Oh well, at least I wasn't alone. Bob finally took off because he had to get home but Bruce hung back but stayed ahead of me. My sister met me at the last rest stop to give me an atta girl and I had a quick bite and headed out - I wanted to be done. I ended up passing Bruce because he had to tinkle in the corn fields and then he took a wrong turn. I was now in that zone of "I could keep going till I fell off the bike". My legs had felt pretty good since about mile 75 and the hills now were more inclines. There was one last steep short one right after - you guessed it - a gravel patch, but it wasn't bad anymore. There was no way a hill was gonna stop me now!
Marguerite wasn't shifting so well anymore from all the gravel roads so she is in need of a cleaning and relube. I finished at 3:40pm - 40 minutes after I wanted to but the 2 flats caused that. Total time on the bike was 6 hours and 38 minutes and the course was only 97 miles. You can bet I rode around the block until my computer read 100! Total elevation was 3,888 feet with most of it in a 10 mile stretch. My average was 14.6 which I was pleasantly surprised with (I usually average around 15). It was 55 degrees when I started and 80 degrees when I finished. I found the mental challange more of an issue and an accomplishment for me - now I know what I'm capable of doing and I don't think I will second guess myself so much anymore. And I'm not very sore either - my bum is a bit sore but I expected my legs to hurt more. This is one month earlier than I had planned to do a century (Sue talked me into it because she thought it would be flat). Here's a before picture with my sister and an after picture - thanks for reading!
