A Month of Centuries
This post covers a very busy month of July, which included a solo century, the Tour de Cure, the 3-State Century, and more.
As usual, July began with Fourth of July weekend, which is always a perfect time to lay down some hefty miles, whether three or four rides in a row or a single century.
Looking for my first long ride since June’s endo, I chose to do my first Pittsburgh solo century, and my third hundred-plus mile ride of the year. For a course, I cobbled together a flattish out-and-back route to Brush Creek Park. Just shy of Ellwood City, it covered some of the same ground as the final third of the 200k brevet that I did back in March.
Thanks to my early start (6:20am), the day began with a lot of mist and fog, and a surprising amount of wildlife: 6 rabbits, 4 deer, 2 groundhogs, and a horse being ridden down the road.
At the park that was my halfway turnaround point, I took a photo of my bike in front of a covered bridge before pushing on. I hadn’t ridden too hard, and continued to feel good until the last 15-20 miles. I struggled through the last 5-10 miles, stopping at a neighborhood convenience store to down a cola and a candy bar before finishing the job. I really need to do better with eating and drinking on long rides.
In the end, it was a nice ride, but pretty challenging toward the end.
Two weeks later came my first Tour de Cure charity ride for the American Diabetes Association, for which I again footed my own fundraising. That was my fourth century of the year. More importantly, it was also my first ever gran fondo, an endurance ride where riders are timed on certain segments of the course.
The weather was awesome, and I wore my Kraftwerk Tour de France jersey, a tricolor that looks a lot like the French champion’s jersey, in honor of both the ongoing tour as well as those affected by a terrorist attack in Nice. Around 80 riders took off with me at 7am for the century route.
There were three timed fondo segments, and I estimated my times using nearby Strava segments, to give myself a number to shoot for. Although I am reasonably pleased with my performance, it was nothing as compared to riders 30 years younger, who also had the support of an entire semi-pro team.
The first segment was 1.4 miles, featuring a half-mile climb. My estimate had been 6 minutes, and I actually traversed the Strava segment in 6:02. The second segment was a long, 6.7-mile time trial with some descending but minimal climbing. After estimating 22 minutes, I brought it home in 19:31. The final segment was a 1.7-mile brutal rolling climb. After a 10-minute prediction, I finished in 9:11. Out of a total of 36 gran fondo riders, I placed 25th, 20th, and 26th on those segments, placing 23rd overall, or 36th percentile. What do you expect from an old man?
I rode a fair amount of the day with a young guy named Eric, whom I’ve talked to at the Tuesday night Team Decaf rides, who was doing his first-ever century. I should also note that I beat him on two of the three timed segments, pipping him by a combined 19 seconds overall. Later in the day, at mile 66, he somehow managed to get his chain jammed underneath his bike’s chain catcher, which took us about 10 minutes to un-wedge.
I had mechanical issues of my own, too. Around mile 60, my right-side pedal, which I’d just had serviced by my local bike shop, started making sounds like it was about to fall apart. Fortunately, it hung together till the end, albeit making crunchy-poppy noises with every turn of the crank.
As for the ride planners, one obstacle they provided was a lack of ice at any of the rest stops, on a day which grew increasingly scalding. On the other hand, there was an impromptu rest stop with (warm) drinks left at the side of the road at mile 98; the last ten miles were all mostly downhill; and I was pleased to receive another finisher’s medallion.
The summary for this ride was pretty positive, but again the last 20 miles were quite a slog.
My next century-my fifth of the year and third of the month!-came a week later, at the Pittsburgh Major Taylor Cycling Club’s annual 3-State Century. I’ve only ever done one other three-state ride (MA/RI/CT), and that was years ago. After leaving home in Pittsburgh, we’d go straight west, spend all of three miles in West Virginia before crossing the Ohio River, travel in the state of Ohio for another three miles to the Pennsylvania line, then mostly follow the river upstream back to Pittsburgh.
Although much of the route was flattish, there were three major climbs, all them coming in the first half of the ride; the ascents were actually much easier for me than the long, high-speed descents that followed each climb!
Although the route was only 93 miles (not even close to a century), my ride to the start and back home rounded me up to 112 miles, which allowed me to surpass 10,000 total miles on the “new” bike. It also fulfilled my goal of doing more centuries in 2016 than the mere four I did last year, which had been a record low.
By far the most salient feature of this ride was the heat. The day began at 70 degrees and climbed well into the upper 90s, and the NWS issued a region-wide heat advisory. New high temperature records were set in five out of six area weather stations, and in Pittsburgh it was the hottest day in four years. Normally I like it warm, but that was a little much. I coped by drinking lots of fluid, then finished the day pouring bottle after bottle of water over myself and stuffing ice into my jersey pockets.
On the other hand, I finished stronger than any of my other long rides this year. I even pulled two guys home over the final 17 miles of the route. For the first time this year, the heat was a bigger challenge than fatigue.
While I’d planned to take a personal rest stop on the way home at the foot of the 300-foot climb up to Squirrel Hill, I opted to press on due to gathering clouds, which developed into a very strong thunderstorm that hit about 40 minutes after I finished.
Although the heat made it difficult, I enjoyed the 3-State Century a lot, and probably finished stronger than any other century this year. It was a good, interesting day in the saddle, and I saw a lot of area roads that I hadn’t tried thus far.
Those constitute my major rides over the past month, but there were also a couple Team Decaf and Performance Bike group rides, plus several recovery rides. And a couple short trips to the LBS to fix the problems I was having with my pedals.
In equipment news, I picked up a cool new jersey and cap that are vaguely ska-oriented, which I’m sure you’ll see later, plus a couple Mondrian-themed cycling caps (dark and light replicas of the old La Vie Claire team kit).
But the thing that has me really excited is the announcement of the new Garmin Edge 820 cycling GPS unit. My first Edge 800 has served me very well since 2011, but it recently started suffering spontaneous power-offs, and several generations of GPS bike computers have come out since then. Among the features I’d gain with the 820 are: live weather, live cyclist tracking, live group tracking, WiFi downloads, ANT+ FE-C control of indoor trainers, Strava live segments, email and text notifications from my phone, Di2 electronic shifting integration, and third party data fields & apps written for ConnectIQ. The only reason I haven’t bought one already is because I want to wait for other users’ experiences and Ray Maker’s in-depth review to come ou. But you can rest assured that it’s item number one on my wish list.
It was a great month, and I’m looking forward to more new adventures in the waning days of summer.