Yesterday's ride was a glorious one.
I skipped out of work at 11:30am, and went home to fuel up. Had some Fig Newtons, the chicken breast from a McDonald's Grilled Classic and some juice. At 1:30 Erik and I left on our journey for a century.
Our plan was to climb 4 mountains and finish 100 miles before sundown. Now, for him this is an easy task in 7 hours - it should take him about 5 or maybe even less. However my longest ride this season was 40mi, and I'm certainly not as fast as Erik. So, this was a challenge given the task of climbing 4 mountains in the course of the 100mi.
We started off climbing Mohonk. Since it's so close, our legs were quite cold and it probably hurt the rest of the day by putting that first. However, it was the smallest climb and we recovered fairly well in the following 10-20 miles before the next climb. The next climb was Peekamoose Mountain. This climb was my least favorite of the day, given that the last mile averages 16% grade. That, and the descent afterward had some of the worst road conditions all day. With very little in terms of recovery time, the next mountain was an equally bad one (I forget what it's called, either Bull Run or Sundown). It was a lot shallower than Peekamoose, but it had one section that was around 16% grade. That's where my hamstrings cramped, and I admitted defeat by getting off the bike to stretch.
Some nice breezy riding after that. It was getting late however, and we had to call the ride short. So, our shortcut took us up Minnewaska - where I started having problems with my shifter. I made it up fine and without any other complications as it's a freakin' easy climb (once you find your groove... you're good to go). Very shallow, very consistent although a bit boring. On the way down Minnewaska towards New Paltz, we stopped for a motorcyclist who crashed on a turn. Luckily he wasn't hurt aside from some road rash, but his bike looked like it had seen better days.
On the way back I was certainly tempted to go down Springtown Rd. to add in the 15 miles we cut out, just to complete the actual century, but it was already 8:00. Damn... next time. In the end though, I'm super satisfied with an 85-mile day that involved 4 mountains and about 7,500 feet of climbing (don't trust the elevation profile I showed a picture of... The site I use is good, but their elevation profiles are consistently wrong). Three mountains were over 1,200ft of climbing.
84.10 miles in 5:45:25. Averaged 14.61mph.
This ride confirmed that although I'm a strong rider, I still have a long ways to go.
Our plan was to climb 4 mountains and finish 100 miles before sundown. Now, for him this is an easy task in 7 hours - it should take him about 5 or maybe even less. However my longest ride this season was 40mi, and I'm certainly not as fast as Erik. So, this was a challenge given the task of climbing 4 mountains in the course of the 100mi.
We started off climbing Mohonk. Since it's so close, our legs were quite cold and it probably hurt the rest of the day by putting that first. However, it was the smallest climb and we recovered fairly well in the following 10-20 miles before the next climb. The next climb was Peekamoose Mountain. This climb was my least favorite of the day, given that the last mile averages 16% grade. That, and the descent afterward had some of the worst road conditions all day. With very little in terms of recovery time, the next mountain was an equally bad one (I forget what it's called, either Bull Run or Sundown). It was a lot shallower than Peekamoose, but it had one section that was around 16% grade. That's where my hamstrings cramped, and I admitted defeat by getting off the bike to stretch.
Some nice breezy riding after that. It was getting late however, and we had to call the ride short. So, our shortcut took us up Minnewaska - where I started having problems with my shifter. I made it up fine and without any other complications as it's a freakin' easy climb (once you find your groove... you're good to go). Very shallow, very consistent although a bit boring. On the way down Minnewaska towards New Paltz, we stopped for a motorcyclist who crashed on a turn. Luckily he wasn't hurt aside from some road rash, but his bike looked like it had seen better days.
On the way back I was certainly tempted to go down Springtown Rd. to add in the 15 miles we cut out, just to complete the actual century, but it was already 8:00. Damn... next time. In the end though, I'm super satisfied with an 85-mile day that involved 4 mountains and about 7,500 feet of climbing (don't trust the elevation profile I showed a picture of... The site I use is good, but their elevation profiles are consistently wrong). Three mountains were over 1,200ft of climbing.
84.10 miles in 5:45:25. Averaged 14.61mph.
This ride confirmed that although I'm a strong rider, I still have a long ways to go.