Friday, September 3, 2010

A Century, At Last


I did not have a good excuse and was overdue to ride another century, so with Michele as my accomplice, we completed a 100 mile ride on Sunday, Aug.29th. This was Michele's first century and I was glad she did it with me; hopefully a memorable occasion for her. It was only my second century, as I only want to do it if the weather is ideal and if I can get a good night's sleep. All the stars lined up this time and it was a very good experience. We shared a large portion of this ride with Dan, an enthusiastic, cheerful guy, who is an old friend of Gary's. This ride was scheduled to start at Island Cottage and Edgemere Dr. in Greece at 7:30am. Michele and I rode from her house in Irondequoit to the start location, to get in extra miles, where we met up with Gary, Dan and Rosemary. The ride took us out to Brown's Berry Patch, near Lyndonville, on very quiet open roads. Gary and Rosemary rode together at a nice pace and were not far behind us when we stopped for lunch. We did have slightly different routes and our group missed a few turns, stopped for water and restrooms, dealt with a long gravel road and had to patch up my scraped knee after I took a spill on the gravel, so when you add that up, I guess we did loose some time. But, that is to be expected on such a long ride, especially with many unfamiliar roads.

At Brown's Berry Patch, we had a nice lunch on a picnic table under a big shade tree, where Rosemary announced that this was her last long ride and that she was giving up the bike! If you know Rosemary, this is so hard to believe, as she is the most ardent cyclist I know. But she is turning 80 this year and thinks that it is time to give it up. I'm sure she is making a wise decision, but still... Fortunately, she likes spinning at the gym and will continue riding indoors. We will miss her presence on our longer rides; hopefully we will stay in touch.

The ride back went smoothly, for the most part. It was hot, but not muggy and I think we had a little breeze behind us pushing us along. I had a few leg cramps that forced me off the bike temporarily. I also felt a bit ill at mile 96 and had to stop for a while, before we finally hit the big one zero zero. No complaints from Dan or Michele. I did hear from Gary that they made it back without any problems. They rode 77 miles in all. Nice accomplishment to end the summer!

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