Road Cycling - First century complete!

Completed my first century down in Santa Fe on the weekend. Total distance covered was 105.5 miles in about 6:30 saddle time (7:15 elapsed after time taken at food stops). I rode with two buddies from Denver, and none of us had any mechanical problems on the ride. Great ride conditions on the day, with a fairly typical Santa Fe breeze coming as a headwind at the end of the ride. The Brooks saddle gave me absolutely no butt complaints. :D I love visiting Santa Fe - we drove down on Saturday, and stayed Sunday night too so were able to have a brief wander around on Monday morning before meandering back to CO.

All in all, a great experience and a fantastic mental boost to have completed! Thanks to all on BF for all the various pointers that have been posted around here. The nutrition and training advice I picked up from various threads was invaluable.

Next up: at least a metric century at the Elephant Rock ride... :D

Congrats!

We had a great trip also to SF, and greatly enjoyed our ride.

Sorry we missed.

Too bad about the fellow who got crushed by the car parked behins as he was getting his bike out. Lady mistook accelerator for brake!

Here is an article from USENET and my response on the SFC! Thought you might enjoy.


Not a race at all, some folks were faster than others, but everyone had
a good time.
My hats off to the organizers, good snacks at the frequent rest stops,
well organized, lots of good signs for directions, a very pleasant event.

We saw riders of all sorts of abilities and ages, some rode 50 miles on
knobby tires, a couple of groups of racer types in a peleton of 12 or so
folks, some folks who appeared to ride very infrequently.

Let me just say, my wife and I ride a lot, this time of year we are
training for the Iron Horse race here in Durango, at elevation, almost
all climbing. We are training just to better last year's time.

I don't want to say this and appear mean spirited, we were both very
impressed with the folks we saw who appeared out-of-shape and
overweight, plodding through the miles. I don't know how many miles they
rode (there were several options starting at 25 miles), and often they
were on mtn bikes or older road bikes. But they put on the miles with a
smile, worked through the same issues we all do on a relatively long
ride (whatever that means for you) and performed in fine fashion. I
wanted to say to each and everyone, don't give up, this is hard on all
of us, the fact that you keep going is more impressive than anyone who
flies by at 25 mph.
If you are in this boat, don't get disappointed that you were slower
than others, take pride in the fact that this was perhaps harder for you
than many others, and you did it. Every single one of us started
somewhere, and had more than one hard ride in our life. Just keep peddling!

Oh yeah, and those guys who were 20 years my senior and road past me
like I was standing still, you I don't like :)

--
Craig Brossman, Durango Colorado

My response:


My wife, who at 66 yo, rode 25 miles including a couple of hard hills, worked
as hard or harder than the hotshots who sped through in 5 hours.

Almost everyone was very nice with the exception of two road bikers who were
extremely rude to my wife as she was going down a hill with rumble strips.
They yelled at her to pull over, but the place where she was supposed to "pull
over" had about a 5-10% increase in slant from the riding area on the shoulder,
and it would have been extremely unsafe for her to pull over into that slanted
area.

They acted as if this was a race, not a ride, and, besides, they were riding
one of the short routes - if they wanted to play big time biker, they should
have been on the century, not the 25-50 miler.

Anyway, my wife is not at a loss for words, and was able to properly verbally
discipline the young whippersnappers! They probably won't forget that
"grandmotherly" type who told them where they could get off in no uncertain
terms.

Also, the rumble strip was much gentler than those we have in Colorado, and I
soon discovered that you can cross the strip with little or no problem, and
these rude folks could have easily passed to the left cross the strip.

But, it was a great day.

Also:


We went to the lunch afterwards, and did meet some nice folks.

As far as the rumble strip, we decided not to ride on I-25, so we parked just
at the turnoff to 285, and then road out to Galisteo and back, so we
essentially went the 50 mile turn around route, just not I-25.

Four years ago I did the full century, and my wife rode by herslef. She really
wanted me to ride with her this time, and I am not yet in shape for the full
century, so it worked out fine for both of us!

The scenery is so spectacular on the way from 285 to Galisteo. I love that
section.

Thanks, Denver.

I was very impressed with the organization of the ride. I understand your apprehension about the I-25 riding. My least favorite part was the merge where the I-25 exit joined back to St Francis St. It was quite dicey moving back across to the right - my commuting experience came in handy!

Rest stops were awesome. We stopped at all except the Stanley stop at 62 miles. After a great tailwind section across the bottom of the route, we were feeling good and still had plenty of fluid with us to make it to Galisteo.

Congrats to you and the wife! Sorry to hear she had a run-in with some arrogant riders... the rumble strips were very easy to cross so there was really no excuse for their behavior. My wife completed the 50 mile ride pretty much by herself. She started with a friend, but friend was only able to complete the 25 mile ride due to need to head back to feed her 3-month old baby. My wife's longest ride before this was about 20 miles, so she was incredibly pleased to be able to complete the 50 with a few decent climbs. We're contemplating a tandem at some point in our future so we can ride a century together.... :D

Congrats. Finishing your first century is a great accomplishment.

Completed my first century down in Santa Fe on the weekend. Total distance covered was 105.5 miles in about 6:30 saddle time (7:15 elapsed after time taken at food stops).

Congratulations. You beat my time for my first century by about two hours. :(

Stubacca and DnvrFox, also just returned from the Santa Fe Century. Great weather and another good showing of cyclist. I did the out and back but added another 12 miles to make it a metric century. For all of you who are in the area (what ever that is, as some of the folks staying at our motel were from Kansas) this is a really top drawer event. Well run, beautiful country, interesting town (gals, read shopping!!) and nice temps the past two years.

Congrats to you all, I miss NM and the tours and rides... I miss the Iron Horse in Durango and I miss the friendly folks like you all seem to be...
Hopefully I will be back in NM next year and once again I can take advantage of the great rides that the State has to offer...
Next time have some green chili and some Great Mexican food after the ride for me...
Again Congrats