Ostuni

Up at 6:30 this morning, a cup of coffee, 1/2 bagel, a banana. vitamins, a shot of oj, a gu gel, play with leon 1532 (kitten rescued on recent weekend ride), and out the door for a planned 50-mile ride to set a personal best....

beautiful early morning conditions, and a nice route through leafy suburbs and then out into rural upstate south carolina.... good, lightly-traveled roads through peach orchards, horse farms, rolling hills, over rivers and creeks, and a gorgeous 3-mile loop through cowpens battlefield national park...

highlights:

>> at about mile 30 got passed like i was going backwards by a guy on a recumbent bike in the battlefield. he didn't look back or say anything, but from behind he looked smug and superior (he had probably just started his ride and was thus fresh and energetic....)

>> around mile 35 took a wrong turn on buck creek road that, naturally, took me up a long, terribly cruel hill that almost did me in.....

>> by mile 40 the arms are hurting and my feet are starting to burn.... am cursing that wrong turn up 'death mountain' and swearing to better learn a new route next time....

>> mile 50: miscalulated the mileage. still a good fur piece from home. it's getting hot and humid, am in pain, out of food and water, and starting to pout.... two toes on left foot feel like they are about to break off or burst into flames... pace is pathetically slow and technique is deteriorating badly... but, now realize that a metric century is possible, and that goal boosts the spirits....

>> end the ride with an extra loop around the neighbohood to get the mileage up to 61.27 miles. later, when recording ride data on activebody.org, am devasted to learn that 61.27 miles = 98.6045069 kilometers... wish i could round that up to 100 somehow....

miles = 61.27
time = 4:12:33
avg mph = 14.6

zing28

Nice job Ostuni! Congrats! Sounds like a great ride. It's amazing how the aches and pains go away when your goal is in sight. You worked through it. Thats awesome!

ovoleg

wow congrats. Im trying to get my avg mph to about 14-15 now. Was it hard getting past the 20 mark? I think it would be very mental upto about 30 miles no ?

Patriot

61.27mi? Close enough. You did it. Good job.

Now to aim for the infamous 100mi CENTURY.

Happy Riding

Paiyili

Excellent! I did my first (full) metric century yesterday. Frenchtown NJ to Trenton and back (with a bit of wandering in Trenton to up the mileage), via the Delaware Canal Path. 95 degrees in the shade. I feel your pain and share your elation.

daytonian

Nice story and congrats. If you had met the recumbent on the hill you would be doing the looking back at him.They always remind me of something between Star Wars and a bad acid trip.

reef58

Nice ride. Are you near Greenville? I have been staying there while on business, and there are some mean little hills there.

Later,
Richard

Ostuni

not for me as my regular weekday ride is now 15m, and my weekend rides have been 30+ for a month... on this ride i started losing my senses in the mid 40s, and that might be b/c of that hideous hill that nearly stopped me...

Ostuni

was thinking about that a lot on this ride, mostly along this line: 'how in the name of f... do those guys do it...?'

Ostuni

well done. will do another one for sure on sept. 10 for a charity ride to benefit the local animal shelter (tour de paws), and have a scheme brewing to maybe try a 100m century labor day weekend....

Ostuni

yeah, and that was the first time i had seen one in the wild... did not hear/see him coming, and so the surprise was great as he went past all of a sudden... thought i was hallucinating that a guy in a black lawn chair had just flown by.... cocky sob....

gapowermike

Great action. I rode with a friend the other day on what was supposed to be a 30 miler. Misunderstanding about the route, missed turn, etc. led to a 40 miler after an extra lap around the subdivision. The metric is next for me but I've got to hurry, I want to ride the Claxton (Georgia) Cruisin' in the Country Century in November. Come on down, it's only 50 miles or so west of Savannah.

Ostuni

just up 85 in spartanburg. an honest chamber of commerce motto would be: 'not much of a place to visit, but a great place to live....'

i bet there are some terrific rides out of greenville going into them mountains...

blandin

Nice ride Ostuni. Conratulations.

cuda2k

Congrats on the (just about but close enough) metric. I'm still training for my first metric planned in mid-sept. Still working on the bike and my form/strength at the moment. Your 'usual' rides sound just about what mine currently are so I'm feeling a bit more confident that I can be ready for the metric in a tad over a month.

Spin_Dr_Tio

Ostuni: If you ever want someone to ride with PM me and we can figure on a venue. There are a couple of great rides here in Cola & I would certainly like to ride some of the other parts of the state before I escape to the west in about 9 months.

Congrats on the epic ride!!! Your questions of "how others do it" will soon-enough change to "how did I ever think that this was a challenge? Where's my next hill?".