Previously my longest ride was close to 40 miles. During the last few weeks as weather has allowed I've been riding multiple 30 to 38 mile rides per week. This weekend I took my longest ride ever 82 miles + 7 mile ride with the family later that day.
I rode from my house in East Amherst to my Sister's house in Pittsford NY. I used NY State bike route 5, it mostly uses Route 31 that somewhat following the Erie canal. Within the City of Rochester I switched over to riding along the canal because there are some sections of road that Bike Route 5 follows that are most definitely NOT bike friendly. At least the canal path in the Rochester area is paved so it makes for a much easier ride than the packed stone dust. My wife was a bit freaked out about it, but I knew she would be following me to Rochester a few hours later with our daughter so if I had gotten stuck I would have called her for a pickup. I ended stopping for a short break and calling in every 20 miles to give her a quick update, and to let my body get a quick break. I was doing pretty well till I got to around the 50 mile mark. At that point the there were many more rolling hills. Up is slow, and down never feels as good as it should. On the earlier flatter parts I was averaging 17.9 MPH. Once I hit the hills I slowed down a bit. It took me 4:40 to complete the ride and ended up averaging 17.2 MPH. The wind was mostly from the North at 3 to 7 MPH.; Since I was traveling mostly doe East, the wind so it didn't help nor hurt much. I ended up drinking two 24 oz bottles of water and two 24 oz bottled of Gatoraide. I had my usual breakfast of oatmeal and ate a banana, a peanutbutter and cheese (I was born in Holland... everything is better with cheese) sandwich and one Cliff bar. Around the 62 mile mark my arms and butt were getting a bit sore, but I wanted to finish. Around 70 miles the arm and butt soreness went away a bit, but by then my neck and shoulders were starting to get a bit anoyed with the long ride. By then I just wanted to get the ride done. The last 3 miles were fun as there are two steep hills just before my sister's house. I was pleased that once I was off the bike I was still feeling pretty good. I took a nice shower and did some streaching after the ride.
Later in the afternoon we all went for a family ride. I had put my hybrid on the car earlier so that I could take my daughter along using her Co-Pilot. We had a nice ride till my wife's asthma started acting up. She took a break and my mom stayed with her while we rode on a bit. I could have gone a bit further, but I guess a full century ride was not to be. It was a great day. I did end up taking a short nap that afternoon because I'd gotten up extra early to get a good start on the day and I wanted to be in Rochester around 1:00 pm.
Suprisingly my legs didn't hurt much on Sunday. I did notice this morning that my legs felt a bit "heavy" so I took it easy on my commute. I'll have to start riding harder again later this week.
A year ago this June I thought a 33 mile charity ride was a good achievement. I can't believe that less than a year later I was able to a Metric Century with relative ease, yet had enough energy to plow on and almost complete a full Century ride
Later this Summer my sister wants to join me for a repeat ride, except we will ride the Erie Canal tow path the whole way. I took a test drive along the canal with the road bike last week and my arms and hands were completely numb after only 7 miles. I'll have to use the hybrid as the road bike is no fun on the path. That will be a much slower ride. Hopefully we'll be able to do it in less than 7 hours. There is always an other chalenge ahead
.
Happy riding,
André