Went on a great 70 mile loop yesterday, where the start was about 15 miles away from my home, and so commences the first annual father's day century (for me at least!).

The only picture I got was at the end:

1st annual father's day century by JPTwins, on Flickr

Luckily I know southpawboston got a few more. Here's me hiding under his handlebarbag:

Behind the fork panda by somervillebikes

and us at the beginning of a surprisingly nippy sunday morning:

Ride companions by somervillebikes

Ha, nippy was good! I arrived home without having to shower .

I like your idea of making this an annual tradition!

Not so nippy out here!

Whew, I'm cooked. I rode my 200k AV Movie Land permanent on Sunday in 100+ temperature. The route takes in part of the 2012 Tour of California stage 6 before turning back into the valley to visit some familiar movie sites. Here I am in front of the "Kill Bill" church, in Hi Vista, CA.


Rode my 1981 Allez. I need a shower!

Jim

Today's century was kind of a kluge. The first 69 miles were on a group ride where we inexplicably kept speeding up to 18-20 MPH (not unheard-of for our shorter rides, but kind of dubious for a ~70 mile ride). I used my Bianchi Premio, sporting a new Brooks Pro. Despite my concerns about the shape, the only damage done was to my sitbones. One of the other guys in the group recently had his 80's Falcon restored, so I wasn't the only guy there with a lugged steel bike and downtube shifters!

After getting back home, I rested and showered, grabbed the fixed-gear, and headed out to intercept a party ride in progress. Drank some ciders, ate some fried ravioli, played a large version of Jenga, and headed back. I made up the remaining 6 miles by pootling around the neighborhood.

Sorry I don't have any pics this time around!

- Scott

Once again, correct me if I'm wrong. I have ThermionicScott down for 6 imperials, TimmyT, rhm, seypat, jptwins, southpawboston--one each, and leaping-gnome with a double metric. krobinson103--2 imperials.
I am back in the USSA, and am getting very little riding in at all. But in two weeks I'll be back home and back at it.

For Two weeks in a row I've ridden a century on sunday. The first was 101 miles. The second last week was actually 150km in 5 hours and 25 (logged computer time) with a Pb 100km in 3 hours 30 minutes then the rest just gentle riding on my commuter doing chores. I think with stops etc it actually took 6 1/2 hours including time to fix a puncture, but I don't feel the need to not enjoy the ride with a few stops here and there. I personally don't count the last a true century, but I like the pace I rode at. A first for me. This Sunday its going to be the whole 100 miles in 6 hours or under if I can do it. It was a bit of a suffer fest last week, but I hope I will be a little stronger this week. I've also worked on a few ways to carry food and water in a way that I can eat and drink on the bike. This should bring the total stops to around 30 minutes.

I believe I'm up to 6 "imperial" centuries: the 95er you guys were gracious enough to count, the one I did a weekend or two later, the 200k, the 300k, the 400k, and then the century I did this weekend.

edited

Is that 6 in the month of June?

Oh no, just two in June. Sorry, thought you were keeping a yearly total.

i have 4 imperials and a handful of metrics. well, 5 imperials, since I just completed a 160 mile midnight ride (actually wrote it all up and then bikeforums deleted it). It was called the Dirigo Dynamo (after the UK's Dunwich Dynamo). Read more about it here, except that I was part of the group that made it all the way to Portland:
https://lovelybike.blogspot.com/2012/...e-express.html

and some pictures:


Blurry shot of me.


Dirigo Dynamo 2012: night is coming... by JPTwins, on Flickr


Dirigo Dynamo 2012: Fireworks greeted us into Salisbury by JPTwins, on Flickr


Dirigo Dynamo 2012: pre-dawn sandy rail trail by JPTwins, on Flickr


Dirigo Dynamo 2012: Old Orchard Beach with Jon dipping his toes in. by JPTwins, on Flickr


Dirigo Dynamo 2012: rail trail near Scarborough by JPTwins, on Flickr

It absolutely wild the things you experience and see on a remote middle-of-the-night ride.

I rode a trans-San Gabriel Mountain route that I have always had on my list. The first 40 miles are a repeat of other rides I've documented here but this time I continued up Big Rock Creek Rd towards the Angeles Crest Highway. Starting at 4000 ft the lower asphalt road follows the creek.



The road turns to "unpaved" and the grade goes up beyond 15%. I was riding my Sequoia with a compact double 38T and 8 of 9 on 7 gearing in the back, with 35mm multi-terrain tires. The road surface was equal parts gravel, sand, and scree (4-5" rocks). It was a struggle as my back tire was constantly spinning to get traction.




Finally back on asphalt on Angeles Crest Highway at Vincent Gap at 6500 ft. You can see the Big Rock Creek road climbing to the right in the background on my way up to Dawson Saddle.




So this was I came for.. going down Hwy 39 from Islip Saddle. The upper section of Hwy 39 is long closed and is in rough shape. I was prepared with my all terrain tires and I needed them. Lots of rocks, chatter bumps, holes, and loose gravel, along with the descending speed. And oh so beautiful!




The road stays demanding after Crystal Lake. Saw one rider (a woman) this high up. She must have started pretty early, too.


And finally the lower San Gabriel reservoir on the way to the river trail and the Metrolink train home. 105 miles.

Great scenery pics, leaping_gnome! And I love how part of this century was "off-road".

Here's the only pic from mine this weekend. It was a hot one, and somehow I ended up in "the fast group" -- our riding club did the first official century of the season in preparation for Ragbrai.



- Scott

Rode another century yesterday with TimmyT, here shown at the Big Duck at Flanders, L. I. , N. Y.



I took more photos, but (would you believe...) they didn't come out any better than that one.

The fun thing was that I rode my Lambert 3-speed again (that's the red bike in the foreground of that photo), but had converted it to a fixie. A three speed fixie, that is, with the Sturmey Archer S3X hub. Not having ridden a fixed gear bike for any length of time before this, I had no idea how hard this would be. Especially on the part of me where I sit.

We saw deer, turkeys, rabbits, white herons, a blue heron, jumping fish, sand pipers, piping plover, geese, and some other ducky things that might have been, well, ducks.

And it was hot! Salty water would drip into my eyes every time we stopped. Can't tell you how much water I drank. Enough, though.

Another one down!

This was the Second Annual Long Island Century.

Yesterday I rode 115 miles in the company of five other forum members, plus two that rode 80+ miles but had to bail on account of time pressures, three who did a shorter route (metric century, though!) and one who had to drop out early due to a mechanical issue.

How many forum members can you recognize? They come from as far away as Maryland, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Massachusets, and most places in between. California is not shown (due to the aforementioned mechanical).

I started another vintage 200k brevet (on my 1975 Eisentraut) this past weekend down in the Ventura-Santa Barbara area but I did not finish! Instead, I fell when my front tire blew out on a road hazard and I was thrown down hard onto the tarmac and brush on the side of Pacific Coast Highway near Rincon and broke my right collarbone. Two of three other riders who were just behind me also got flats in the same spot - it was a sharp rock. They and other passing riders helped me get unclipped from my pedals and make phone calls to the brevet organizer, then my wife, and finally 911. The other riders with the flats were having problems booting their tire so I had them get into my patching kit for more supplies - all while lying flat on my back as the pain of the broken collarbone and considerable road rash began to take over.

So by the end of the day I was back home gulping Vicodin like Dr House. This 200k was the 9th in a row for R-12 credit so it looks like I won't be getting an R-12 in 2012 like I had planned. I also probably won't be back on the bike in time for the 300k brevet I had lined up on August 11th. I will be keeping my vintage century string in tact, though, since I had already completed the July ride over ACH and I will be OK by late August. I still plan on riding the Furnace Creek 508 in October on the Eisentraut (there is a "classic bike" division!). I have not made sure the Eisentraut is not bent, it's just too hard to handle a bike one-handed, but it should be OK.

Be careful out there! - Jim

Ouch, hope you heal up soon, Jim!

I completed another century two days ago on RAGBRAI. I took the "Karras Loop" that brought Tuesday's mileage up to 107 miles or thereabouts. And as a bonus, I got to meet John Karras himself -- the co-creator of the whole thing back in 1973!



As for the ride itself, the temperatures radiating off the pavement exceeded 100 degrees, and there was a persistent wind from the southeast that made much of the ride (from west to east) a 12-14 MPH slog. And for those of us riding the century, we got to climb out of the Des Moines River Valley three times that day!

- Scott

Jim, what a bummer! You aren't seriously considering riding a century one-handed, are you? That's crazy. I know you only need one hand to ride, but sometimes you need that hand for some other purpose, like drinking water or scratching your nose or something. There's no way I'd ride more than five miles one handed. Take it easy! Heal up, man!

Scott, that is cool. I wish I had done RAGBRAI the first time someone tried to get me to do it --this was my brother, in the early 80's or so. He did it a couple times in the 70's and a couple times since then.

Thanks, guys, for the well wishes.

No single-handed century! Single-handed typing is bad enough. I just expect to be back in form before the end of August so I will be able to keep up.

Scott, RAGBRAI looks like a lot of fun!

Jim

August, done!

Got up reasonably early yesterday, rode 25 miles to the Peconic Bay Diner for breakfast, then continued east to Greenport, took the ferry to Shelter Island and the other ferry to North Haven, then west through Noyac, where we stopped for lunch at Jimmy Jim's diner. Good lunch! Proceeded on less familiar roads through the South Fork, then Dune Road and the usual route back to my house, total somewhere around 118 miles and almost 12 hours total time.

It was really humid! I drank three bottles of gatoraid and I don't know how much water. Needed it all. Was positively drenched in sweat all day. My saddle --one I had just recovered a couple weeks ago, so brand new-- went from being as hard as a rock to being completely saturated and therefore much softened. But it was comfortable, and it dried to the correct shape, so no problem there. We saw goldfinches, turkeys, blue herons, white herons, cormorants, an osprey... and a chipmunk. Can't remember what else!

Before breakfast we found an old Fuji, very rusty, but with enough potential that we went back for it later (in the car):


A vinyard on the North Fork:


And sunflowers, not quite in full bloom:


Some of our roads were actually marked as bike routes:


Long Island Sound:



North Ferry, to Shelter Island:


A golf course at Southhampton:


Tiana Beach (that's the Atlantic Ocean on the right):


And when we got home, I grilled some fish. Well, it was all too smoky for sure; I need practice.

^^^ The we was rhm & TimmyT.
After scrolling through the list, my centuries look like (rhm help me):
1. January: New Year's Day Metric (rhm got a full)
2. Jan/Feb??: NJ Devil Century (we hauled @$$ with a tailwind at the end)
3. March: Bear Mountain Bridge Century
-. April: Skipped, mainly out of town
-. May: Skipped, in Greenland
4. June: Route-finding in Long Island
5. July: Big Duck Century
6. July: Long-Island Century
7. August: Almost a double metric: Paris-Roubaix-type riding through a cornfield to shorten the trip between roads. Lots of fun on that 1/2 mile run. Fish at the end ^^ above.

So, it looks like I'm one behind so far.

So I guess I'm getting behind. This is for July.

rhm 2 imperial centuries
TimmyT 2 imperials
ThermionicScott 1 imperial
leaping_gnome 1 double metric

Carry on then,

seeds

Well, on Sunday 8/26 Tim and I got in another --118 miles for me, and at least a double metric for him. Mostly paved roads, though we sought out a few without pavement; and about 25 miles on the Delaware Canal towpath, which is not paved. Gravel, crushed red stone, or just bumpy grass... fun!

I took a few photos...


A little train station....


An even littler train station....


Greetings from Asbury, not to be confused with Asbury Park....


The view SW from Asbury....


The Delaware River flood plain....


An old bridge over the Delaware Canal....

It was a beautiful sunny day, no wind to complain about, not very hot. Strangely, for such a bright day, we saw a lot of deer. Couple dozen, I'd guess. Also hawks, blue heron, goldfinches, and a couple of nearly suicidal squirrels.

Great pics, as always, Rudi!

Looks like I won't be getting one in for August. Been busy every weekend.

Looks like a beautiful trip! I will try and catch up by Friday.

Jim