Tom, you're right on this one. Last year, doing a century ride in a day wasn't in the cards, but this year I'm in way better shape and have been doing CompuTrainer classes since October, so I'm ready to tackle a century in a day. :)

Interestingly, I'm finding that after doing metric and 3/4 century rides that I can actually do other activities afterwards. Last year, I could barely walk!

Our ride on the 19th was 47.5 miles according to my GPS tracker. You might have ridden a little more since you got "separated" and "dropped" from the group. :P

I would imagine that getting the time to do a century would be tough for pastors -- unlike the rest of us, they have a lot of commitments on the weekends! The idea of a metric-per-month club sounds good, as you can knock one out in ~4 hrs at a good "rando pace."

BTW, I made a century's worth of riding for the month of January with 109.02 miles as measured by my handy dandy GPS device! :) That's 4x the number of miles I did last January!

What is a "rando pace"?

Ballpark of 14-17 MPH on the bike. An experienced rando rider impressed on me last year that maintaining this pace, and being efficient at stops was fast enough to finish any brevet under the time limit and avoid burning out early. (He had to remind me several times to take it easy, as I naturally kept winding up the pace.) :thumb:

February done!

I brought along my newest toy, a Google Nexus Seven tablet, on which I can run "My Tracks" which recorded my ride by GPS. Here's a screenshot:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Q...4-15-55-14.png

I tried to keep my pace up. Average moving speed 14.5, gradually dropping toward the end. Hit 46.1 mph on a descent. Woohoo!

An unremarkable day all in all; not too cold, not very sunny, not very windy, not bad at all but not especially nice. I saw a lot of deer, and also a lot of other cyclists.

According to Bikeroutetoaster, that's 103 miles with 4170 feet of climbing.

What bike did you decide to ride for this one?

I rode the Basso again. I figured I needed to try it out on the hills, since last month's ride was pretty much flat. Sunday's ride involved about 4170 feet of climbing.

It's a good bike, very comfortable both climbing and descending, though some of the roads had rougher surfaces where the skinny tires were no fun at all. A dozen miles of that kind of thing, when you're getting tired anyway, takes a lot out of you.

March was done at a rando pace (15 to 30 KPH). I rode with a Fleche team for 24 hours, covering 244 miles. I rode my 1981 Sequoia. We stopped at our RBA's house sometime after midnight and had some hot soup and a 45-minute power nap before the last 60 miles. Looked like this.
http://ridewithgps.com/turer/1186921/full.png
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-q...0/IMG_0009.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-l...0/IMG_0013.JPG
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-r...0/IMG_0019.JPG

March, done!

TimmyT and I rode with the PA Randonneurs on their "Spring Forward 200K" ride out of Ephrata, PA.

here's a map: http://users.rcn.com/trosenbauer/Spr...200K_B_map.pdf

Started out riding more or less straight into a stiff headwind, then turned and rode with a treacherous crosswind for a while, and then turned and rode a good fifty miles with a tailwind so strong that I was riding along at 20 - 25 mph with no wind noise in my ears. It was pretty amazing, I could hear the sounds of all the other bikes' tires rolling on the asphalt and gravel; we could carry on conversations at a normal level and actually hear one another. All this in beautiful Lancaster County farmland, sharing the roads with horse drawn buggies and people riding scooters, watching the occasional plow team out in a field with six huge mules or eight horses. It was a pretty fragrant ride, too, with all the livestock in their pens and the natural fertilizers the farmers put on the fields.

The last control was at Parkesburg, after which we rode the last 25 miles straight into that same brutal headwind. That was a tough ride.

8572 feet of climbing, too. Ooof!

Sounds like a great ride! What bike did you ride for all that climbing? So are you going to try to do more of the PAR rides? The NER "populaire" season opener 107k is not for three more weeks, but with the lack of any winter training under my belt (on my legs, more appropriately) that'll be plenty enough for me.

I rode a Scott Quiring cyclocross bike, with Shimergo 8 speed drivetrain. Steel, but not really C&V.

I like the group ride, randonneur experience. But to make it happen this time I had to rent a car and drive an awful lot. And I'm really not into the driving! I don't think I'll do this more than once or twice a year. Next month there's a 120k or 200k ride out or Princeton, about a ten mile ride, that I am considering.

Well I made over 100 miles this month with a 3/4 century in the mix. Currently, I'm up to 158 miles for the month thanks to riding the Thurmont Thump Populaire with the DC Randonneurs Saturday (a 117km ride). Last month I only managed to get in 52 miles in total. Given my mother-in-law's passing and the numerous trips to and from the hospital during that time, I'm not going to complain.

I'm trying to find ways to build up to an imperial century and surely will make it this year. One thing I noticed is that after 70+ miles I was able to walk, whereas last year a 70+ mile ride left me in a condition where I could only make my way up the steps to rhm's house one at a time and I needed ibuprofin to deal with the pain. :cry:

A couple action shots of me early in the day. Note that I was riding in sneakers and don't have toe clips on the bicycle. There are some more shots of the Norman that Mike Wali took at the first control which was in Union Bridge MD.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8095/8...e7d4d6de_b.jpg
DSC_1619 by randomikew, on Flickr


Do these pants (tights) make my butt look big?
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8519/8...b6c5dc3a_b.jpg
DSC_1620 by randomikew, on Flickr

photogravity, you sure look happy.

My butt makes my butt look big.

I was having a good time despite the fact I was climbing up a hill. Far cry from last year, eh?

Last year you had trouble climbing some hills, but as I remember, you looked to be happy then, too. Now you have even more reason, which is that you're getting much stronger, very quickly.

Well, I've done my final tally for the month of March and this is where things ended up for the month: 245 total miles with two 3/4 centuries in the tally. This is double the number of miles done in March last year, so I'm pretty happy. :) I'm debating doing a brevet in April if 1) I can enlist someone to drive and 2) someone offers to stoke my tandem for me. We'll see where that goes.

Well, it's April, but I knocked my first one out. TriStates100 out of Dothan, AL. Century was scheduled for 104mi, but with missing a turn I made it about 108. My goal was 6 hours elapsed time. Didn't make that, but I was at 100mi @ 6hr. Rode my c'88 Guerciotti GLX. Saw a 531 tubed Falcon, appeared to be from the 80's, and a maybe 2 AL DT equipped bikes. One "older" Davidson Ti bike the owner had since new, but STI equipped. Not many for 200+ riders.

The most amazing thing, or maybe what lets me know I have a long way to go, was a gentleman (guessing ~ 60 y/o), 8 weeks removed from knee surgery. He was getting ready to get on his bike to leave as I pulled into the last rest stop. I thought maybe he was doing one of the shorter routes (this was a shared stop). Nope, he was ahead of me on the century route.

Yesterday, for the first time EVER, I rode a century. :) On Friday, I delivered a package to rhm and since he offered to put me up for the night, we woke up well before daylight and hit the road shortly after 5 AM. The adventure is described more fully in the Where'd You Ride Today? thread.

So far for the month, I've managed to get in over 168 miles. I'm guessing I'll be double that before the month is out. :)

Congrats photogravity! Wish I could tell you that they get easier now.

Oh, they do get easier!

Anyway, as mentioned by Photogravity, April is done. I picked the route carefully, wanting it to be just barely over 100 miles, as flat as possible, and as scenic as possible.

We were both on true vintage bikes, Photogravity on his 1950 Norman, with a four speed hub; I was on my Fothergill, which has a three speed hub with two cogs, so it's a six speed.

Congrats to Photogravity! And Rudi, I'm jealous. I'm about to head out for a solo metric today, I took a personal day work for just this reason but have found that random tasks and chores that I don't really need to do, but feel I should do, take precedent, and leave me less time to do as long a ride as I like. A metric a month is about all I can attain lately. Where did all the time of my youth go? We need to convince the authorities that be to extend the day to 28 hours.

For April I continued riding the blue Sequoia on a 400k brevet here in Orange County that followed all the river system bike paths, including the Santa Ana Bike Path. Continued inland all the way to a great view of mount San Jacinto and San Gorgonio, near Palm Springs, before returning to the Anaheim Angels stadium.
Last weekend I organized a 200k brevet around my own home valley. I pre-rode the course on Friday with my 74 Masi. On Saturday, Nine of our PCHRando randonneurs rode the course while I manned two of the controls, handing out water and snacks. Got a little windy at times but was still a great day for everyone. Here are some pictures: https://plus.google.com/photos/10241...MCCkLfY1rfz-wE

Next week I have another 400k up in San Luis Obispo, but I think I will be riding a non C&V bike...

Well, not quite a century, but at 92.4 miles I consider it close enough. Yesterday was the annual New England Randonneurs season opener "populaire" ride, a 107k ride that starts and ends at a nearby military air field. Adding in the mileage to and from my house, it turns into nearly a century. Because of events relating to the marathon bombing and subsequent lockdown during the manhunt, the organizers decided to postpone the ride for a week. Well, a bunch of friends and I had already reserved the day for the ride and didn't have next weekend cleared, so we decided to just get a slightly later start and do the route anyway. Photogravity made the drive all the way up from Maryland to join me on the ride, while also getting help rewiring his Bilenky tandem after the original frame-internally run wiring shorted out.

Here are some shots from the ride. I didn't get any really good shots, mostly quick documentation only, as the group I was in was mostly all business. The upshot is that they pushed me to keep my overall rolling average speed above 14 mph for the day.

Photogravity's Norman Rapide with Sturmey Archer FW hub at the halfway point:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8259/8...c1ef6077_c.jpg

In lieu of the usual lunch provided by the organizers, we found this bagel shop:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8253/8...66afeb8f_c.jpg

Nice vista from a spot in Harvard, MA:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8258/8...2854019c_c.jpg

Photogravity's Norman and my Shogun:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8261/8...c34427a6_c.jpg

Mileage for the day:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8253/8...4c340121_c.jpg