Last Saturday was my 68th birthday. A couple of my riding partners went with me to a charity ride in Fort Smith, AR where we had a choice of 62 miles or 100. We were in our RVs at a camp 3 miles from the start, so I decided to ride to and from the start and ride the metric (62 mile) for my 68 mile birthday ride. Made sense to me.

We may have eaten too much and had too many beers at the Friday night birthday dinner. Oh well.

My partners are a 62 year old man that is a good strong event rider, and a lady in her early 40s that has finished the last two Hotter'n Hell Hundreds under 5 hours. I was just hoping to tag along.

After the initial couple miles of the event we settled into a very large group that was moving in the low 20s. My guess was that this was too fast for me, but as long as I could hold on, I would. I felt OK.

We came into a town with a couple traffic lights, but there was no stop, not even a slow down. The entire group of about 70 (my guess) riders moved right on through the green lights like it was magic. Then a few miles later a left turn off a well traveled road went well as a pick-up truck stopped, holding up the other vehicles, for our entire group to make the left. More magic.

We only had rollers to contend with as there was 1500 feet of climbing on the entire 62.2 mile course. A couple of the hills were steep enough to shift down to the little ring or mash a gear. We had very light winds which were not a factor. The roads were mostly good with a few miles of harsh chip seal. We had to slow for about 5 miles of the worst chip seal, but that was about it.

At about 40 miles I was still hanging on, but was not sure how. There had been no stops, but my water was holding out OK. I decided to just keep going to keep up with the group and my partners. At 50 miles the group was still numbered over 50 and moving well. We came to a couple left turns at stop signs, but magically, there was no traffic at these stop signs, so the whole group just blew right through.

With about 5 miles remaining, about a dozen of us split off to complete the metric course and the rest of the group continued on to the full century. Of that dozen there were 6 of us that moved ahead. We had one fairly steep climb, but after that it was flat and good roads. Once we saw the finish line the sprint was
on. I tried to stay the distance, but three of the guys left me. The lady and I sat up and finished about 7 seconds behind.

The timing chip result was 2 hours and 55 minutes with a 21.2 average. We did not unclip for the entire ride. I was out of water and hungry, but so happy to complete the ride on #68. This proved to me that a ride can go very well. No mechanicals. No crashes. No bonks. Just fun cruising with my partners and this great group. Wonderful 68.

Good story. Congrats on the miles and speed.

Cool, very inspiring.

Congrats on the B'day ride with a great average!

Good job, and you had fun!

Good job John,
you need to slow to the pace of us old fart 69 yr olds and just smell the roses.

Roger S.

I'd be worried. Very, very worried.

Thanks Doc. J, I actually did not expect to keep the average, but as everything was going so well there was no reason to back off. This was somewhat of a surprise to me, and a great birthday present.