unterhausen

that's quite an accomplishment for a 7 year old.

adam_mac84

first century was today... went out too fast... definately hit a wall after about 50 miles... but that's the farthest training ride i had done (30, 40 and 50 mi training rides...) 6 hours plus a minute in the saddle (timer on bike stopped at the 5 aid stations)... 17.8mph average and boy did it hurt!!!! was the best feeling ever

Wicker

A great thread - yes I remember my first century, it was this Monday! The 104 miles were fine, the 7400 feet of climbing a little less fine, and the torrential rain between miles 50 and 65 slightly less fine still. Still, despite having to wash the sand out of my shorts afterwards (how did that get there, exactly?), it was a blast. It was an organized ride (7 Hills of Kirkland) but turnout was low due to the weather. I went long periods without seeing another cyclist.

The low point of the ride was when the heavy rain started, washing sweat into my eyes, and I had to remove my fogged-up rain spattered glasses from my stinging eyes while riding through standing water being passed by cars on a road with no shoulder. The rain was so heavy I was worried about missing course markers and getting lost - the cue sheet long since being soaked through due to inadequate protection by me.

The rest of it was pretty cool though . The rain also added a lot to the ride, nice clean smells in the air, the pitter-patter of rain on leaves, the gentle crackle of rain hitting the high-voltage power lines... ahh, nature.
7.5 hours (including breaks), and I made sure my eyeballs were on the Garmin when it first rolled to 100. Not my last >= century ride, I'm sure.

blamire

first century was approx 105 miles last summer sometime. rode half with my boss, his son and my manager at the shop i work in. boss recently had a heart attack so turned off early and my manager is a wimp so got his wife to pick him up at halfway. so it was just me and boss's son. now i am 6"1, and he is much, much shorter. and he is a 2nd cat. so i might as well have been on my own, we got back to his, i was on my last legs and he looked like he'd just been out for a recovery ride. oh well, i'm getting far stronger now, 90 miles sunday before last avg 19.3 and 95 similar speed this sunday just gone, and i give most of the ride a good old kicking up all the hills. good times!

nmbikeboy

First century was this last Saturday in the Albuquerque Tour de Cure. Brutally hot -- 102 degrees. My bike computer registered a max temperature of 124 on the road. Flatted once. Despite my knowing better, I started too fast and bonked at about 75 miles. I managed to recover and finish. Needless to say, it won't be hard for me to post a new personal best.

TomT74

August 1974 on a Raleigh Grand Prix with a full set of panniers and a handlebar bag. It was the first day of a tour to Toronto and back with my best friend. We rode from central Michigan to the Canadian border at Sarnia. 125 total miles and to this day, my longest ride, matched only by the ride home on the last day of the tour. I don't recall any serious difficulty. Funny though, we rode all those miles in gym shorts, t-shirts, and tennis shoes using toe clips on old 10-speed bikes which bodged-on racks, no helmets, and little serious training and no real idea of what we were getting ourselves into. Still the most fun I've ever had on a bike, I think. None of my centuries since have been as enjoyable, but all were fun.

chasm54

Not sure this belongs in this forum because my first hundred was the first day of a four-day, 405-mile tour to visit my parents and stop off at few friends' houses along the way. Not exactly an endurance event, but...

1982. Walthamstow, North-East London to Rugby in Warwickshire. Just over 100 miles. I was 27 and extremely fit, but had never done any long-distance stuff; about 45 miles was my usual maximum. So I had no idea about nutrition, keeping myself fuelled etc. As a result, after about 60 miles into a pretty relentless wind, I bonked. I couldn't understand what was happening to me, I literally hadn't the strength to turn the pedals. To my surprise and delight, however, a pint of beer, a sandwich and a large bar of chocolate wrought a miraculous change. Lazarus came forth, and was able to complete the ride. And the following three days went much better, once I'd grasped that I had to keep eating!

kbtommy

Three weeks ago. 106 miles, 6.5 hours through the beautiful Merrimack Valley area. Thoroughly enjoyed it, and while it was tough, it fortunately wasn't the murderous pilgrimage I was expecting it to be. Already got the next one lined up.

brockd15 

My first 100 miler was in probably 2003 when I was in college at Texas Tech. I had decided to start triathlon training with my boss and had just recently started riding with him on the weekends, averaging maybe 40-45 miles on Saturdays, but I didn't get any mileage in during the week. I was in pretty good shape to start with from running and took up cycling fairly well (I had been lifting weights a lot too, which I think was a huge help). After riding on the weekends for a couple months, I had a Saturday that we weren't riding so I decided I should go ahead and do a 100 mile ride, just to be sure I could. 100 miles was a must...I would know I had arrived if I could do 100 miles.

I lived in Lubbock, TX at the time, and from where I was starting it was a little over 50 miles to Plainview, due north. This was a solo ride, not organized, no SAG, no support...I think I had a cell phone at that time though. I started early and rode straight up the access road to I-27. On the way to Plainview I felt great! I don't know how fast I was going, but it all felt so effortless. I thought, "wow, I'm in great shape, I'm an undiscovered cycling stud! 100 miles is nothing, maybe I'll do it again tomorrow."

What I didn't realize was that I had a pretty hefty tailwind for the entire first half of the ride. It only took about 100 yards into the ride back to Lubbock for me to realize that I, in fact, was not the next Lance Armstrong. My brother and sister-in-law lived in Abernathy at the time, which I had to ride through on the way home. That headwind for 50+ miles was a true beating and morale destroyer. I was very tempted to call and get a ride, but I slogged it out and made it back home, and I've always been glad I didn't cave; it's served me well in other long rides/triathlons since then.

steve0257

My first formal or organized century was this spring at the Minnesota Ironman. Would have been a great ride except for the headwind coming back in. My first unorganized one was back in the early 70s. I had just bought a brand new Schwinn 3 speed. I think it was a Collegiate, and put one of those little clicker odometers down by the front axle. Spent most of the day after I bought it just riding around town and ended up putting on a little over 100 miles that day.

bjtesch

1984, Hotter than Hell Hundred in Wichita Falls, Tx, on my heavy Peugeot touring bike. 7:45 total time.

I found out about the ride in the spring and followed a training plan I probably saw in Bicycling Magazine. Sometime during the summer I did a 50 mile training ride and bonked bigtime on the way back home, about 6 miles from home. I got to where I couldn't pedal anymore so I got off and walked the bike. Then when I couldn't walk the bike anymore I hid it behind a tall patch of weeds beside the road and started walking across some fields towards home. I layed on the grass at an apartment complex for an hour then walked to a convenience store I could see and called home. My wife and neighbor showed up to get me. They couldn't figure out where I had been and when they arrived to get me they couldn't understand why I was there without my bike.

By comparison the actual century later on in the summer was pretty anticlimactic.

Machka 

Bumped for this year's batch of new century riders ...

blk

My first century was May 2010. The longest I'd ridden previously was around 50. My girlfriend broke up with me the morning of my birthday, and I had no plans for the rest of the day. I didn't really want to sit at home and feel sorry for myself, so I took the bike out and rode 108.

Surrealdeal

My first two centuries both happened in Iowa as part of RAGBRAI - 1989 & 1991 respectively.

After many (20?) years off from such long distances my next attempt was this spring at the 2011 Minnesota Ironman Bike Ride - unfortunately I DNF'd at the 64 mile mark (It was actually 68 miles on the day for me due to a missed turn). I was in shape for the distance but not the conditions - there were long rolling hills & a brutal headwind for the first 50 miles until the route turned east. It was also quite cold that day but that was more of a demoralizer than an actual hindrance like the wind and the hills were. It was a heartbreaker to DNF but I feel that the experience taught me important lessons about preparation.

I will be attempting another century (Unorganized) yet this summer. I already have a route in mid with an option to turn it into a 200k depending on how I am feeling at the 50 mile mark.

RichardGlover

Blog Entry of my first century..

Richard Cranium

Die thread die - you don't even talk about a century in the first post.....

buzzman

Despite this admonishment I'll keep this thread alive since I enjoyed reading so many of the posts, including the first one, which at least IMO, seems to have been talking about an 80 mile ride that turned into a 100 mile ride.

My first century was a ride from Warwick, RI to just west of Windsor Locks, CT for some kind of bicycle rally back in 1970. I rode it with my best friend at the time. He on his brown Schwinn Varsity and me on my Raleigh Grand Prix. We had our Pletscher racks loaded with our home made panniers and canvas front bags and were probably wearing cut off jeans and sneakers. Definitely no helmets. I hit a dog somewhere just before the Connecticut border and went down hard on my left hip. 41 years later and I still have the remnants of the scar. The owner of the dog offered to shoot the offending beast but I pleaded for it's life and we moved on.

We rode for the weekend doing the long group rides and then rode home the day after the rally was done. I had no sense at that time of training, nutrition or basically anything but raw instinct on the bike.

I can't even imagine how many centuries I've done since then but the first one was definitely one of the most memorable.

skiffrun

Yes, I do remember it.


Since it seems we are also to describe the ride, here is the "Reader's Digest" Condensed Version:

Solo 109-miler except for about 6 to 8 miles when a serendipitiously met rider joined me. I had never met the guy before; have never met him since; don't recall his name.

From Raleigh to the Virginia state line, a "gentle" but increasing headwind.
A five mile loop in Virginia (if I was going to ride to Virginia, I was going to ride IN Virginia, at least for a few miles).
A gentle tailwind helping me back to Raleigh on a parallel route.

Started at 7:05 am. Finished at 3:01 pm. 7h,01m in motion.

Great ride.

Sep-29-2007.

rdtompki

In 1985 I was running marathons, my wife was playing field hockey and training our twin 10 y/o sons for a 375 mile bike ride from Dunsmuir, CA to San Jose, CA (or home). Wife and sons trained for 8 weeks, 856 miles while I continued to run and ride some. I think during this period we actually did at least one Century, but the trip, itself, I consider my first real century. We had allowed 8 days to finish, but wound up doing the ride in four days with daily mileage as follows: 90, 95, 105, 85. I guess I can only count the third day as a real century, but as a family vacation this was priceless. The boys were riding heavy, 24" 10 speeds (2x5) I believe; this was before we bought them racier bikes. Kids are often capable of much more than we give them credit for.

escii_35

I never had a desire to ride 100 but 200 miles sounded interesting. Since I lived in a hilly area with roads of the worst quality chipseal, longer rides at pace just meant a body which felt like it was vibrating for a few hours afterwards. My old cannondale did not help the situation. Finding nicer roads wan not an option due to living carless

The 1997 STP (one day rider) was an epic rain and cold fest. The entire body seized up after 13:05 in the saddle. Walking for two days afterwards was not enjoyable. Funny thing, that ride was my fastest by over an hour.

RichardGlover

You'll have to post or msg the route to me. Sounds like a fun ride.

skiffrun

https://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/ViewTrip/1008706

Richard, for a cue sheet, I think you know how to contact me locally. (I seldom get on bikeforums any more. If someone had posted after yours above, I never would have checked this thread.)

sonatageek

Did my first century last month while doing the Greene County (Ohio) Cycling Classic. I was not planning on doing the 100 mile ride, but I felt good in the morning and decided what the hell. Nice flat terrain and rest stops with cold drinks and snacks! It took me a long time (but I was far from the last person back) but it was worth it. My training plan was, well, riding my bike home from work and getting a few 50-60 miles rides in earlier this year. Oh, and I was on my early 90's Raleigh M60 mountain bike with 2" slick tires and trekking bars.

I did a 70 mile ride on Wednesday while in Norther VA (on the W&OD) and felt I could have done another 30 if I would have started out earlier in the day. My plan is to do 1 or perhaps 2 additional century rides this year.

az_cyclist

My first century was in either 1985 or 1986, the Wabash River Run, from Lafayette Indiana south. It was a slow ride, compared to what I can do now, but a nice one. I ride it again in 1987 with a friend. I have ridden several since moving to Arizona in 1999. This year I hope to ride 3 centuries and 2 double centuries. I have 2 centuries and one double completed. I will register today for el Tour de Tucson, and hope we repeat the Vulture Mine 300k this year.

cvp71

I have been riding since March of this year and completed my first century this past weekend at the Tour de Pink. Completed it in 4:59:21 riding time and a total time of 5:26:19. Already planning my next!