Bought my R700 back at the end of April, started riding it mid-May when I got back from my vacation in Italy/France. I had been riding my old beater MTB with slicks for a few years and when I finally took the plunge on a road bike (and what a plunge it was on a student budget), I made a goal of doing a century before the end of the summer.

Woke up this morning with a sore neck/shoulder, but I wasn't about to let that stop me from riding. The last two Sunday rides were rained out, so I wanted to get back out with the group. Distance for today was supposed to be 60km. When the club ride was over, the trip distance on my computer was sitting at 65km, so I figured what the hell, it's a sunny out, not too windy and not too hot, so today's as good a day as any to get this milestone over with. Said goodbye to the group and set out to do the last 35km solo. I was going on a bowl of Vector this morning and a Clif bar during the ride, so I was a little worried about bonking, but I took it a little easier and managed to put those last few kms in.

102.38km (63.61 miles)
3h44m
avg 27.3km/h (16.96 mph)

Not exactly the fastest time out there, but I'm proud of myself for doing something that was supposed to be a season's end goal. Maybe next time, I'll actually plan for this kind of distance and bring some more fuel.

One goal down; two to go (imperial century and a total odometer reading of 2000km).

EDIT: Grrr....I just noticed that I mispelled "impromptu" in the title.

see my recent post. My first metric was today as well...it was also impromptu. I think I wound up with 62.88 mi, saddle time of like 4.5 hrs (maybe...havent checked the computer), around 15-15.5 mph average. Not great, but good enough for me.

mscycler

Great job guys. I'm training right now for my first Metric Century. Doing a charity ride for cystic fibrosis in 2 weeks that is 100KM. My previous long is 50 miles. I just started riding about 2 months ago, but I'll be ready. Can't wait to join the club.

Must be in the air! I took off yesterday intending to do 20 or 30 miles and ended up with 65. Must admit though I would've given alot for a powerbar about mile 50!!

hehe

I did my first metric yesterday! I'm hoping for an imperial sometime in august

I was debating on what type/distance ride I was going to do today when I read mscycler's post regarding his 1st metric. I said what the heck, I'll try one too :) .

Mind you, this is my 1st year back on a bike in 13 years and July has been the 1st month that I've been able to ride consistently due to a herniated disc. I had eaten a HUGE steak a few hours previously and had a lot of liquid in my system (32oz. of water, 16 oz. of OJ and 24 oz. of Cytomax), so I THOUGHT I was all set.

The first 25 mile loop was fine, I held back a little and averaged 17.5 mph, but my 24 oz. bottle of Cytomax was now empty. No biggie I thought, because I felt I still had plenty of gas in the tank. The 2nd 25-mile loop was pretty good too. At one point a hornet attached itself to my shin and the mean sum***** stung the bejeezus out of me. The pain gave me an adrenaline boost and I averaged 18.4 mph over the 2nd 25 miles. So I figured I'd ride another 6 miles into the loop and head back to make it a metric century. Well, at about mile 51 I bonked hard and really suffered over the next few miles. At mile 59 I stopped at a gas station, drank a 20 oz. orange soda, a 20 oz. Lipton Brisk and ate a handful of cashews --- all they had was a vending machine, so I had to take what I could get before I collapsed :o . When I finished, I stopped at a quickie mart, drank 32 oz. of Gatorade and ate one of those packaged ice cream cone thingies. I didn't even care that I had completed the metric, I was just happy I was done. I averaged 17.7 mph overall. My legs were tight and spent, so I stretched a bit, relaxed, got in the car and started heading home.

About 5 minutes into the drive back home I started to feel woozy and sick to my stomach. I pulled over, put the seat back and tried to relax, but I simply felt like death. I couldn’t tell if my head felt like a brick or a balloon. My gut felt like it had a liter of warm vodka in it and I felt like I just lost a really ugly bar fight. I then started to get cold sweats and my heart started beating really fast. I got out of the car and paced around dizzily. At one point, I tried talking to myself out loud and my speech was slurred and barely coherent :( . After about 10 minutes of that, I did start to feel a little better, so I got back into the car and headed home. 3 minutes later, here comes that near death feeling again. I get home and half a step before getting to my door, and w/out any warning I blast out a few, gut-wrenching blasts of acidic vomit out of my nose and throat. Blowing my nose was fun after that.

I've since had an apple and a big plate of pasta w/ marinara. I'm feeling relatively much better, but next time, I will be so much more prepared to do a long ride the right way.

Not too sure why so many of us did a 1st time metric this weekend, but now we can say we did!

Count me in! Getting ready for a 70 mile rally ride on July 30th.

I just got back in to cycling this Spring after a long 20 year layoff. Have done two rallys to date, 45 and 55 miles. But 70 seems like a big jump. So last Saturday (16th) I planned to do ~ 45-50 miles (I have an approx 15 mile loop I ride from my house). Went out for two loops and came back to the house to re-fill water bottles and grab a quick snack. Sure is hard to get back on the bike after a 10 minute breather ...anyway, felt good at the end of the 3rd loop and thought "why not go for one more". Well, I made it, 62 miles in total. The last 7 miles were tough.

Went out yesterday and did the same ride again, w/ a little more energy in the tank. Finished feeling pretty good (I resisted the urge to go another 10) so hope I am ready for next Saturday. Have to travel this week on business so training is pretty much over - will be lucky to get one morning at the gym on the stationary bike (which I hate) and maybe an easy 20 mile ride on Thursday morning. Then time to rest up for the heat, hills and miles.

GL to all.

Steak, especially a huge one, was probably not the best pre-ride food. Glad to hear you're alright, though in your dizzy state, I don't think I would have attempted the drive home.

What's an imperial? 100 miles? or something else?

Yup. Imperial is 100 miles or 160km

Yeah, the dumb alpha male in me was saying, "Steak is good, steak is power.". Well it sure did taste good, but next time I'm taking in some more carbs and taking some food/fuel with me on the ride.

The hospital was on the drive home, so I was actually thinking about driving there instead of home.

I did 45 miles w/ no trouble at all last Sunday with liquids only and thought I could pull-off 62 miles w/ the same approach. I was painfully wrong and will do things different next time. If nothing else, at least I know my current limits.

Great Job guys... metrics are very good goal, 100k is not bad at all. Over vacation I did two, one ended up about 105k with almost 45k or non stop climbing and the other about 120k mostly flat. (that is about 65 and about 75 miles or so). The first was a little over 3.5 hours and the second a little over 3.75 hours. An imperial century is a great goal... go for it...

I'd agree with you about the taste of steak going down, but I bet it didn't taste all that good the second time around :eek:

I actually put in the last 2km of my ride biking to Subway to make sure I had some apres-ride food (foot-long toasted pizza sub. Mmmm). Wasn't sure I'd make it, but I did. And to top things off, the guy working the counter didn't mind at all that I brought my bike in. He made comments about it being "a very fancy bike" and that I was right not to leave it outside. Then again, the place was completely empty when I walked in, so I guess it wouldn't have been much trouble.