Orny's Cycling Journal

Cyclists come in many flavors: roadies, commuters, mountain bikers, racers. Then within the ranks of roadies, you have sprinters, climbers, all-rounders, endurance riders, and more.

It might sound odd then that after such a long time—exactly 1,000 weeks, in fact—I still struggle to find where I fit in that spectrum.

It’s obvious I’m not a sprinter. My top-end power is perfectly described by the term “pedestrian”.

Does that mean I’m a climber: a grimpeur, as they say? Not if you judge by my build, or my performance in the Dirty Dozen! True climbers are much lighter than my (reasonably scrawny) 77kg, and usually much shorter, too. My best strategy for becoming a climber involves losing 6kg of weight and nine inches of height by cutting my head off at the neck.

But I do drop people on short, steep climbs. Perhaps that makes me a puncheur. Tho to be honest, rolling hills wear me out and leave me more exhausted than any other kind of terrain.

I might be a rouleur, an all-rounder: another word for someone who sucks equally at all elements of the sport. Not exactly a flattering image to have of oneself.

Fifteen years ago, I considered going down the very, very, VERY long road to becoming a randonneur: a long-distance rider. I enjoy spending a day in the saddle as much as anyone, but for a randonneur, 125 miles is the shortest ride they’ll do. Their normal rides run 250, 375, or 750 miles at a time, and sanity (at least my sanity) has its limits!

But enjoying (moderately) long rides is what defines me as a cyclist. The label “endurance cyclist” would fit perfectly, except that an “endurance ride” might be 400 miles for a randonneur, or maybe just 30 miles for a casual rider. That’s so vague that the title “endurance cyclist” is essentially meaningless.

I define an endurance ride—and the type of ride I enjoy—as 100 to 125 miles (200km). The ride that matters to me most is the 100-mile imperial century. That’s what I do, what I enjoy, and how I judge my success. So if I were to give myself a label, it would have to reflect that.

That’s where things have stood for the past twenty years: no real resolution, and no real identity. But last week I was thinking… If the sport didn’t provide me with a category, maybe I should come up with one myself. What word would convey the idea of a person with an affinity for centuries?

Once I thought about it, the answer was pretty obvious: a centurion!

By leveraging the common term for a 100-mile ride, it’s instantly recognizable among cyclists, denoting a long-distance cyclist while removing the ambiguity associated with “endurance riding".

It also has the positive connotations of a warrior—strength, experience, self-discipline, and leadership—which translate equally well to cycling.

So if you ask me what kind of rider I am, I can finally answer you: I’m a centurion!

Six days after I finished my winter training with my first indoor century, I brought the bike outside for my first substantial ride of the year: the Pittsburgh Randonneurs’ 125-mile Sandy Lake 200k brevet.

I had more than the usual nerves leading up to the ride. After all, it would be the longest ride I’ve done in two years, and I was going into it with essentially zero prep. In the past four months, I’ve only done a couple short rides outside, none of which I’d count as “training”.

Honest, I'm stretching!!! #notamidget

For the first time ever, all my winter riding was done indoors, on the trainer, using Zwift. I’d done a lot of that, but would that be sufficient to power me through a 10-hour, 125-mile ride? I was about to find out!

And what better way to put Zwift to the test? The rolling route from North Park to Sandy Lake and back has over 8,000 feet of climbing, making it the second hilliest ride I’ve done since 2009.

It didn’t begin auspiciously. Eight of us set out promptly at 7am in unexpectedly chilly 45-degree weather, and I somehow scraped my calf on my pedal pretty nastily as I first clipped in.

As the miles and hours passed, the sky cleared and the sun slowly warmed the air, and riders started shedding layers of clothing. Although it’s too early in the season for the leaves to be out, it was heartening passing outbursts of forsythia, cherry, dogwood, and magnolia. My legs felt good, but I rationed my strength, knowing I hadn’t done much (i.e. any) training for endurance. After a while, both my knees and my traps complained insistently (the latter are my biggest weakness on long-distance rides).

An undetected tailwind that had helped us ride north became a much more noticeable headwind on the return leg. My strength faded and I remained with slower riders at a casual pace, rather than burn my few remaining matches.

We eventually plodded back to our starting point at 5:10pm. That’s 40 minutes faster than the roughly comparable McConnell’s Mills 200k brevet I did back in 2016. As measured by Strava’s “Relative Effort” metric, it was the fifth hardest ride I’ve done since 2009.

Although this was my second 100-mile ride of 2019, it was my first IRL / outdoor century of the year, after last weekend’s indoor century on the trainer. And discounting that “Zentury”, this was the earliest in the year that I’ve done a 100 mile ride, beating my 2016 brevet by four days. As far as I can figure, it was also my 75th confirmed overall century; there might be others, but records from my early years are incomplete.

It was a satisfying day; I got some sun, hung out with friends, and knocked out my biggest athletic goal for the spring. I’m very pleased at how well it went.

But before I finish, I have to revisit my preparation. I went into this event with the goal of putting my wintertime indoor Zwift training to the test. Was it effective? Was it valuable? Let’s look at that in more detail…

Tan lines starter pack

On the plus side, Zwift is fun; it makes indoor workouts more than tolerable, even attractive. It ensured I started the event with excellent cardiac and aerobic conditioning, with leg strength that was up to long miles and hard climbs, and with touch points (hands and seat) that could tolerate time in the saddle. In terms of building early-season fitness, Zwift was an unqualified, smashing success.

There’s another side of the equation, however. Although I’d done some long efforts on the trainer, other than my grueling indoor “Zentury”, none were more than half the duration of my 200k. While I gained strength and aerobic conditioning, I wasn’t building up the endurance needed for 10-hour rides.

At the same time, all the high-resistance work I put in compromised my joint health, specifically my knees, where I’ve been experiencing pain both on the trainer and during outdoor rides. I’ll keep a close eye on that, so I can ride as long as possible without needing joint replacement surgery and the associated time off the bike.

A much lighter consideration (pun intended) is that indoor training didn’t allow my skin to adjust to the seasonal increase in sun—and specifically UV—exposure. Yeah, I came home with a bit of sunburn, on a five-inch spot just above each knee. For proper springtime training, my Zwifting setup might need a couple sun-lamps!

More seriously, the net-net on Zwift is that it has been a complete success, and I’m pleased that the investment produced the desired and worthwhile improvement.

My previous post, following my Zentury, summarized my winter training and said that I had achieved my two expressed goals for 2019: using Zwift to both get over my 2018 malaise, and to begin spring at a high level of fitness. Sunday’s Sandy Lake 200k brevet was the final proof (the proverbial pudding), and I couldn’t be pleaseder (sic) with the result.

I also couldn’t be pleaseder that I’m now on break, with no major events until the middle of June. I’ll be riding—and might get another century in—but a good training plan includes periodization, wherein peak training is followed by recovery and consolidation before kicking it up another level. Fortunately, I’ve got a few weeks to kick back before the solid block of summertime events line up like dominoes.

But so far—and for the first time in a year and a half—things are looking really good!

I rarely write up rides of less than 100 miles, but given how disappointing 2018 has been, it’s worth mentioning how nice Sunday’s Pittsburgh Randonneurs Kittens & Puppies 100k (that’s 62 miles) was.

We started 25 miles down the Ohio River in Monaca PA, then headed north along the Beaver River—almost to Ellwood City—then paralleled the PA Turnpike northwest to New Middletown OH, and back along the same route.

So what was so good about it?

First and foremost, the weather was stunning, and the view from the start on the Ohio riverbank was gorgeous. We’ve had 14 inches more rainfall than average this year, which soaked or canceled several events and regular weekly rides. So we were very appreciative of a beautifully sunny late summer day. Later some high clouds from Hurricane Florence rolled in, which conveniently kept the afternoon heat at bay.

The Kittens & Puppies route is a gentle welcome for new randonneurs, being shorter and less hilly than their typical routes. So the ride was relaxed and enjoyable, and my legs appreciated a break after my first couple days of pre-Dirty Dozen hill work,

I also got to ride with friends I haven’t seen much this year, including De’Anna and Jim.

I enjoy riding with randonneurs, because they keep a perfect pace: a good clip, with businesslike rest stops, but easy enough to keep riders from blowing up. It’s the perfect middle ground between group rides composed of either hammerheads trying to ride each other into the ground or lazy tourists who are horrified at expending any effort at all.

Not a highlight, but something to be thankful for: at one point I missed a turn and made a sudden, sharp retracement in a patch of gravel. Both wheels skidded out from under me, but I somehow managed to keep it up, and no apparent harm was done to tires or wheels.

S.N.P.J. Pennsylvania

Two-thirds through the outbound leg, I took a four-mile detour off the route in order to check in at a place I’d always wanted to visit: the oddly-named town of S.N.P.J. Pennsylvania.

The turn-around rest stop was a sandwich shop, where the cashier chose not to charge me for the cola I grabbed. I’m not sure whether that was because I’d waited and let a couple other customers precede me or if it was some other “thing”.

After the ride, four of us stopped at Yolanda’s Pizza, where I acquired a much-anticipated pepperoni, sausage, and ham calzone.

But above all, it was nice to be out there and enjoy one of the few beautiful days we’ve had all year.

The outlook for the rest of 2018 is cautious. I won’t be training as hard for this year’s Dirty Dozen, but I’ll probably do a few of the friendly prep rides. I may or may not do the event itself—that’ll depend on weather and how I feel—but if I do, it’ll be as a fun ride that I won’t take terribly seriously.

Two noteworthy rides to report on from this past weekend: the Pittsburgh Randonneurs’ Summer Populaire 100k, and the Akron Bicycle Club’s Absolutely Beautiful Ride century.

I was concerned coming into the weekend, because I’d had a couple slack weeks, thanks to a trip to Cleveland to visit friends and another to Boston, Maine, and New Hampshire for family. I didn’t feel particularly strong, having let my training lapse.

Ornoth & Monica finishing the 100k

On Saturday, the Pittsburgh Randonneurs held a 100k followed by a potluck picnic. The inevitable hills made the ride a lot harder than I expected, and I endured some painful saddle chafing. I rode much of the route with Monica VanDieren, as we seem pretty well matched, pace-wise. We put up with a bit of rain just as we finished, but it passed.

It was nice hanging out, eating, and chatting with the dozen other riders afterward. And they’re the only group where the assertion “When I get old, I’ll take up an easier hobby, like marathons or Iron Man triathlons” is actually a believable statement!

Aside from an irritated butt, my other complication was the mileage. On top of the 100k, I added twenty miles riding to the start and back, for a day’s total of 85 miles… Not bad on its own, but a bit much for the night before a century!

After a shower, a hurried dinner, and abbreviated sleep, I was up again at 4am Sunday morning for a two-hour drive to Ohio for the Akron Bicycle Club (ABC)’s Absolutely Beautiful Country (ABC) century ride.

I can’t say “Absolutely Beautiful” is how I’d describe Akron. My impression of the area is more along the lines of: endless farmland stinking of manure, large clouds of midges, and nearly every vehicle was (for whatever reason) a white SUV.

The landscape was flattish with some rolling hills: way less strenuous than Pittsburgh! The open farmland left riders more exposed to wind and sun, but it fortunately wasn’t a real hot day, and some passing clouds provided some respite from the sun. And the wind was at our backs on the northbound home stretch.

On the positive side, there was free soft-serve ice cream at the 68-mile rest stop, and the sandwiches they provided were perfect: a quarter-inch of bread, one slice of swiss cheese, surrounding a two-inch tower of cold cut meat. Awesome! On the other hand, I was refused ice at the 85-mile rest stop because “It’s important that we keep the drinks cool.” Probably not as important as keeping *the riders* cool, but that’s how people think these days.

Another highlight was meeting and chatting with Michael Coburn, a local rider who had ridden several Pan-Mass Challenges with Team Forza-G after his wife received treatment at Dana-Farber. He’d noticed me wearing my 2013 PMC jersey.

I completed the course—and my second century of 2017—in a respectable 7h10m. Due to the fatigue (and ventral abrasions) of doing 85 miles the previous day, I’d taken it pretty easy on the road, so it was actually easier than the 100k. After some snacking and refreshment, I piled back into the car for the long two-hour drive home.

My goal in doing the ABC Ride was to find out what it was like and whether it was an event I’d like to repeat in future seasons. I mostly enjoyed the ride, it was well supported, and the lack of hills was a really nice change of pace! But on the other hand, I fear how painful it might be on a truly hot, sunny day. If it were closer to home, I’d certainly do it again; but I’m just not convinced it’s gonna be worth four hours of driving on short sleep.

Still, it’s another local(-ish) century to keep on the calendar, it’s another century under my belt for 2017, and good training for the blitzkrieg of long-distance cycling events bearing down on me over the next two months.

Normally I wouldn’t consider doing a long-distance ride like the Pittsburgh Randonneurs’ McConnell’s Mill 200k brevet this early in the season. April is way too cold for long rides, and there’s no way I could have completed the training required to be prepared for 130 miles.

On the other hand, this winter has been so mild that I’ve ridden more than usual this year. Although none of that riding was anything near century-length rides, I figured I had enough miles under my belt to consider undertaking the hilly 130-mile challenge.

That desire was reinforced when Pittsburgh suddenly found itself in the middle of an unprecedented week of cloudless sun and temperatures in the 70s. With sunny days at a premium here, there was no doubt I’d spend the weekend in the saddle, and the 200k seemed perfectly timed.

On the other hand, there was reason for trepidation. This wasn’t just any hilly ride. Out of all the rides I’ve done since getting a GPS, the Mt. Washington Century, which traverses three mountain passes and claims to be the most challenging century in New England, contains the most climbing: around 5,900 feet by my records. The brevet route climbs 8,800 feet, the equivalent of one and a half Mt. Washingtons! Not a ride for someone who hasn’t trained for it.

But wait; there’s more. I couldn’t do the ride on my current bike (R2-Di2) because a week earlier I’d discovered cracks in the wheel rim and was waiting for a brand new rear wheel to arrive at the bike shop.

In the meantime I’d been riding my old bike (the Plastic Bullet), but two days before the brevet, its rear wheel also started acting up, making a horrible screeching noise anytime I coasted at speed, which I eventually traced to the freehub. In theory it was rideable, so long as you constantly pedaled and didn’t ever coast…

So that was the decision I had to make the day before the event. 130 miles, ten hours in the saddle, far more climbing than I’ve ever done, on very limited training, without coasting, on a broken bike? Yeah, sign me up for that!

So Saturday morning I found myself riding 8 miles to the start in Shaler, pedaling all the way. It was a pretty cold 52 degrees at 6am, but the forecast expected it to warm up a lot.

There were a mere eight starters, and I knew several of them from a ride down to Monongahela back in February. After photos and a briefing, we left the organizer’s house at 7am and immediately dove down a very steep 125-foot hill to the banks of the Allegheny. After having to brake and spin the pedals all the way down, I found myself off the back, but I caught up again easily.

The first segment was a flat 16 miles along the river on Freeport Street to Tarentum. The group mostly stayed together. My hands and feet (in my cycling sandals) went numb, but with the sun rising, warmer temps were coming. Thankfully, it was going to be a rare windless day.

From there, the route turned away from the river and up Bull Creek Road, one of many routes that follow stream beds up to the high plateau that surround the three rivers. But we soon left the stream valley and began the first serious climb of the day up Sun Mine Road.

That splintered our happy little group into shards, with myself and two experienced cyclists—Monica & Stef—leaving the rest of the group strewn along the climb in our wake. 23 miles into the ride, we now faced 100 miles of interval training: constantly rolling steep hills with zero flat to provide any respite.

Just after 10:30am we reached the West Sunbury country store that was the 53-mile checkpoint. The three of us refueled, and I jumped into the bathroom to quickly strip off my arm warmers, base layer, and cycling cap since the day had warmed substantially. The last one out of the store, I had to run to catch up to the girls as they left. It was then that I realized that after taking off my base layer, I hadn’t pulled the shoulder straps of my bib shorts up before putting my jersey back on! I stopped and quickly executed the reverse of the women’s “remove my bra straps without taking off my shirt” maneuver and set off to catch back up.

After passing through more hilly farmland, at noon we traversed Cooper’s Lake Campground. This is the site of the Society For Creative Anachronism medieval recreationist group’s huge Pennsic War, which my ex-wife and I attended three times, our first time being our honeymoon trip. Passing through the area brought back lots of memories, but it was hard to correlate 30-year old memories of a crowded campground with the open fields I saw as I rode past.

An hour later the temperatures were climbing toward 80 degrees, and with no shade in sight I was starting to fall behind Stef and Monica. I caught up with them at the 83-mile checkpoint at a 7-Eleven in Ellwood City. Stef left soon after I arrived, and that was the last we saw of her that day. Monica and I rode off after a rest, staying within shouting distance for the remaining 40 miles.

By half past two we hit the century mark while passing through the town of Cranberry. 7.5 hours, which is no record, but it’s pretty good, given the endless climbing we’d endured.

Half an hour later we stopped at another convenience store to refuel and rest. We’d take a couple more short stops for breathers over the remaining route, because I was flagging and Monica was having difficulty with her exercise-induced asthma. Another half hour had us passing through North Park and over the last major climbs of the ride.

Eventually we came out on Wible Run Road, a sustained stream-bed descent that led us finally back down into the valley of the Allegheny near the start.

A mile from the finish my GPS finally conked out. Losing the last mile of data isn’t a big deal, except that it included the vicious 12-percent grade climb back up to the organizer’s house, which reminded me a lot of the brutal finishing climb to the Mt. Washington Century, except shorter. Only later did the organizer reveal that he had chosen not to have us take an easier route to his home!

Monica and I pulled in at 4:56pm, just shy of 10 hours in the saddle. Stef, the only rider who finished ahead of us, had already checked in and gone home. The others drifted in and out over time while I waited for Inna to pick me up and munched on some well-earned pizza and soda.

Normally at this point I’d be all hyped up about getting my randonneur’s 200k finishing medal, but the organizing body and I had a parting of ways back in 2007, so I won’t be giving them the membership fee necessary to get the medal I earned.

So let’s do some context-setting here, because this was a milestone ride in many ways. My longest ride in Pittsburgh, longest ride and first century or double metric this year, first brevet in ten years, earliest in the year that I’ve ever done a century or 200k, exceeded my previous max climbing on any ride by 50 percent, probably only my sixth ride with more than a mile of climbing, and it also put me well over 50,000 feet of climbing (nearly 11 miles of vertical) so far this year.

Between the distance, the heat, the hills, and the broken bike, I’m pretty proud to have completed what will be one of the longest rides of the year, and notched my first century amongst the hills of western Pennsylvania.

Before I close, a quick review of how March went.

March was without question an excellent month: 400 miles of riding, with a stoopid 26,000 feet of climbing.

The month included exploration rides around McKeesport, Days Run up near Tarentum, Lowries Run into Emsworth, the GAP trail up to Boston (PA) and back, Dorseyville and Indianola, Munhall and the South Hills.

There were several particular highlights. One was finding and setting my first Tag-o-Rama locations, as described in an earlier post. I conquered four more of Pittsburgh’s brutal Dirty Dozen hills on the way to my first-ever Strava Climbing Challenge victory, although the worst of the hills— Barry/Holt/Eleanor—required a dab near the top after I pulled my shoe out of the pedal cleat. That same ride took me down the Montour Trail to the town of McMurray in memory of my mentor and hero Bobby Mac, where I stopped and had a memorial ice cream at a roadside stand that offered—appropriately enough—a “Dino Sundae”. My longest (now superseded, of course) was a 72-mile expedition out to Bakertown and over to Ambridge, where I came across a massive cheez ball spill in the middle of the woods in Sewickley.

So things seem to be going really well so far this year, aside from both bikes currently having broken rear wheels, of course.

More developments, more negative than positive.

I’ve read a couple biking-related books recently: Graeme Fife’s “The Beautiful Machine” and Bill Strickland’s “Ten Points”. Unfortunately, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend either of them. The former is rambling, self-indulgent, off-topic, and lacking in cohesiveness, although it does have a couple chapters that describe rides along many of my favorite Massachusetts routes. The latter, despite being written by Bicycling magazine’s former editor, isn’t really about cycling, but is more of a disturbing tale about domestic abuse and recovery.

Oh, but I didn’t mind Jamie Smith’s amusing and informative book “Roadie: The Misunderstood World of a Bike Racer”. In fact, I’ve gotten some ideas from it about how to write this year’s Pan-Mass Challenge travelogue.

On that topic, I have registered for this year’s ride. This is the event’s 30th anniversary year, and my ninth. Unless all my sponsors bail on me, this year I’ll surpass $50,000 in lifetime fundraising.

Despite wanting to take part in the Boston Brevet Series’ 200k (125-mile) and 300k (185-mile) rides this spring, I withdrew my membership in Randonneurs USA after learning that some riders carry firearms on their rides, and the organization does not discourage it. I don’t want anything to do with riders who carry firearms, period.

Finally, I borrowed Jer’s indoor cycling trainer and have been doing interval training on it—to either a 45-minute Spinervals DVD or a 64-minute Carmichael Training Systems one—every other day. I expect it to help my early season performance, although that matters a lot less now that I’ve withdrawn from the brevet series. Aside from taking the old bike out just to play around in the middle of big snowstorms, I guess I’ve become too sensitive to the cold to do as much winter riding as I once did, so the trainer helps, even though I’m not recording those “miles” in my training log.

Although the calendar has only recently changed to February, I’m anxious to get out on the road again, but that won’t happen until things warm up a bit!

So yesterday I rode. And rode. And rode and rode. And rode and rode and rode and rode and rode and rode. That’s one “rode” per hour I was in the saddle. Yeah. From 6am to 6pm, plus or minus four brief rest stops.

It was my first attempt at the Boston Brevet Series 200k.

First, what’s a brevet? A brevet or randonnée is an organized long-distance bicycle ride. Cyclists—who, in this discipline, are referred to as randonneurs—follow a designated but unmarked route (usually 200km to 1200km), passing through check-point controls, and must complete the course within specified time limits. Randonnée is a French word which loosely translates to ‘ramble’ or ‘long journey’. Brevet means ‘certificate’ and refers to the card carried by randonneurs which gets stamped at controls; it is also used to refer to the event itself. Randonneurs do not compete against other cyclists; randonnées are a test of endurance, self-sufficiency, and cyclo-touring skills.

The ultimate randonnées are Paris-Brest-Paris and Boston-Montréal-Boston, both of which are 1200k (750 miles). You must complete a series of four brevets of increasing distance to qualify for PBP or BMB: the lengths of those qualifying rides are 200k (125 miles), 300k (190 miles), 400k (250 miles), and 600k (375 miles).

I’ve wanted to at least try this ride for several years. The problem is that the 200k is held on the first weekend in May, when it’s just as likely to be 40 degrees and snowing as 60 degrees and sunny. And coming so early, it’s difficult to get enough training miles in before the event. However, this year I started commuting to Woburn in March, which enabled me to get over 600 miles in during the past six weeks. So I was in better shape this year than ever before.

I’ve done a number of double metric (200k) rides, although none of them were official randonnées. I’ve stretched the first day of the Pan-Mass into a double metric, and that wasn’t unmanageable at all, although that takes place at the peak of my training in August. And for this event, I would also have to bike home from the finish, which would add another hour in the saddle. It was going to be by far the longest one-day ride I’ve ever attempted.

The good news was that I had a friend in Lexington who put me up the night before, which meant that I only had a six-mile ride to the 7am start. I registered and got my brevet card, then hung around for a while as the hundred-fifty-odd riders were staged out of the parking lot at Hanscom Field. I departed at about 7:15am. The temperature was near 60 degrees, and the sky was mostly clear, but the weatherman said there’d be increasing clouds and a 20 percent chance of a sprinkle.

The route profile is pretty straightforward. There are two rest stops that divide the course into three segments: the first and last segments are both pretty flat, except for two small spikers. The middle of the course, however, is all mountains. There are five main peaks. The first one takes the rider up to 750 feet just before the first checkpoint, sort of as a shot across the bow, before the four-mountain middle section.

That first segment was a nice ride: I was always with a group of riders, conserving my energy, until shortly before we got to that first climb. I made it into the checkpoint at New Boston, New Hampshire at 10:14am, and noticed that it had really clouded over. I stripped off my jacket, loaded up on food and water, got my brevet card signed, and headed out for the hard part of the course.

This was only the second time I’ve ridden from one state into the next, and both times it was into New Hampshire. The first time, I started out from my house in Boston, but only just crossed the border into Salem and came home, whereas this time I got a good 25 miles into New Hampshire, and probably half of the brevet was north of the border.

Almost as soon as I left the New Boston control, it started sprinkling, and it continued sprinkling intermittently throughout the afternoon, although at least it wasn’t cold. This middle segment was a rapid succession of leg-breaking climbs followed by screaming descents. Over the next three hours I yoyoed from a starting elevation of 440’ up to 835’, down to 235’, up to 890’, back down to 450’, back up to 1030’, 475’, 825’, then back down to 250’ for the second checkpoint, where I arrived at 1:04pm.

The final segment had us return to Bedford the same way we’d come. It was mostly flat except for those two spikers I mentioned before, which were considerably harder with seven hours in our legs already. But I managed to get back to Hanscom, and gladly so. I had expected a time in the 7-8 hour range, but I think I wound up on the road about eight and a half hours. Eventually my time will be posted on the BBS 2006 Results page.

One thing I made sure to do as soon as I finished was get my medal. One of the reasons I wanted to do the ride was to come away with some commemorative hardware, since the PMC doesn’t do any such thing, and I’d like to have something to show people that I’m a serious and somewhat accomplished cyclist.

After that, I took a well-earned break, sitting around talking with other riders at the finish, the sun having broken through the clouds once again. Eventually I limped back to Boston and collapsed on my bed before taking a long shower and making a big ole curry for supper.

By the halfway point of the ride, certain parts of my body had lodged formal complaints, and I was in a lot of pain by the time I got home. My neck muscles were extremely painful, although that’s something I’ve encountered before. However, my left knee and right ankle were also in a great deal of pain, and they’ll need some recovery time, because today I could barely walk at all. It makes me question whether doing any longer distances would be desirable at all, although there’s some possibility that I might try a 300k that they’re holding in July. We’ll see how I feel about it once we get there. There’s something to be said for medals, although you definitely have to work hard to earn them, and the 300k requires some night riding.

If you’re wondering what the final tally is, yesterday I spent 9 hours, 33 minutes in the saddle over 12 hours of clock time, covering 153.5 miles with over 6000’ of climbing hills with grades as high as 13% at an average speed of 15.7 mph and a max speed of 44.8 mph. I actually finished the brevet with an average of 16 mph, but that declined due to my leisurely ride back to Boston.

And I think I could be quite happy if I never exceed that one-day distance again in my life!