The Wilson 100 Bicycle Ride......

Katydid and I rode the Wilson 100 bicycle ride again today. We've never done the 100-mile route, and I don't think it's likely that we will. We have ridden the shorter rides a number of times, and today we did the 65-mile route. This ride follows pretty much the same route every year, so it SHOULD be familiar to us. Only it isn't always. Because we didn't ride it YESTERDAY.

The past two years it has rained either at the last rest stop or just after we left the last rest stop. This year we got lucky. It was hot (and windy), but it didn't rain. The terrain was gently rolling (only it didn't feel so gentle toward the end of the day) and fairly rural. We didn't have any close encounters with vehicles. The only time we almost got knocked off the road was by a peloton of somewhere between 75-100 cyclists. I lost count at 34, by which time they weren't riding in pairs anymore, they were riding four and five across. They do this every single year, and I let it affect my blood pressure every single year. I did say to one girl, "That was pretty close." And then I lost count of the riders because I was too busy holding the tandem on the road.

I don't know who that group is, but they show up every year. The good news is they don't stop for rest stops, so once they pass you, odds are you don't have to deal with them again. I hate it when an otherwise perfectly pleasant ride is spoiled by OTHER CYCLISTS.

The last rest stop is staffed by a woman who is also in charge of one of the other rides we do (almost) every year, one that occurs in April. She has the most wonderful baked goods, not just the typical rest stop fare. And this year she had blueberry lemonade. That was some seriously good stuff. I just stood by the cooler, because I kept draining the itty bitty cups they had. I should have just filled up my water bottle.

I got low on water, mainly because the last rest stop was 20 miles (and a billion degrees) from the end of the ride. I had to go to my back-up bottle of water, which I had poured before we left this morning. It was like drinking bath water. Not refreshing in the least.

And now I'm going to stop complaining, because it was a good day and a good ride. Katydid had suggested we ride our single bikes, since she hasn't had time to train and she didn't want to hold me back. I said to her, "I'd rather haul you than wait on you," and I meant it. At least having her on the back of the tandem gave me someone to talk to. And our average speed was decent, considering we haven't ridden tandem much at all this year.

Now I'm going to put my tired, aching muscles to bed. I was worried about oversleeping this morning, so I compensated by UNDERsleeping. I woke up at 3:00, and I'm not sure I ever went back to sleep. Early to bed is just the ticket. Forgive my rambling.....

Another Wilson 100 Ride.....

Only half of Team Chi-Chis rode the Wilson 100 today, the half that rides the same bicycle. But we wore our Team Chi-Chis jerseys, and we got a gazillion compliments on them, so the team spirit was there. Katydid and I rode the 65-mile route, mainly because we rode the 54-mile route last year and we wanted to do something different. And less wimpy. But not the 100.

Then I looked at my blog from last year, and we rode the 65-mile route then too. How soon we forget these things.



I looked back at the post I rode after last year's ride, and it is eerie how similar they are. Today was overcast and sort of drizzly most of the day, but the rain wasn't enough to be annoying. It didn't even require wiping off the mirror. But it did mean that I could ride without my sunglasses, which leave indentations on the sides of my nose and become quite aggravating by the end of the day. When we were at the last rest stop, the rain started pouring down, and we thought, "Uh oh, just like last year...." Last year we eventually had to stop and seek shelter because of thunder and lightning. But today the rain stopped pretty quickly, and we never actually rode in much rain. My feet got wet but we didn't have that stinging experience of riding in a hard rain.

The downside of riding on a cool day is that it's easy to forget to drink enough water. The heat isn't draining you like it does on a sunny day, but you're still losing fluids through perspiration and wind. I heard many, many people talking today about their leg muscles cramping, even the die-hard century riders who finish in the same length of time it takes us to ride 65. My legs felt just a tiny bit like they wanted to cramp, and they were KILLING me during the post-ride meal. (Not a good day to forget to take my potassium. Along with all my other medicine. Duh.)

But I came home and had French onion soup for dinner in an attempt to replace the sodium lost during the ride, and my legs feel better. They still hurt like hell, especially in the knee region, but at least they don't feel like they are going to cramp.

An early bedtime is definitely in store for tonight. The only bad part about a Sunday ride is I don't get enough recuperation time before starting a new school week. Oh well....