Solo Century
Due to a fortuitous series of events I got Friday, my birthday, off from work. I took the opportunity to attempt my first solo century ride.
It went exceedingly well. South Shore Road on Sacandaga Lake was on my agenda–it was paved this past fall and I have yet to try it out since. I was a little nervous about ranging quite so far unsupported, but my fears were unfounded. No mechanicals plagued me (aside from GPS related problems, but more on that later).
In the past I have been always been hesitant to ride along South Shore Road because of the crappy pavement. North Shore, by comparison is like a freshly laid ribbon of caramel with melt-in-your-mouth riding goodness. This year, both sides of the lake are now up-to-date pavement-wise. Granted there are still some older sections of road, but they are in good shape. I’m a bit of a pavement snob since nearly all the roads within a 15 mile radius of my house are in very good shape. Saratoga County definitely doesn’t skimp on money for the highway department. Locust Grove road was a recent repaving project last year that fixed a seriously poor stretch of road. This is a road on which I constantly see other roadies since it’s a good “connector” that doesn’t have much traffic on it. I guess my last repaving wish would be for Ruggles Road.
I started at 10am and immediately was annoyed by my FlightDeck bike computer. It wasn’t registering any data. Probably the battery, I thought. Turns out, 16.27 miles later I realize, maybe it’s in ’stop’ mode. You know, especially since it was happily registering my speed this whole time. And after pressing the left button, lo and behold it started working. I’m an idiot.
Later on around 65-70 miles or so, my GPS suddenly says “Choose a language.” Huh? I select english with a sense of forboding. Next it says it has to initialize. Ok, that’s not a good sign. This was my 2nd technological mishap. It mysteriously reset itself and lost all my ride data. Luckily I resolved the FlightDeck problem earlier, so all I had to do was add 16.27 miles to my bike computer’s odo to get my total ride distance. (I didn’t plan the route so I couldn’t just complete the ride and know I had 100 miles. It was a ride-’til-the-odo-says-100 course.
Since I lost GPS data for the ride, I don’t have elevation gained data. I’m very interested to see what it was–I’ll have to manually plot the course.
Due to some poor pre-ride preparation, I didn’t closely check on the set of roads just prior to reaching Sacandaga. I ended up zigzagging on a couple of dirt roads before reaching Rt 16. Luckily they were well packed and mostly downhill at that. Those Serfas tires are troopers! I always carry a repair kit and replacement tube. I quite good at repairing a puncture also, freqently not even needing to take the tire off more than a 1/3 of the way to get at the fault. You just never want to have to do a repair. Plus, I don’t carry a pump, just air canisters, and once you’ve used them up, that’s it.
Much of the time on the ride I was just in the zone, unconsiously avoiding those little stones sitting in the shoulder like sentinels waiting for their moment of glory in bringing down a tire. Listening to the birds. Lots of birds out in the morning. Only spotted one hawk, though on Rt 16.
Lately I’ve noticed I mentally count pedal strokes when I come up out of the saddle. I don’t necessarily do anything with this info. The mental odo just starts clicking away and resets itself almost before I even know what the total is. Maybe I’ll start harnessing that mental energy and try to keep track of how I feel in relation to the gradient, number of pedal strokes, gear ratio and heart rate. That’s a lot more processing power my brain needs to put out but it’s probably worth it. At least then I can size up a roller before hitting it and be a little smarter about shifting and effort expended.
This is a course I would definitely do again (at least the first 70 mile loop–the remaining 30 miles were simply around my “neighborhood”). It’s not that it’s on roads I’ve never been on, but it’s a bigger committment that my normal loops. The 20, 30 and 40 milers around my house invariably are arcs that stray no more than, say, 10 miles directly from my house. At any point, I could abort and be home within 30 minutes. Ranging out to Sacandaga forces my out of my comfort zone.
Anthony later e-mailed me about this ride and mentioned “It is kind of interesting, being out there and not talking to anyone for that many hours, isn’t it? Almost meditative and cleansing in a way.” I wholeheartedly concur. Though I was alone for much of my childhood, being an only child and living far from neighbors. I’ve had a lot of practice at being alone and being comfortable with it.
Things I noticed:
- The General Store by the Batcheller bridge in Sacandaga remodeled. It’s quite nice both inside and out. I enjoyed a brief rest on their front porch’s little cafe tables and chairs.
- Shockingly, there were no discarded toilets spotted. This flies in stark contrast to big-ride patterns John, Anthony and I have seen.
- Two ducks casually crossing the road were startled when I silently came upon them.
- The climbing did little to tire me.
- My grey jacket vents remarkably well. Around noon I was heating up a lot with sunny 65-70ish temps.
- The temp dropped at least 5 degrees upon reaching the lake.
- The temp never rose again after leaving the lake. The cold front had moved in with overcast skys.
- Brain-farted in Corinth and couldn’t remember which fork in the Y to take without checking my GPS.
- The Road Rage lube was still working its silent magic on my chain after about 200 miles. ‘Course it was filthy as all get out. But a quiet filthy.
- Red Bull, Snickers, and a bag of salty peanuts made for a tasty lunch at the general store.
- Long rides like this are a gift. I’m lucky to be able to do this for two reasons: I have the time, and I have the ability.
1 Comment to Solo Century
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Solo Centuries are a blessing. I’ll have you try one that I don’t already have mapped out in my head.
Happy Birthday. I’m jealous, my 2 attempts at birthday centuries have been dismal failures.