| Ride Stats |
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Distance:
51.45 miles
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Altitude Gain:
2,160 ft
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Avg Speed:
19.06 mph
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Route:
Rip Roarin Ride
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Avg Grade: 0 %
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Max Grade: 0 %
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Max HR: 0 bpm
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Avg HR: 0 bpm
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Terrain: Road: Rolling
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Bike: Look 585 Carbon Road
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Club: Schuyler County Cycling Club |
| Weather Conditions: Sunny 60-75 S wind @ 7 mph |
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Rolling half century north of Little Elms TX today. This is the second year of this event put on by the local Lions club with the goal of raising money for hearing aids for a young girl. Little different then raising money for one of the big organized diseases as here I got to high five the youngster at the finish. Pretty low key event with maybe fifty riders at the start for a twenty-five and a fifty mile course. Registration was easy and there were breakfast burritos served at the start. I wasn't really interested in breakfast but it smelled good. Did this event last year and tore out of the lot with a group of ten fast guys. This year no one seemed to be in a hurry. It was sixty degrees at the start and several of the riders were bundled. Pace was only about fifteen for the first half mile with everyone drafting a single rider. I went to the front and rode near him for a bit then picked up the pace. We soon had a split with four riders ahead as people interested in a bit of a faster pace joined me. Still rode easy for the first four miles until we got out of town and into countryside. One rider who was very slim and well over six foot took off around one of the corners and there was no reaction from either of the two guys I was with so I sprinted up and caught onto the tall man. He slowed up after a couple of miles and we rolled along at an easy pace for a couple of miles and talked about the course. He said there was now a good climb at the twelve mile mark and they had eliminated a couple of shake & bake roads from last year. I felt really good and was keeping a high cadence in the big chainring and we kept sailing along. The other two riders appeared to be stalking us and didn't seem to interested in catching on and we picked the pace up. The first part of the fifty was really neat with a twisting rolling road passing through a wooded area and small horse farms. Went around a corner and up a small hill and over a set of railroad tracks and when I turned around the tall man was gone. Never saw him again but found out after the ride that he was a really poor climber and only did the twenty five mile course. Day was warming up nicely and there was little wind and I was sailing along at a good clip with little effort. Hit the only climb of the day that was around eight percent and around a quater mile long. Hammered over the top in the big chainring and still had a lot of momentum though I did go into oxygen debt for part of the climb. Never saw any riders after the hill and continued on alone. Really liked the course as instead of the long straights of yesterday this course rarely had any sections longer than four miles. Worked out really nice toward the end of the ride after the wind picked up as I rarely spent more than ten minutes pushing a headwind before making a turn. They had two or three reststops where the volunteers stood alongside the road and handed up water and bananas as they do in some feed zones. Just kept spinning the high cadence and kept the speed in the low twenties for most of the ride. Started to tire at the forty five mile mark but whenever I looked back I didn't see anyone. Rolled into the finish and was greeted by two of the riders I had ridden with earlier. They said they had missed a turn around the twenty five mile mark and had ridden an abridged version of the course. I was later to learn that several of the fifty milers had missed the turn but I didn't have any problems. Course didn't have any of the big climbs of scenery of yesterday's full century but I found it to be a fun ride. It helped that my legs felt better than they have in weeks.
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