| Ride Stats |
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Distance:
102.57 miles
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Altitude Gain:
6,738 ft
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Avg Speed:
16.69 mph
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Route:
Culpeper Century
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Avg Grade: 0 %
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Max Grade: 0 %
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Max HR: 171 bpm
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Avg HR: 135 bpm
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Terrain: Road: Hills
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Bike: custom built Cipollini RB800 Road
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Club: Schuyler County Cycling Club |
| Weather Conditions: Cloudy 44-58 F Variable wind 5 mph |
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Drove down to Culpeper, VA in an attempt to extend the season a bit by riding in some warm weather that is getting scarce in upstate NY. The century is my twenty-fourth and last scheduled event of the season. Trip didn't work out as planned though as due to Friday afternoon traffic out of DC it took me an hour and a half additional time to get to my motel on top of an already long drive. Couldn't find any decent places to eat around the motel and was tired of driving in traffic and so settled on some poor quality fast food drive thru. Got to the start early and went thru registration fairly easily. Abandoned any thoughts of a warm, sunny, rolling, low key century in Virginia as the temperature was in the low forties with significant cloud cover. The ride in recent years has been a mass start event but due to popular demand it is now a show and go. I was getting cold hanging around the parking lot and decided to go at the earliest suggested starting time of eight AM. Several riders had headed out before the official start. I headed out with a small group of four or five riders but after a small climb out of town it was just one other rider and myself. Topic of conversation at the time and throughout most of the day revolved around freezing. I had no intention of riding hard at the event and just kept the pace with the other rider for the first ten miles. The terrain in the area was mostly rolling with no real climbs until a couple of short steep sections in the last twenty miles. There also was very few flat sections. The riding was very similar to the Tour of Madison, in Syria, VA, that we did early in the season with the exception that that was a metric and this was a full century. We hit a long shallow climb and I kept enough speed to keep warm but it was too fast for my compatriot and he dropped off. Halfway up the climb I was passed by a faster rider and upped my speed somewhat to keep pace with him, but I wimped out and decided I would just ride my tempo until it got warmer and maybe ride harder when it warmed up. At the top of the climb the faster rider took what appeared to be a wrong turn. I had caught up to another rider on the climb, and we rode together until we were rejoined by the guy that missed a turn. Pace got heated until I got dropped on a fast steep descent as I was couldn't get through a group of slower riders that were descending very slowly. Stopped at the first rest stop and filled my pockets with gorp and headed back out as it was still too cold to hang around long without moving. After the first rest stop I obtained one of my goals for the ride that was riding past a power station I helped commission back at the turn of the century. I knew the station was in the area and back in the woods somewhere. I occasionally had stayed in Culpeper motels back when I worked at the site. I wasn't sure that the route with go by the plant but was quite happy that it did. That was pretty much the highlight of my ride. The remainder of the ride I mostly rode alone, although I would occasionally latch on the a faster rider and draft for a couple of miles before getting tired and dropping back to my slower tempo. It never did really warm up much although for a brief period late in the day it did get into the upper fifties. The course was pleasant with the exception of a few crossings of a major highway. Although the state left police cars with their lights flashing in the meridian at the intersections, I still felt like I was playing a live action version of Frogger as I tried to get across. The rest stops were well stocked and the attendants very friendly. The rolling course was not terribly memorable without any big climbs, but it was good riding. Barbeque at the end was really good. Not sure how the turn out was although there appeared to be a lot of cars in the parking lot at the start and finish. I probably wont go back to the century though unless they return it to a mass start event. I enjoyed the course and the rest stop people, but since I rode most of the course alone, I could ride the course by myself anytime especially on a warmer day and would save money by stopping at roadside stores rather than paying the entry fee. Non-mass start events are probably safer and have less traffic impact but it lacks the excitement of pack riding and the opportunity to ride with riders with similar abilities as the pack filters out riders into smaller groups. I was a bit disappointed by the weather and hampered by tired legs but I got some good miles in.
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