| Ride Stats |
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Distance:
63.28 miles
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Altitude Gain:
4,268 ft
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Avg Speed:
19.40 mph
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Route:
Queen City Century
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Avg Grade: 0 %
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Max Grade: 0 %
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Max HR: 159 bpm
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Avg HR: 139 bpm
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Terrain: Road: Rolling
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Bike: custom built Cipollini RB800 Road
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Club: Schuyler County Cycling Club |
| Weather Conditions: Sunny 71 F NW wind @ 4 mph |
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Drive down yesterday turned into an adventure in itself as I had automotive issues on the trip through PA. I had some part failures on the Xterra had to stop and assess the damage. Vehicle appeared road worthy but was quite worried about breaking down completely. I got off the main route and drove around on some back roads looking for further signs of trouble. Briefly considered heading home but then figured if it were to break down completely it wouldn't matter if I were two hundred or four hundred miles from home it would have to be repaired wherever it came to a stop. Continued onwards to Staunton, VA for the century. Figured it was mostly interstate left to drive and would be little starting and stopping. Turned out to be highly stressful as hit heavy rain and bumper to bumper traffic for miles due to an accident. Got to my motel okay but failed to get any sleep worrying about getting home and a loud-mouthed woman putting on a late-night performance in the parking lot. Ended up getting three hours of fitful sleep. My numbers were terrible at the start of the ride-resting heart didn't happen last night, stress levels were high all night and body battery was at twenty percent. Felt totally drained before the ride. Turnout was pretty good as had well over one hundred riders milling about for a mass start. The century was a cloverleaf route with four loops and a central rest stop. Different length rides could be completed by varying the number of loops done. Century route listed twenty-four rated climbs though in reality was only ten to twelve miles sections of climbing followed by long stretches of descent on each loop. Most of the sections would have three or four rated climbs bunched together. There really wasn't any mountain climbs today and eight percent was about the steepest grade encountered. Decided that I wouldn't ride the full century as felt terrible and didn't want to drive home after dark so planned on doing the fifty and maybe the metric if I still felt okay. Course started with a six mile climb to the central rest stop. I stayed near the front going out of town and avoided the husky that ran into the large group. I was also able to get through an early traffic light that may have separated the group more than the grade. After two miles of climbing there were only six of us left from the group of over one hundred. There was one young local rider with ruby-slipper riding shoes that kept out in front on the first climb and for most of the rest of the ride with just the rest following. We lost one rider near the top of the first section of climbs and Bob, a seventy-year-old Cat II, and I got separated on a steep section. Bob and I got back on fairly easily on the downhill section with a little big chainring hammering. That was pretty much how the rest of my ride went. There wasn't really a paceline but more of a gaggle as Bob and I and a couple of twenty-something pretty much shadowed the ruby slipper guy. The two riders never took any pulls and just drafted and Bob and I pretty much lingered off the back. I would occasionally ride to the front on the climbs to ride tempo when the speed dropped as I didn't have the energy to match the accelerations over the top of some of the steeper climbs. Bob and I ended up getting dropped on three of the climbs, but we were always able to rejoin on the downhills. We were averaging over twenty for most of the day. We stopped at the rest stop after completing loop two. Bob was only planning on doing the metric, so I decided to ride with him back to the start. The other three youngsters were planning on doing the full century but appeared to be camping out at the rest stop, so Bob and I started loop three alone. The metric only did part of loop three before descending back to Staunton. Bob and I rode easily and chatted about riders we commonly knew as he used to race occasionally in NY. I hammered the last downhill back to town trying to get the average up a little since it had really dropped over the last ten miles. Finished the ride in fairly good shape considering the bad night I put in although my body battery number had bottomed out. Ended up chatting with some locals over pizza and ginger ale. It was a good rolling course that I enjoyed although my out of the saddle climbing wasn't there today. I was able to stay with the front group without too much effort. Kind of disappointed that I couldn't complete the century but probably rode myself to exhaustion on the metric. Drive home was uneventful and was happy to be home without a breakdown.
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