Father's Day Ride: First Century of the Season!

"Here endeth the ride."

Just back from a beautiful long bike ride out to Peterborough NH and back!   I decided to extend the last  route I biked out that way to  make it a "century" (100mi) ride.  

My route came up a couple miles short, so when I got back to Littleton I ended up taking a more roundabout way back to the house -- and still ended up having to do a couple of "victory laps" around the block to push my trip computer over 100mi.

Below is a snapshot of today's route, as recorded by an app on my phone (Strava).   I think it's "off" a little bit -- my average speed couldn't be THAT slow.  ;-)

Click here to see more route data on Strava

It felt like I didn't do anything but climb for the first 3 hours of the ride, but it's such a lovely route out to Mount Monadnock that it's hard to complain.   Clearly I had picked the wrong day for a ride with most of the climb headed North and West: the prevailing wind today was out of the North and West....   Once I heard that on the weather report, I figured that at least it'd be at my back once all the climbing was done (after about the first 55 miles).   Funny thing though: even though I was headed pretty much East and South for the last half of the ride, every single flag I noticed on the way home was blowing toward me.  Lesson here: never plan for a tail wind.

Only had one minor mechanical issue this ride: a spoke worked loose on my front wheel at around mile 64 in Milford, NH.  I was a little irate, since that exact thing has happened to me at least 4 times previously. (Always on a long ride, too.)   I was able to remove the spoke cleanly, but the nut that holds it to the wheel rattled around inside my front wheel for the remaining 34 miles.  That, and the fact that missing a spoke caused my front wheel come out of true and get a little wobbly added to my resolve that I will be getting a new front wheel ASAP, even after I fix this one. Again.

I did  make it a point stop to take some pictures this time out.   Below are a couple of quick snapshots of 2 of our Benevolent Robot Overlords hanging out in Townsend MA, off route 119.     One of them was mowing the grass, the other was holding the mailbox (out of frame in that picture. Sorry)

Robot Overlord #1 Mows Yard

Robot Overlord #2 Holds Mailbox

I'm feeling pretty good about conditioning for this year's PMC. I say this not because I'm any faster, or have managed to drop that 20lbs -- but because I'm finally not cramping up on my long rides this season.  Until now it's only ever been a question of when I would cramp up during  -- or immediately following --  any ride over 40 miles.    But since I adjusted my workouts a couple months ago, I think I've finally got the problem muscles conditioned.  Knock wood.  Not a sign of any twitches as I type this.

Anyway, like I said, it was a glorious day to be out on a bike today and I count myself extremely lucky to be able to do this.   I'm looking forward to more rides like this one, and especially the PMC ride on Aug 2nd and 3rd.

Please help us fight cancer and sponsor a rider (like me) on this year's PMC.   100% of your donation goes directly to Dana-Farber for cancer research and treatment.   (That's not a typo. One hundred percent of every rider-raised dollar goes directly to fight cancer.)

More to come.  Thanks for stopping by.
/doug