From: SSDC2@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU (J Green)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles
Subject: Re: My first Century!!!
Date: 15 Sep 92 11:56:18 GMT

>From: brockr@muvaxa.rferl.org (Train, Learn, Climb, Ride)
>
>  I'd like to share with the newsgroup a personal milestone of mine that
>I accomplished this past Sunday:  my first century!!!!!
...
> I don't know if 5 1/2 hours to do a century
>in, is any good but, that was my time.  I'm sure it's not overly fast but...

well, i was just about to post my accomplishment of completing my first
century this sunday, when i stumbled upon this posting... congrats! :-)

i did the Narragansett Bay Wheelmen "Flattest Century in The East", and i
wouldn't exactly call it FLAT! "flattest" must be a comparison to Vermont
or Maine centuries! ;-)  but it was fun, and i'm very proud to say that i
(and my riding partner!) made the 100 miles on mountain bikes with knobbies!

yes, we took quite the razzing from racers speeding by us on the uphills!
:-) that made it even more fun! one guy said "i can just hear the calories
burning on those knobbies!". another person, a woman who appeared to be
80 pounds on a 3 pound Cannondale racer said, about 20 miles into the ride,
"are you riding the *HUNDRED* on that?" ... when i said yes she said 'wow'
and sped by. hehe sure they finished hours before us, but we burned more
calories! (that's why i started biking, to burn some extra calories/fat to
compliment my weight training program! :-)

we started a little bit later than expected, since we hadn't yet tried
putting two bikes on my bike rack, a Trek rack made for 2 bikes. we found
that we had to remove the front tires to get them to fit with the scott AT-4
pro bars, since the rack design was too close. what a pain in the butt at
5:30 am! i really like this rack for one bike, but not for two. :-(

the day was gorgeous, we couldn't have wished for a better day! :-)
cool, sunny, low humidity, no wind, simply gorgeous! :-)
the ride was also beautiful, starting in Tiverton and traveling mostly
on rodes with few cars. the ride route was awesome! :-)
(except for a mile or so stretch through New Bedford with road patches
about every 20 feet, which seemed to last for miles!)

we started at 7:30, and finished at 4:30. no mechanical problems, but i
saw alot of racing bikes with flats! to the person who made his first
century in 5.5 hours, plltttt! it took us 9 hours which was better than
i had expected! (on mtbs with knobbies).

my knees were hurting pretty bad about 40 miles into the ride...
i put a new seat on a couple of weeks ago (women's Terry seat), and i think
it is a little too far forward. my knees had been bothering me a little bit
the last couple weeks, and ALOT during the century. i'll have to re-adjust.
(strange that the bike shop once advised us to move the seat forward for
a better/closer grip, NOT! i changed stems instead, better!)

the last ten miles seemed more hilly than the rest of the ride. i think
part of that was being tired, and part of it was that there weren't any
DOWNhills! i dont think the UPhills were much worse than the rest of
the ride, there just werent any breaks!

i would like to add my humble opinion that all 100 mile rides should be
planned so that the last 10 are strictly downhill! ;-)

the ride ended after 102 miles of beautiful country roads! :-) at 100 miles
i wanted to stop riding, get off my bike, and ask for a ride back to my car!
i wanted to do 100 miles and i had done 100 miles! :-)
sure, two miles is no big deal, but i thought i was doing great to make
100 miles, and those wise-guys added on another 2 miles at the end! ;-)
(previous record for mileage in one day was 64 miles, fairly flat! :-)

well, it was fun ... any other success stories???
(did i bore anyone to death?)

Janice

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Janice Green, Research Programmer      Social Science Data Center   __o
Janice_Green@Brown.edu                 Brown University           _`\<,_
SSDC2@BROWNVM          -+||-----||+-   Providence, RI (USA)      (*)/ (*)