Fall Century

I've ridden the past CRW centuries with DP and TT, until the Spring one this year which I rode alone. After learning that DP's injury was going to keep him out of this ride too, I was delighted to learn that my colleague CP was riding, and was interested in riding together. CP was one of our Deerfield crew, and is one of the few year-round bike commuters I work with. Later on he mentioned he had a friend who would join us.

As I looked forward to the event, one of my favorite rides of the year, there was a time or two when intimidation started to gnaw at me. CP has been training for triathlon, and is much younger than me. His friend is from his racing club. I have never raced and wouldn't consider it. To me, racers are another species, eager to wrestle each other for a fraction of a second, pushing each other to achievements ever further from the reach of us mortals. Would a bike commuter like me keep up across 104 hilly miles?

I did the usual hasty bike prep the day before the ride, even working in a quick wash of the frame. Then I packed everything into the car and was heading inside for the night when I remembered I wanted to check the chainring bolts, because the chain seemed to have a mote of wobble in the middle ring while riding. The sun was down, but by the car's roof light I found one bolt dead loose, and the majority not tight enough. The last one I tightened produced a snap sound, when the lip of the outer piece sheared off. These were aluminum bolts I'd "upgraded" to in the spring, to save some weight compared with the steel ones supplied by Shimano. I'd always feared aluminum bolts, and the shear was exactly where I'd feared they would break, at a sharp inside corner which makes an ideal stress riser. The only reason I trusted them is because the new Shimano cranks use aluminum, even the MTB (XT) ones. I replaced the failed one with an old steel one, and the rest will be changed out soon.

The morning of the ride was colder than forecast, 39 degrees and the first time I saw our thermometer under 40 since spring. I packed some extra clothing and headed out, passing beautiful sea smoke rising from the rivers along the way.

Right after I parked, I realized I'd left my cellphone at home. If my plan was to ride alone, I'd have gone back home to get it, then start late. Instead I redoubled my commitment to stay with CP. While the riders assembled and waited for the start, a pair of hot air balloons flew low over us, pointed out by CP. I can't imagine a more impressive send-off.

We met up with CP's friend, P, and chatted with some of their friends before the start. Then, much later than scheduled, the ride organizer gave us some advice and updates, including, 'There is a bunch of new asphalt on this route. The rest is potholes.' At the end, he staggered our start by first asking the folks who thought they'd ride it at 18MPH to go, then he worked down. Our group had been grumbling about waiting in the cold, so we went in that first wave, though we had no specific pace plan.

Around mile 30, a lot of us missed a turn, which degraded into dozens of cyclists debating which way we should go, while scouts ran both directions looking for the arrows painted on the street. I asked a man walking his dog, but when his name for the street we stood upon disagreed with my GPS, I decided he wasn't helpful. Later, someone who really knew both the roads there and the route spoke up and she led us back toward the start. We found that the turn we missed was earlier than we'd imagined, and later I realized that the dog walker was essentially right.

The kickoff speech had mentioned a short 15% climb, which is steeper than anything near my commute. In the 2 previous times I rode this route, I did not realize it had anything this steep, though I vividly recalled the two long climbs after the first water stop. Writing this with hindsight, my guess is the 15% was part of a rolling section near mile 30-40. Here I fell back behind CP and P, and started to wonder whether I'd catch up. But then I found CP stopped to take off his jacket, then P had stopped to retrieve a water bottle. We were together again!

Not long after that, I was toward the front as we started a long, shallow descent. This is about my favorite kind of riding, because it feels most like flying. I wound up at the front, then started to recognize the area. We were dropping into the Souhegan River valley, and riding along the river. I stayed in front and pulled, partly for the joy of it and partly for the contrast with my first time here. Back then, my first century ride ever (2004), I'd fallen behind my friends. This stretch has few intersections because of the river, so there were no CRW arrows to confirm I was on the right path. I'd started imagining I was lost and alone in NH. But this time I knew the water stop would be roughly the next right turn, and I was able to confidently pull till we arrived there (mile 52).

My preference at water stops is to minimize the stay, otherwise I need to warm up again. But these are social rides and P and CP knew lots of the other riders at the stop. I joined a group where a rider was saying she'd just had a 100 mile race a couple weeks ago. I was thinking, 'that's a dedicated cyclist,' when she clarified it was a running race! She made the cutoff at 30 hours (no sleep) and she reported it wasn't so bad, as long as you don't mind the beat-up feeling from all the blisters and such. I'd never even heard of an event like that - where do these people come from?

In my experience, CRW rides are happy to travel closed roads, so it didn't bother me when we ignored two different marked detours. But even I hit the brakes as we approached the sign reading "bridge closed", and saw the wall of chain link across what had become a cliff with a river running far below. Another rider found a pedestrian bridge not far away, and we rode across.

I really felt the cumulative effort in the last part of the ride. On a climb, I fell to the back of the group, and started to drop off. Then CP came back to give me a pull - and it was a good one, since he's tall and wore a water pack, so I enjoyed a big wind pocket. With his strength, we were soon near the front, and after a nice rest, I took a pull on a descent. But then the cycle repeated, as the next climb dropped me to the back again. Just as I felt I was getting dropped, we arrived at a stop at an intersection, allowing me to catch up. Mysteriously, I found myself in the lead across the intersection, until a climb. This repeated a couple more times, surprising me each time. I felt like I was putting out constant power - the little bit I could manage at that point in the ride. Were the others speeding up for the climbs and then resting on the descents?

In the end we made really good time overall. In fact, my average was half a mile per hour faster than my previous rides over this route - quite a lot in the bike world.

Overall, this was a great ride and a wonderful way to both end the summer and begin autumn.

(post script: 4 days later, my legs are starting to feel recovered.)