Industry Figure Tom Chappell

It’s two weeks until we have to ride 100 miles, with about 5,000 feet of accumulated climbing, at the Solvang Century. Our training rides had been thwarted, again and again, often by the weather, which has picked this year to rain and rain. This week’s forecast: rain, Thursday-Sunday.

Egads, and we’d only done 55 miles last weekend. Not what I call a proper pre-century shakedown cruise.

We had hoped to ride 75 miles in the mountains near my house, but the weather mocked us with temperatures forecast to be in the high 30’s, only climbing up to 46 by noon. Yuck. And what if it were foggy? Mountains are high!

So we made a last-minute change for Ron’s neighborhood, hoping to pound out 85 or so miles in rolling hills.

We got off to a fairly early start at about 7:40 am. Here we are in our cold-weather regalia:

Ron Traver. The long pants are just new, bought special for today’s ride in the bitter cold weather
(possibly as low as the 50’s, brrr!)

Me. Those long sleeves that I have on can be slipped off and packed up if it warms up. It didn’t.

We only stopped for restrooms, flat fixing, a bagel with fixings, a cookie, and some Skittles.  Man, those things are so awesome when you’re about 65 miles into your ride. But no real rests for the sake of it at all; we always had some purpose in mind, whenever we stopped:

Here, we stopped to pursue The Feats of Strength. And it’s not even Festivus!

I match Ron’s feat (even exceeding it, if you consider that my bike’s frame is solid steel).

We wound and looped our way around the Conejo Valley, and were just about to set out on the final leg of our trek when I felt a raindrop. Hm, it was only supposed to be a 20% chance of rain at this hour, though rising to 40% in just another two or three hours. Oog, there’s another one, and we’re still almost 10 miles from home.

So we bailed, and high-tailed it for Ron’s house, except that by the time we made it back, the rain still hadn’t materialized, so we did a few quick laps in Lynn Ranch to bring the total up over 75 miles.

Ron foolishly stopped eating his bicycling food for the last 10 miles or so, hoping to switch over to a post-ride dinner and glass of wine instead, but had to give up and eat one of my tiny bags of Skittles 1.5 miles from the end. It’s funny how your body can just hit empty like that. The analogy is completely apt: you stop as suddenly and as finally as a car that has run out of petrol. But the Skittles did their usual magic, and (very) shortly we were pumping our way towards the finish line.

And we both feel great today, just no problem at all. I could have ridden again today, no worries.

Oh, yes, and Ron crushed me again with another snappy 1% victory (rats!):

From MapMyRide.com:
      distance:    75.6 miles
  total ascent:   1,233 ft

Tom's Cycle Computer:
      distance:    75.6 miles
   saddle time: 6:00:13       (not counting stops)
 average speed:    12.6 mph   (not counting stops)

Ron's Cycle Computer:
  saddle time:  5:56:58       (not counting stops)
average speed:     12.7 mph   (not counting stops)

From Start To Finish:
 elapsed time:  7:30:00       (counting everything)
average speed:     10.1 mph   (counting everything)

Well, that 10 mph elapsed will get us back to Solvang by 4:00pm, if we start at 6:00am. It will still be light out, which is the Important Thing. But ooh, Solvang has about another 3,800 feet of climbing. Better do another big ride next week. They’re getting easier each time! Stay away, rain!

“Eek! Raindrop!”