All week long I had been attempting to recruit folks for a long weekend ride - I had 100 miler in mind and as of Thursday I had no takers. So when I got Josh Beck's email via the YBR's listserve looking for folks to do a 100 miler on Saturday morning - I was psyched.
It was going to be a hot day. Halfway to Carlisle on I-81 I realized that my water bottles were happily chillin in my refridgerator at home. A quick call to Josh to make sure he had a couple extra and the problem was solved. I had a full tube of nuun electrolyte tablets for refills.
The ride started from Josh's house (next door to the Carlisle YMCA) and I had to laugh when he gave me the loaner water bottles. One was a small Gatorade bottle and the other was the size of a small SCUBA tank - something he picked up on one of his racing trips to Europe. Apparently, they don't have Camelbacks on the continent because this baby had to hold 36+ ounces. It wouldn't fit in my seat tube bottle cage, but rather laid in the downtube cage like a cold-war era ICBM. Perhaps there was some aerodynamic benefit to this thing? Regardless, I drink water like a Hummer drinks gas and was glad to have the extra capacity.
The ride consisted of Josh, Bill, Daryl, and I; the route was undetermined as we spun out of Carlisle. For those of you who don't know, Josh is pretty damn fast on a bike, he finished third in world at the 2005 Powerman World Duathlon Championships in Switzerland - and his strength is the bike. He said that he would do all to pulling and we were all happy to oblige.
We climbed 233 up to Pine Grove Furnace and then let it rip all the way down to Caledonia State Park. Josh pulled for about 16 miles non-stop at speeds that I could barely follow in his slipsteam. We averaged over 32mph for almost the entire section. Straight across rt. 30 and then we climbed up South Mountain and descended into Mont Alto. Our first water stop was at a Rutters in Quincy - I reloaded the SCUBA tank and we were off for Chambersburg and points north. Daryl broke his rear deraileur cable around Scotland and had to ride the 53x12 which meant we had to keep the pace high (read: uncomfortable). Our second water break was at Sheetz in Shippensburg. The plan was to drop Daryl off at Merv's Mennonite bike shop outside of Shippensburg and for me to drop off and ride back solo. I hung on as long as possible (about 2 more miles) and soon found myself alone at mile 63 as I crossed I-81. I went back on Big Spring Road into Newville and stopped at the fire hall to refill the water bottles. Holding 21/22 alone wasn't a problem so it appeared I wasn't as blown as I thought - it was just really uncomfortable to hold those extra mph in Josh's draft (this must be what motopacing is like). Given that, I decided to do the whole 100 as originally planned and figured I needed to zig and zag my way back into Carlisle in order to hit the mileage.
I remembered how fun the climb up Kings Gap was last week, did some quick math in my head, and determined that climbing Kings Gap and then returning to Carlisle would be about perfect. Turned out it was. I got back to Josh's house at 100.14 and finished in 5 hours and 17 minutes with a fair bit of climbing. Josh had just returned from an 8 mile post ride run (you know - to loosen up) he and Bill had logged around 90 on the bike. Here is the elevation profile:
Carlisle 100 Miler - Saturday, June 2, 2007
Moving Time 5:17:24
Distance 100.14
Moving Speed 18.9 avg. 52.4 max.
Elevation Gain+5,832
When I got home I followed my own rigorous training program and had a post ride beer.
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