Metric Century

Early this morning I met Steve at the park for a hundred mile gravel road ride. I had my doubts about finishing the whole ride. I figured there was a chance I could do it with proper eating, but it turns out the 8 minute commute to the EPB everyday is just not enough to get one prepared for a dirty century. But that's ok; it was a great ride anyways, hopefully Steve's final forty miles were great too.

It was a whacky weather day. When we started temps were in the high thirties, there was a light wind, and a super heavy fog. It was like riding through a cloud. The forecast said it would be in the lower sixties later with the sun making an appearance. Some of these forecasters felt the fog would burn off by nine A.M. or so. That particular person was wrong, but others happened to be right. Steve and I had our doubts, but we still both dressed in intricate layers so that we could peel off the the warm pieces and stuff them in our pockets if the sun ever decided to actually show up.

We started rolling to the East, as it is one of the quickest ways to get to dirt roads. After just a few miles we were riding up and down gravel hills and I could not see a thing. My glasses were full of condensation, on the outside and inside of the lenses, so I decided to take them off. My vision is not horrible, but I do prefer to keep my glasses on most of the time. In this case though, my fuzzy vision just matched the natural surroundings. It did, however, lead to a little bit more disorientation for me as I was often a little but unsure of exactly where we were.

After forty or so miles of riding I was definitely starting to feel my lack of fitness. I was hungry, still not seeing clearly (it was long after nine and still no sign of the sun), and the headwind we were fighting was making me a little bit grumpy. But a few miles later we arrived at the West Branch Casey's, just ahead of the lunch rush too. I had a couple pieces of pizza and a coca-cola classic and got some cheesy crackers and gatorade to go. That made me feel great. Going outside though was a little bit tough. Riding through clouds makes one extraordinarily damp, and putting the wet gloves back on was not good for morale.

But we headed out of town on a nice, quiet bike path. We had some shelter from the wind and it was also flat. My hands warmed up and my body was feeling great as we chatted about W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, one of my all time favorite books.

Unfortunately the path did not last, and we were soon back in the wind and hills. It was about this time that my legs decided they were in fact tired and didn't want to play these silly pedaling games anymore. I told Steve that I would have to be heading in. He understood.

Luckily we were only about five or so miles outside of Iowa City. So I turned West to take some pavement back home and Steve proceeded East and South towards Lone Tree and another Casey's. At this point the weather was not much different than at the start. It was a little bit drier and a little bit warmer, but still very, very dreary.

Overall it was a great ride. I came home wet and mud spattered and took a nice warm shower. It was sometime during my shower that the sun did in fact come out. The day warmed rapidly and hit 65 degrees. Hopefully Steve had to make use of his many pockets as he finished his ride in the warm sunshine.