Century #2 Completed

Two down, eight more to go. Another 100 miler under the belt and I couldn't be happier...or more miserable. The only thing worse than Century #2 was Century #1. Ugh. Fortunately, I had people to ride with this time around.

We started out with Diana Holland, Collette Loehrlein, Diane Bies, Bill Johnson and Cindy Jones. Diana H., Bill and I were the only ones to wrap ot up together, although Diane B. had plans to finish her mileage up later on.

We had weaved our way towards Elberfeldt. The wind was coming from the southeast so going north was a piece of cake. That was about 18 miles. We made a quick pit stop at the gas station in town and headed east towards Lynnville taking Hwy 64.

We were just under 30 miles at Lynnville. That stretch wasn't overly bad even with a bit of the headwind coming from the SE. Everyone stopped again and it ended up being the point where our group split up.

During the stop, Diana, Bill and I confirmed our route and continued eastward on Hwy 64 towards Folsomville Rd...which would take us south towards a SMALL town (more like an intersection) called Folsomville. From there, we headed towards Boonville where we got lunch at Subway. This was about the 50 mile mark.

Bad news about this stretch. The wind turned around and was coming from the southwest. Needing to head west for the end of the ride meant that we had a head wind for the majority of the ride. Both Diana and I were struggling. This was her longest ride of the year and with a small group, there wasn't an opportunity to rest while someone else pulled. Each of us were pullign ourselves which can really beat you down.

We hit a couple of back roads to get to Chandler, where fellow EBC member Bill Voegel, provided us a bonus pit stop at the pharmacy where he works. (Poor guy had to work.) He provided frozen candy bars, cold Gatorage and some energy bars for us. We even ran into Cindy and Diane B. who doubled back to meet Bill.

At this point, Diana and I were at about 59 miles...Bill had accumulated some extra miles by riding before we met...and we were really close to our starting point. Time to punt. Bill was almost done so he headed towards his home. Diana and I headed south towards Newburgh into the headwind to pick up some extra miles. By the time, we circled back to Chandler, we had added another 22 miles.

I got back to the starting point with 10 miles to go. I had 5 miles to get me home so I had to make up another 5 on the way. The Keystone subdivision gave the just the opportunity. Two laps through there and I was home free.

My final odomoeter reading was 99.82 miles and I know that my computer has been shorting some of my trips this month so I feel confident that I was in the clear. Our average speed was embarrassingly low and I'm not going to bother to post it. The good news is we made it. Even though it took an eternity, it still counts.

I'm going to take a nice nap and retire the bike for the night...and probably tomorrow. Since last Saturday, I've accumulated over 250 miles and I have no desire to even think about the bike until the weekend.