Arky100 2013
My first Arky100! Completing this route in less than 5 hours was one of my training goals for the year. After my disappointing time in the BDB100 I was very excited to finish this in 04:52:04.
Had a great ride with my partner in bike-grime again, Dr Josh. For the first hour we sat at the back of a rather large group. There were some funny moments. I pulled up next to a guy riding a Trek 2.0 like mine. Same color too. “Cool bike,” I said. He kind of nodded without looking at me or my steed. Oh well. So much for camaraderie in the peloton.
We broke off from this group after the first rest stop and rode as a duo for the rest of the day. Another moment. We came up on three riders. I watched the last guy in this group drop his drained Gu packet in the middle of the rode. Come on! This isn’t the Tour De France, dude. Drop your trash in your jersey pocket. I almost said something but we just blew past him. Young dude too. One day he’ll learn.
This ride got really tough around mile 70. The road was rough with lots of rollers. One thing I learned at this stage – no more Power bars for snacks. They didn’t have any gels at Walgreens so I bought Peanut Butter Performance bars. Damn. Those things are dense. It’s takes a lot of effort to chew these when you are tired and snotty. I remember D-Ball saying that gels are better for you because they take less energy to eat. Totally get that now. When you are at the end of a long ride and need some sustenance the last thing you want to do is gnaw for an hour. Gels from now on.
Speaking of food, Josh brought a Ziploc of candy corn with us for the ride. Of course they never got touched. Silly Josh. We were laughing about the untouched candy corns on the ride home. What was he thinking.
So, Chris Michaels told me he thought the Arky100 was harder than the BDB100. I think I agree. Josh and I had a great ride but those last 20 miles were pretty brutal. I was spent when I pulled into the Sheridan Community Center, TriCounty Shakedown tired. Good stuff too. Awesome way to close the cycling season. Now I am looking forward to winter riding and 2014 base training.