The Saturday leg of the ride started at 7:30am from Rockett’s Landing in downtown Richmond. The route sent us out East along the James River along some quiet country roads that I was pretty familiar with. I do a good bit of riding out that way and it was nice to know where I was for the first batch of miles. We hit the first rest stop at the 11-mile mark where we were met by a dozen volunteers who were stocking the station with plenty of drinks and snacks. The weather was going to warm up later in the day so we took every opportunity to hydrate, even though we were only 11 miles in. The next leg of the ride took me off of roads I knew well and into the rolling hills of Charles City County, Virginia.

I had been riding over the Winter and into the Spring with an eye toward riding the century (100-mile) loop on the first day of the MS150. They make the 75-mile ride a 100-mile ride by adding a 25-mile loop after one of the rest stations. Basically, you take a right when everyone else goes left, ride a 24-mile loop back to the same spot, and then continue along the same course as everyone else. This year, the century loop was after mile 26 so my legs felt fresh and I talked myself into it pretty easily. 8 of us took the Century turn and we made easy work of it. A highlight for me was a nice couple of Centruy Loop miles on the in-progress Virginia Capital Trail. It was really impressive and I can’t wait for more of it to be done closer to RVA.

We re-joined the main course and kept a 17-18mph pace into the lunch stop. There were burgers and franks and PB&Js, with lots of chips and drinks and shade for everyone. And again, the volunteers that staff the rest stops provided a terrific lift with the way they cheered us into the stop, chatted us up about how glad they were to help, and then sent us off with more cheers and well wishes. Once I get over 50 miles of riding I tend to talk myself down because I’m tired and getting more uncomfortable. The volunteers make sure I know that they’re behind me and they provide a genuine lift that makes the last 1/3 of the ride feel like something I can close out.

In preparing for this century ride our plan was to approach the day one-third at a time. The first third should feel like relatively easy spinning. You don’t want to go too hard on fresh legs because you won’t have anything in the tank for the end. It’s tricky to temper your enthusiasm and adrenaline to keep a moderate pace at the beginning. The second third is tougher but tolerable and you should start to “feel your muscles” doing work. The easy spinning is over but you don’t feel like you’re killing yourself. The last third is the most difficult and things start to hurt. Riding your bike for 100 miles is an uncomfortable thing. You have to be able to set the discomfort aside and focus on turning the pedals over to get to the finish. Breaking the ride into thirds makes the mental part of a 100-mile ride a lot easier to deal with.

The final third of the ride came after lunch and it was kind of a struggle. The mid-day sun got things pretty warm but we just kept turning the pedals over, super-hydrating at the last 2 rest stops, and focusing on “the goal”. “The goal” was a vague term that took several meanings over the last 20 miles of the ride. The most popular “goals” were: the finish line beer truck, getting a massage, and a big dinner (with pie!) . I am happy to report that, in my case, I was able to achieve each of these “goals” over the course of the evening. It was hard work, but I found a way.

Sunday’s ride back to Richmond was supposed to start at 7am, with a breakfast being served from 5:45-7. I’ve been late to breakfast the last couple of years so I made sure to set a 5:30 alarm so I could get up wth plenty of time to eat and get ready. After Saturday’s 100 I knew I would need plenty of fuel. I woke to my alarm and, what sounded like, the circulating water in my room a/c unit. In reality, it was hard rain on my window that was making the noise and it ended after just a few minutes. I made it downstairs for breakfast before 6am and the skies were cloudy. The forecast had been for late afternoon storms but we would have been long-finished and home by the time they were supposed to hit. Overnight, the situation had changed. There was a large system of severe thunderstorms that had been pounding RVA and were lined up to trail right into Williamsburg all along the proposed bike route. The ride officials decided to delay the start of the ride for an hour to see how things developed. Unfortunately for us, they developed in the worst possible way and the Sunday Ride was canceled at 9am. There were reports of trees down along some roads and the amount of rain and lightning would have made a bike ride through it an exercise in stupidity. I’m not the brightest bulb, but I know enough not to ride a bike through a thunderstorm.

I got a ride back to Richmond from my lovely wife, Michelle, who left a warm bed to drive to Williamsburg to get me first thing in the morning. I was bummed that we didn’t get to ride the second day, but we certainly made up for some of those lost miles by getting the century ride in on Saturday.

Local pro, and all-around cool guy, Craig Dodson is quoted in the article too:

“They could come up with some amazing routes,” says Craig Dodson, a domestic pro who has lived in Richmond since his days racing for Team Nature’s Path. “You’ve got the cityscape with punchy elevation gains from either side of the river. Then you’ve got bucolic landscapes outside the city. Some of what you find is really mind-blowing.”

I’ve been on a couple of the roads they’re talking about. Church Hill is no joke on a bike.

(But now that I look, it seems I didn’t post about those Kaws lightbulbs. Man, I’m a slack blogger.)

[via Prolly Is Not Probably ]

I use dailymile.com to track my miles. It’s nice to be able to see what I got done last year and when I did it. 1500 miles is pretty good, but I bet I can beat it in 2011.

Richmond, Virginia is officially in the running to represent the US as the host of the 2015 World Road Cycling Championship. It’s been 25 years since the race was held in the US, so it would be a massive deal if Richmond could get the hosting gig.

You can follow progress here, http://www.richmond2015.com/ , as more details come out.

Pedal Power is a non-profit group that I sit on the board of. Our focus is on energy conservation and education about energy conservation using bicycles as a teaching tool. We have several bicycle trainers that have been converted to be able to generate DC electricity. We have a couple of batteries that store that energy, and then we send the electricity out through an inverter to power things at events. We set up half a dozen bikes on the trainers and invite people to pedal and make power. We’ve powered DJ setups at group picnics and sno cone machines at park festivals. The education angle to what we do is showing people that it’s hard work to make electricity and our hope is that the 5 minutes they spend on the bike cranking out a couple of watts to get a sno cone sticks with them and they maybe turn off a light or two they’re not using when they’re at home.

We’re a small group and still very new, but our message is a good one.

Up at the top there is a jersey that we designed to raise money for our projects. It’s a pre-order now and the jerseys should be in by mid-November. If it is something you’re interested in, please check it out at our online store.

I am sad that I can’t make it to the Moonlight Ride this year. We’re going on vacation later than normal and I’m going to be out of town. Emma and I had a terrific time last year and if you’re in Richmond and have a kid to make the ride with I can’t recommend it more highly. It’s well-run, safe and riding your bike at night is a cool thing to do.

[via Make]

What you see there on the left is a cleat that is well beyond normal, replacement required wear. There is a chip missing where the cleat clips into the pedal and the whole cleat is worn to the point where I was walking on the bolt that holds the cleat in place. I guess it had been like that for a while, because it took me half an hour with an awl and a hammer to even get the Allen wrench to seat into the bolt. I was worried I was going to have to drill it out, but I guess I got lucky. On the right, of course, is the new cleat. I will be keeping a closer eye on wear as well as spending less time walking around without the cleat covers that I have but somehow forget to bring along.

The Bike MS ride is a two-day 150 mile event traveling from Richmond, VA to the Colonial Williamsburg, VA area on Saturday and then back to Richmond on Sunday. Cyclists have a choice of riding the full two-day 150 mile ride or the one-day loop on Sunday. I’ll be making the 2-day ride with Team Capital Ale House. I’d be hard-pressed to find a more appropriate team to ride for and it works out even better because they are a terrific group of people. We, as a team, have raised the most money for 3 years in a row and have a 4-year fund raising total of over $159,000.

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society will use funds collected from the Bike MS Ride to not only support research for a cure tomorrow, but also to provide programs which address the needs of people living with MS today.

My fund raising goal for this ride is $500. Any donation that you could make on my behalf will be greatly appreciated.

Should you decide to contribute, this is the link to my donation page:

Thank you for your consideration.