Originally Posted by billyymc

I'll give you an example of a bad ride I did recently. Four of us started at 6:30 am this past July 5. The plan was to ride 101 miles, with 10,500 feet of climbing.

At the start of the ride the temperature was about 74 degrees, and humidity was 90 to 95%. The air felt hot and oppressive with that humidity and as soon as we started up we were drenched with sweat.

We had 33 miles before our first ability to fill up liquids, and that 33 miles had about 4200 feet of climbing. Some of it as steep as 16-17% gradient, some of it sustained grades of 8 or 9% for a couple miles. The first guy dropped at our first stop with bad lower back pain. He had about 5 miles back to the start.

Three of us continued the next leg of the ride as the temperatures climbed through the 80's. By mile 50 it was about 90 degrees and while the first leg of the ride had a lot of shade the second had very little. Rider 2 dropped at mile 50, with about 10 miles to ride back to the start. I gave him some of my water because he was running low and I knew I'd be able to resupply soon. He got lost on his way back, and also got a flat a mile from the start.

As me and the other remaining rider continued the heat clicked even a bit higher to low 90's, with a fair amount of humidity pushing the heat index to about 98. At the top of a long very sun exposed climb I felt like my body was just roasting. I noticed I wasn't really sweating. Not good. I tried hard to drink more, and after two more climbs we descended into a small town where we could resupply. I was ready to call it quits...the heat was just murder. I slowly poured a liter of ice cold water over my head, neck, back, and quads. Drank some cold water and had some food. Decided to try the next hill - a 1.2 mile avg 8% with a couple spots of 12-13%. Made it up fine but at the top my body was once again roasting. Rode two more climbs before throwing in the towel at mile 73. Had about 9 miles back to the start. I finished with 82 miles and about 9,000 feet of climbing.

The last rider standing continued the planned route. Three more decent sized climbs - one just pointed right at the sun the entire way. He made it through the three climbs and stopped near my house where I resupplied him with water and Gatorade. He had about 12 miles to go, with minimal climbing involved, but decided to reroute a bit so he'd be near more people if he collapsed in the last hour of his ride. The heat index was over 100 by now.

Worst ride I've ever experienced. The route was awful - not only was it difficult but there was nothing redeeming about it. No great views, no interesting sights, no good food stops, no place to take a quick dip in a cool creek...nothing. The heat was miserable and we should have postponed the ride. On a day with temps in the 70's I think we would have had at least 3 finishers...but the route was awful anyway.

That, was a bad ride. Nothing was fun about it.