We had a great time this year even with the little bit of rain and the strong headwind on the way back from Assateague. This was my eight year-old daughter's first century on the tandem and she did absolutely amazing stoking strong the whole way, especially for the last 20 or so miles into the wind when I was starting to fade just a bit. We averaged just a little over 16mph rolling for the 101.5 miles on our computer.
We also noticed all the folks changing flats along the way. Not sure what was up with that as we didn't notice any excessive debris either. We had one close call at about mile 30. I usually don't ride in big groups of folks I don't know but we had just turned into the wind a little bit and a moderately paced group passed so I decided to pull in behind them. About a mile later a guy and a girl crossed tires 4 or 5 riders ahead of us and down they went. About three more bikes piled into them but I was able to brake/swerve to miss them. Nice thing about a tandem is you can really stand on the front brake to get slowed down in a hurry. We stopped to see if there was anything we could do to help but there didn't seem to be any serious injuries. I'm sure a couple folks headed to the hospital to get checked out though.
We had many, many folks (I bet well over 100) comment to my daughter on the on how cool they thought it was she was doing the century. It really made her feel great and if anyone reading this was one of those people thanks from the bottom of my heart. It turned what was going to be a great experience anyway into something she will remember for the rest of her life.
Here's a pic of us at the finish:
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