BlindRobert

I had my first road bike for about 5 days before doing the Montauk Century here in NYC. It wasn't so bad, but I was definitely cooked! I missed the last turn to go to the finish area and ended up riding a bunch of extra miles on rolling terrain (exhausting!) until I finally ran out of road at the end of Long Island Sound. I couldn't figure out where everyone went. I turned around and headed back over the rollers. I learned a good lesson when I got on the train to head back to Manhattan: be sure to take your water bottle with you at the end of a century! It was a very thirsty train ride.

Paul L.

The predawn air was freezing and me and 4000 other riders stood blowing smokey breath at each other as we shuffled and shivered trying to stay warm before the start of El Tour De Tucson in 2001. I along with a co worker, her husband, and my boss's boss rode it but I lost them due to a flat tire after the first riverbed crossing. Well, after a few more flats I learned to not try and pass people on the right anymore. I also managed to catch up with my co-worker and later on her husband who was having a very hard ride and breathing problems. Of course my boss's boss was way ahead and we never caught him. I remember working so hard to finish that my lungs filled with snot and I was hacking it up something fierce until my lungs hurt in the hotel after the finish. I was so proud of finishing a hundred mile ride though. Seems kind of tame now but at the time it was a really big thing.

GypsyAngel

Like others on this thread I rode my first century this past October 7th at The Sea Gull Century in Maryland. 100 wet, cold, windy miles and I was smiling as I crossed the finish line! I did it with Team In Training for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and had a great time!!!
Can't wait until my next century!

countrydirt

Small world - I live about 60 miles from Raton in Branson. Spent alot of childhood weekends at LaMesa Park. We shop there about 4 or 5 times a year.

MKahrl

Land of Legend Century in Newark Ohio, 1973. I and a bud had new Falcons and after a 25 mile training ride we signed up. There was easily a thousand cyclists there, Nine hundred and ninety more than I had ever seen in one place before. There were bikes in colors I never knew existed, pink, pale blue-green, chartreuse; I could only imagine what bikes this rare and exotic cost.

Bike clubs were made up of a few older, sometimes eccentric men, and whole bunch of young baby boomers learning long distance riding for the first time. Chuck Harris started a club in my town, we followed him around like the Pied Piper.

That whole time is so nostalgic for me I recently bought an old Falcon just the one I had. I'll take it on a century this summer.

bmike

I sold the bike I rode through my youth to my sister in law (now ex sister in law) for her to use at college. When I divorced I bought the bike back (for what I was paid for it) so I could keep it... sadly it disappeared in my move to Vermont. It was a Raleigh Technium 450 I rode all over Northeastern Ohio. Wish I could find it again...

(note, in 1973 I was just entering the world... )

buzzman

My first century was in 1970 when my friend and I rode from Warwick, RI to Windsor Locks, CT.

About half way into the ride I hit a dog, who had run down an embankment to chase me and ran right into my front wheel, and slid a good 30' on my left side. I still have a scar, which used to be right over my hip bone and is now about 3" above my hip. (I grew!)

This thread has brought back some great memories including TOSRV and especially the Tiverton, RI NBW century, which I helped map out way back in the early 70's. It's a pretty flat century but there are a couple of climbs in there and the wind can be pretty in your face at times but it's a great ride. It's amazing that people are still doing those rides. I'm trying to remember how many people rode it the first time we did it. It couldn't have been much more than 25-30 riders.

jschen

My first century was the BikeForums Apple Pie ride in January 2006. My ride report is here. I didn't finish the ride, but I did get past the 100 mile mark before SAG-ing it. It was a blast.

zonatandem

Year: 1973
Event: TOLSC (Tour Of Lake St. Clair), the 'small lake' that connects the 'Great Lakes' of Lake Erie to Lake Huron on the Michigan/Ontario border.
Sponsoring club: Cycling Saddlemen (Dearborn, MI).
Distance: 200 miles over 2 days.
Day #1: 125 miles from downtown Detroit (over the Ambassador Bridge) into Windsor, Ontario following the lakeshore some of the way, to Sarnia, Ontario where we overnighted.
Day #2: Over the Blue Water Bridge at Sarnia (which was closed for 20 mminutes to let about 100 cyclists cross unimpeded by cars) back into the US through Port Huron, MI and back to downtown Detroit.
Rode this event with our then 14-year-old son.
Great ride that proved you can do anything you really set your mind to.
Since then have ridden 100+ centuries, many with my spouse on our tandem(s); several double metrics and half-dozen double centuries.
Our hardest event was on a tandem; the Answer to the Arizona Challenge: 325 miles in 3 days with 22,000+ feet of elevation gain with the temps 103 degrees at the finish line.
Once you are conditioned, distance is mind over matter.

Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

PhotonDon

Great reading!
Mine was in '73, the Birmingham Bike Club's first organised century. I was 15, and my dad had to sign a release for me (he rode, too). Bicycle was a bile green Schwinn SuperSport. I was growing fast, so dad had a friend weld two seatposts together to get me high enough. No alloy on THAT bike! The kickstand weighed more than some wheelsets I've had.

It was a great ride through the foothills of north Alabama, but our springs can get quite nasty, and we had killer winds on the return leg. Ain't it a beeotch to have to pedal downhill. Dads speed was so slow at mile 80 that he had to sag in, but the rest of our little group slugged it out.

At that time cycling nutrition was not as advanced as it is now, and we had GORP pretty much exclusively. Also, I dont remember many on-bike water bottles. I certainly didn't have one.

After the ride all our faces were red from sun and windburn, but we felt as though we had conquered the world. At least until the next day, when all four of us were throwing up great gobs of GORP, and were out of school for two days. Still, it was great fun, and I am sure that, like many of you, your first is the century that you compare all others to.

Oh yeah, and we wore cut off Levis and Converse tennies.

fastturtle

Mine was in 1980, or was is 1981 ?

To begin with, Internet didn't exist so I didn't even know that cyclists in a remote part of the world were measuring distances using units of 1.609 km, and to me a century was just exactly 100 years

I was 16 or 17 years old, was proudly riding my father's 5-speed wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt. I used to do afternoon rides of typically 60 to 100 km as a way to see places. As I had always had bad marks at the gym, sports was a dirty and despisable word to me.

One day during summer holidays, we were camping in the mountains, I decided to take the day and ride a bit farther. I didn't have very firm notions of diet or drinking or this kind of stuff, so I just left with my bike. It was a very hot day. I did about 160-170 km, with 2000 m climb. At some stage I bought some cookies and a half pint of lemonade.

At the end of the day, I was so exhausted that even walking my bike up the last climb was too much of a challenge, and I had to get help from a sympathetic moped rider

Then 10 years passed till I broke that personal record, with very occasional training (I now had a car to go places) but with definitely more food on the way. Then another 10 years till I finally accepted that I could (and should) consider doing some cycling as a sport, and bought a real road bike.

aliensporebomb

The first attempt was in 1991 or thereabouts with four friends on borrowed bikes in
great disrepair except for one. One of our party was just back from Ragbrai and in
fabbo shape, the rest of us hadn't ridden a whit all year (this was during my eight
year "vacation" from cycling).

I believe we made it 67 or 74 miles and I bonked so bad I had to be towed by a
guy on a recumbent via two shoelaces strung together. We had no idea of
nutrition or anything at the time. I wrote that up in an essay and posted it
on the bicycling magazine forum at one point.

Years later, 2004 - solo century - I decided to ride to all of the suburbs of
Minneapolis so I travelled south thru Bloomington, into Shakopee, Savage,
Prior Lake, Eden Prairie, Edina, Richfield, South Minneapolis, Minneapolis
proper, eastwards to Highland Park, Energy Park, St. Paul, south then
west taking a connector trail to Hopkins, out past Eden Prairie towards
Minnetonka, then back thru Hopkins to Minneapolis proper then south
thru Richfield again into Bloomington and home.

It was a warm windy day and in fact so windy that wind and traffic
noise distracted me from the fact that my front brake caliper was
rubbing against the rim for the first 97 miles and I just thought I was
having a "slow start" that day.

Later in the ride I ran out of energy bars and actually stopped at a
superette for fig newtons and later when I was desperate at another
superette a krispy kreme donut! Not recommended for future rides as
primary fuel though.

I remember my cell phone ringing when I was close to 80 miles out
and a friend told me that I needed to be committed when I told him
what I was doing.

I'm going to do another one this year for sure, it just seems like
I'm actually more fit than I was then and more inclined to enjoy
it without mechanical issues!

Recommendations: have an early start, bring plenty of food and
energy bars, drink enough water, make sure your bike is in good
repair and that you've got spare tubes along if you need them
and enjoy yourself!

scott L R

6 years ago. Riding to, particapating and riding home from a poker ride gave me 55 miles, much of it on the 5 star trail. Then driving to Ohiopyle state park doing an out and back ride to force myself into it. I dozed off while taking a break, I had no idea about eating during a ride, up till this point my biggest ride was 30 miles. In the last 5 miles I caught myself snoozing on the bike, but I completed my ride.

fholt

I started riding at the beginning of 2005, to train for and complete RAGBRAI. Before the start of ragbrai2005 I had done 1500 miles, including 1 metric, right at 62 miles as my longest ride (and that was July4). The first 2 days of RAGBRAI were each longer than I'd ever done(65, then 85 miles), so I didn't plan to take the century option on Tuesday, which added 38 miles to make it a 102 mile day. However, there was a strong north wind, and overcast skies which made the first 30 miles or so tricky in the crosswind, and then a long stretch south, where it wasn't difficult to maintain 25-27mph without much effort at all. The century option started with another 12 miles straight south with that tailwind - so I got cocky about how fun it was, and it sure was..... until it was time to head back north for the last 12 miles. I'm not sure how long that last 12 miles took, but they seemed like forever, you could see that finish town the whole way, but it didn't seem to be getting much closer.

Anyway, as of now, that's still my only century, and 2006 was a down year for me, many metrics, but not much longer, and only about 2500 miles total. I'm training up for the rag again this year, and am seriously considering doing some of the NCBC brevet series. We'll see if it looks like I'm up for either of their early season 200K's, and take it from there. I've also been fascinated by the RAIN ride, but probably that one isn't going to happen this year, not being just a week before RAGBRAI.

I'm interested in this long distance thing, but it's too soon to know if I'm any good at it. I'm also wondering if at some point it's better to switch away from the road bike (Allez Elite - and a pretty sharp ride) to my new light tourer/commuter (Novara Randonee) for more long distance comfort, even if it's a bit on the heavy side. Perhaps with a lighter wheel/tire combo, the randonee might be a pretty smooth longer distance bike, I guess time will tell......

Walleye

Hey Texans- is there still a TOSRV Texas? I remember doing them in '81 and '82, a fresh-faced high school distance freak. 100 miles one day, back the next. I'll google this later, but wasn't it Terrell to Tyler and back? My steel-frame Peugeot Course (or Record). I think that the second year I did it I didn't have a front derailleur- I'd change from the large chainring to the small by moving the chain with my inside right heel. Oh, to be that adaptable again.
that's my first century, and I'm sticking to it. (Did everybody sleep in a gym overnight? Can anyone help me out? I've got a bad case of CRS.)

twocoasttb

My first was the Solvang Century in 2004 with Team in Training (the endurance-event training organization that raises money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society). I got my first bike a few weeks before the training started and rode the entire season in the red zone with the fast group (ouch). The century was fantastic. I've continued to ride with Team in Training as an honoree (I had Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 2001) and it's been a special experience. That same year I finished the California Death Ride, the High Sierra Century, and rode up Haleakala in Maui. I'm hooked. This year I'm doing my first double (Solvang Double- spring).

ken cummings

My first century was a fund raiser for bike racing from Denver to Boulder, Colorado and back. I was semi crippled for over a week afterwards as I had done the 70 mile Mt. Evan hill climb the day before climbing some 9,000 feet to over 14,100 feet elevation the day before.

SingleSpeeDemon

• 1987
• Age 14
• Nishiki Modulus
• Brownsville Hill (2 milec climb)
• 56 MPH descent
• 5 hours, 14 minutes

Marylandnewbie

My first century was just yesterday, so it's not a complete blur. Pretty minor league in terms of terrain or bad weather, but I rode 104 miles in one shot. Somewhere between miles 75 and 80 I was feeling it, but then got my self refocused and finished on an up note. I was able to use a lot of the tips and ideas I've found on this forum to make the ride better. Still have a lot to learn, but I'm over that psychological hurdle.

banerjek

Mine was accidental. When I was 15 in '82, I signed up for a "Ride-a-thon" that went around a lake to raise money for MS. I went door to door to get people to pledge money for every mile I would ride. I'd never ridden further than 15 miles, though I did that distance frequently. I told people I expected to ride 30 miles.

Conditions were perfect. Warm, no wind, no slope to speak of. 30 miles was gone in no time. Just over 7 hrs later, I passed the 100 mile mark. At 130, I still felt good but I was advised to leave the course to prevent people who pledged me from getting grouchy. I offered everyone a chance to reconsider their pledge amount, but everyone opted to pay about quadruple what they had originally planned.

My butt hurt the next day, but I was otherwise OK. Shortly after that, I rode my second century unsupported. That was much more of an adventure.

hyunelan2

My first century was last August. My brother and I started riding about May of last year. It was our goal to be able to ride a century by the time the Bike Psychos Century came around. Being in Illinois, terrain was very flat, until we got out west to the Starved Rock area, then it was hilly. That is not something either of us were used to, training in the flat lands southwest of Chicago.

It was a very nice and organized event, with rest stops setup and food provided along the way. We skipped the first stop, but took breaks (and checked my blood-sugar... I'm a type 1 diabetic) at the 30, 50, 80, and 95 mile checkpoints. We finished the 108-mile ride in about 9:05. I think the first 50 only took us about 3 hours. We found a pack of riders going at a moderate pace that we were able to keep up with, and that made things a heck of a lot easier.

Coming back though, most of them went on to the 125-mile course turn-around, whereas we started back. With only 2 of us, drafting was not much available. We were not quick enough to catch other packs of riders, and were too worn out to keep up with those who passed us.

It was both of our first organized ride, and we'll definitely be doing it again. Already planning on riding the Illinois MS150 in June, and the Psycho Century again in August. Other than that, most weekend mornings will be spend riding the 'roads to nowhere' out into the corn and soybean fields Southwest of Chicago. I hope to break 7 hours for a century this year, but think 8 is probably a more realistic goal.

Hambone

great story.

Dchiefransom

Mine was the 2003 Tour De Cure for diabetes in Napa, California. I'd done several metric centuries and decided this relatively flat supported ride would be good. We started at 7:00 and I was eating the post ride meal at 2:30. I was going for speed then, and again the next year when I did it, but I will be going for a comfortable, steady pace in the future as I work back up to riding like this. When I finished, my legs weren't much worse than a climbing metric, but my neck was very sore and almost cramped, and my wrists hurt for a couple of days. That was on my Lemond Zurich. I have a new bike on order that will take care of that, a Rans Stratus.

KiLO

Some great stories in here!

First century was the 2005 MS 150 Bay to Bay bike ride down here in SoCal... It's a 100 mile first day, and then a 50 mile second day... It sucked! The weather was bad, and there was a head wind the entire way. It was pretty terrible, but I finished. I think I finished close to last. I didn't train as much as I should have, and I didn't eat as well as I should have.

The 2006 MS Ride was MUCH better. The weather was great, and I would actually go so far as to say that I very much enjoyed it. Now I'm hooked! I will ride the MS Ride every year for as long as I'm able to ride.

TMT

I was 10 years old and had just gotten my new shwinn world ten speed (black and silver). two friends and I went for a bike ride to mikwalkee from Zion Ill. by the long route. this was December first, no snow just ice and cold. we went for the day. on the way back we had lunch at Anchor in an all you can eat buffet and picked up some doritos for a snack. my stomach hurt slightly and i figured it was sore muscles but that night the cramps hit and i went to the hospitable it was appendix. i spent my birthday and Christmas in the hospital but the ride was worth it.