banerjek

In the PNW, summer has been a total bust but today the forecast was decent so I went out for a solo century. Temp was 50°F when I left which was sweet for getting my blood pumping.

I decided to ride to the the top of Mary's Peak and back. From my house, that's 95 miles if you take the shortest route (I always extend it) with about 6K feet of elevation gain. It's not that much, but it's a good ride for pacing.

The road up Mary's Peak is downright gnarly right now. I've been riding it for over 10 years and today was the first time I saw more coyotes than humans. But that might be because road conditions where suboptimal.



I would say it was the best ride I've ever had on that hill except at 3900 feet, a swarm of deer flies descended on me. I don't know how many kids I fed to lions in my past left, but I paid for it today. Those ****ers really make life miserable.

After 10 min or so, I got away from the flies and eventually made it to the top. The view was great. My house is 4500 feet below and 50 miles in the background.



The way home was uneventful. Due to debris and dirt on the road, I had to go easy on the speed, and once I got to the bottom I had to deal with headwinds all the way home. No biggie. It's all good.

JustinHorne

Awesome, sounds like fun. I live in N. Idaho, and yeah, summer has been pretty lame, hasn't it? I guess I haven't really consciously realized it, but I've only been riding a LOT in the past month or so. Super lame, it's practically August, it'll be over before we know it.

Vaportrail56

95 miles? What kind of bike you got? Also how long did it take you to get to where you could ride that far? I started back in febuary and was only able to go 12 miles, now I can go 30 miles at a faster average speed. Just curious thats all.

banerjek

If you can ride 30, you can probably make it 100 -- all you need to do is go slower and make sure you have enough to eat/drink. I have 5 bikes, all which are very different and all of which have been ridden further than this many times.

I've never established distance goals so I never thought about working my way up. But I can say these distances are much easier than most people imagine.

DropDeadFred

im jealous....I have nothing that awesome around here

Velo Vol 

Not always.

banerjek

Correct. Getting eaten alive by deer flies while slowly grinding up an incline is not fun. Also I had fairly decent headwinds all the way back. Headwinds blow. I'd rather get drenched, which is good seeing this has been a record wet year for us so far.

Vaportrail56

Another quick question. I am now going between 22- 30 miles with just one water bottle. What do you think I should I take with me to eat or drink if I went for a 50 mile ride .

banerjek

Conditions make a huge difference in how much water/food you need.

Generally speaking, you need 1-2 quarts of water per hour depending on temps and you should consume roughly 250 cal/hr.

banerjek

I forgot to mention that the coast is also within cycling distance of my house...

Machka 

Did you only ride 95 miles .... or did you go around the block and get the full 100?

There's no way I could get to 95 and just stop. I've done numerous rides with several loops around the block at the end of the ride to get my full century in.

johnnyletrois

I rode around Mercer Island this afternoon. Beautiful day in Seattle!

KiddSisko

Love those scenic mountaintop views.

banerjek

There are many routes that I take for this ride that range from 95 to 121 miles -- this particular route was a bit over 97 miles. But the distance is dictated by what I feel like at the time. I can't even count how many times I've ridden over 90 miles without putting in 100.

I could have easily pushed it over 100 by taking the route through some hop fields near the end. However doing so would require me to miss a series of S curves on a hill that I'd been looking forward to and I didn't want to detract from the good miles by adding something I didn't care about. I also contemplated taking the route through a wildlife refuge, but I was there last week and thought I'd save that for another time.