ZenLinux Blog

Having completed my first century last September, I made it my goal for 2008 to ride two centuries this year. I was hoping to do one in June, but that never worked out. Fortunately, during the last Saturday in July the weather in NH was expected to be clear of thunderstorms and with reasonably low humidity, so I jumped at the opportunity to get my first century of 2008 in.

The thought of doing a solo century was pretty daunting to me, so I managed to set up the route in such a way that a middle leg of the ride could be done as a metric century (100km/62mi). Chris decided to join me, and thus here is a tale of two centuries: my imperial and Chris’ (first ever) metric.

I began the ride at 6 AM and completed about 25 miles in the early morning.

At one point I saw group of something crossing the road. It turned out to be a family of wild turkeys.

As I returned to the starting point, Chris was right on time and we promptly embarked on a journey out to the Nubble Lighthouse on the Maine seacoast.

The ride out the Maine seacoast was peaceful while we remained on back roads. Finally, we arrived at our destination: Nubble Light in York, ME.

When we returned to our starting point, Chris celebrated his new milestone, but I still had another 10 miles to go to round out my imperial century. Those 10 miles were pretty agonizing, but I completed them (with more stops that I’d care to admit). I ended up completing the ride in 7h11m on the bike. It was more than a half-hour slower than my first century (6:35), but as far as I’m concerned, just completing a century is a feat in itself, whether it takes 5 hours or 10.

For my second century, I will be riding in the Tri-State Seacoast Century again. I’m really looking forward to it.