I woke up Saturday at 4:45 am. I rode my bike the two miles from my folk's house to the start point (Holiday Inn Express) in Fremont. I was greeted by Larry, the brevet administator. The KeRNeL came down from Sioux Falls, along with his friend, Russ. I looked at the bikes that everyone (a total of nine cyclists) brought & was surprised that most were riding state of the art racing bikes with minimum spoke count wheels. It was a hint of what was to come.
At 6 am, the ride began. Everyone else took off like a shot. We had a tailwind, so my group (the KeRNeL, Russ & I) were moving at what I thought was a pretty good rate (we completed the first century in about six hours), & yet the other group steadily pulled away. We arrived at Meadow Grove (turnaround point) tired, but still feeling OK. Once we turned around, the suffering began. We were riding mostly into the wind with the temperature steadily rising. By the time we got back to West Point, we were shot(mile 154 for me). When we rode into the Casey's (check point), we found Larry & his friend, Steve, waiting for us. They escorted us the last 35 miles back to Fremont, with their powerful lights blazing a path through a construction zone. We pulled into the hotel at 11 pm, 17 hours after we started.
The numbers from the Cateye:
miles 193.21
time on bike 15:18:51
avg. speed 12.62 mph
A special thanks to the KeRNeL & Russ for helping me to finish, and to Larry & Steve for guiding us home.
1 comment:
nice summary. I'm glad we did it!
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