The perfect day for a morning 100k…

One of my friends from our Tuesday night club ride puts on a couple of rides every year, invite only based on speed (the ability to maintain a 20 mph pace over any distance in a very small group).  The trick is actually finding people who fit the bill.  All of the racers are too fast and don’t want to be bothered with a 20 mph ride and most everyone else is too slow.  Even so, there are at least six or eight guys who can hang.  Unfortunately most of them were busy today so it was just me, Chuck and Mike.  We made the best of it with the three of us though.

The weather was just shy of perfect.  65 and partly sunny, a little breezy for my liking, but it was good enough.  We started at 8 am in Fenton and headed out toward Howell.  As an omen, we hit our first decent climb within a mile – and unlike our Tuesday night club ride, there were real hills on this ride.

We wound our way through Howell and when we got into Brighton we found ourselves in the midst of a downtown block party so we stopped for a muffin and coffee – and apparently every other cyclist in a 40 mile radius knew that the coffee shop that we stopped at was the place to be, the place had more high-priced carbon parked out front than Assenmacher’s Bicycle Shop.  It was awesome.  On finishing up we saddled up and hit the road.  The rollers were relentless and to make matters difficult, much of the roads left a lot to be desired (that route on smooth roads would have been utterly badass).

About 45 miles in I asked Chuck if we’d be doing Denton Hill – the one legitimate climb in our county and I’d never done it.  Chuck, as cool as he is, altered the route so we could do it both ways.  So at the 60 mile mark, Mike left us to get to his granddaughter’s soccer game (if you ask me, he’s not a big fan of the climbs anyway – he did have a good excuse though).  Chuck and I headed for the mythical Denton Hill – the one climb in a 100 mile radius that’s got a reputation.  The easy way is a 7% grade for a mile, then we hit a high-priced neighborhood with a 10%’er over two tenths of a mile before turning around and doing Denton Hill the hard way – it starts out at an easy 6% before cranking up to about 12% near the top.  In a part of the state where there really isn’t much climbing to be done, that sated my hunger (though you can bet I’ll be making that a normal Saturday morning route).

A side note:  My Venge, while it is a racer not a climber, handles the hills exceptionally well.  I didn’t hit the lowest gear until that last 12% section and I was able to spin that out in the saddle.  I’m very pleased with it.

The three of us held a 19.5 mph average for 56 miles – the climbing over the last ten miles (coupled with the fact that Chuck and I just took it easy getting to the hills) knocked that down to a finishing average of 18.7.

Lastly, I love being a climbing nut.  Really, what kind of dope goes on a 60 mile ride, then goes another few miles out of his way on purpose just to climb a few hills?  I’m that guy, and proud of it.  Today’s ride was perfect.  Oh, and humorously enough, we didn’t see a drop of rain.  Ten miles north of where we finished, it was pouring.