The Sweepstakes for the right to go to DALMAC: and the Trek 5200 WINS… by a butt
I had the opportunity to ride both bikes yesterday while trying to dial my wife in to her single bike so she could ride comfortably on it. With as many miles as we’ve put on the tandem, we were both more than a little nervous about how she’d do on her good bike. The test ride was long. And ssssslllloooooooooooowww-uh, but we got a lot accomplished. My fingers are crossed for her.
On my end, I’ve got a saddle sore. A massive, hurty one, so I wanted to see if either bike, the Venge or Trek, favored the sore better. My money was on the Specialized Venge with its super-narrow 128 mm saddle, so I took it first. It was not a comfortable ride. The saddle hit right on the sore and, though the bike was impeccably smooth and quiet (especially so on brand new tires), it hurt.
Next up was the Trek… and it was as if the heavens opened and the clouds parted, and God said, “Let there be peace and a happy tuchus on earth”. And it was so.
The Trek is going on DALMAC for its day in the sun, even though the forecast says “Venge” all the way.
My 1999 Trek 5200 wins by a butt!
A Makeover… For Your Old Road Bike? Yes, Please! Part Five – What To Change; Paint and Headset
This is the fun post about getting that old school bike made over… the paint. Now, first things first, you be you. My opinion doesn’t mean a hill of $#!+ next to what you want. That said, don’t be gaudy… and I’m talking 1999 Trek 5200 gaudy. Now, mine was purchased used and the previous owner had un-gaudied it by removing the most egregious decals:
This one wasn’t so lucky:
The postal service bikes, while cool in their old school-ness, were the next best thing to bedazzled with decals and I’d never recommend going for that when there are far better options… unless you actually have a true postal bike in good condition (Klem, I’m looking at you, brother… yours is super cool):
See? Now this is vastly preferable to the bike equivalent of bedazzlement, right? Technically, that’s not a question. That’s more a statement of fact. Of course it is.
The original headset on the bike was absolutely toasted beyond help, so having the frame painted made perfect timing of replacing the headset with a brand-spankin’-new Chris King Holy Grail of Headsets. And so it was.
I loved the old candy apple red over gold flake paint job, but I’m a massive fan of red on black. And that matched my Specialized Venge… so I only needed to worry about red and black clothing! Bonus!
That’s a potent one-two punch.
Choosing your painter can be tricky. I lucked out because our local owner was a frame builder from way back who apprenticed in England and had a paint booth in his old shop. When I was ready to have the Trek painted, where it was getting painted was a no-brainer.
Now, one massively important thing to note before you even bother is this; unless you pick a factory acceptable painter, you’re likely to void the lifetime warranty on your carbon frame and fork. I did. See, you can’t chemically strip a carbon bike so you’ve got to sand the paint down. If you’re not careful, you get into the structural carbon fiber layup with the sanding and you can ruin the frame. For that reason, manufacturers will only trust certain trained professionals. I had absolute trust in the owner of our shop and that was good enough for me.
After that, talk to someone at a local shop and they’ll likely be able to point you in the direction of a good bike frame painter. Expect to pay anywhere from $400 to $800 for a frame and fork with the upper reaches hitting well over $1,200 for a show-stopping finish. I can tell you, a friend has a $1,200 paint job on one of his classics and he got his money’s worth. He shipped the frame and fork to California to have it done and it’s amazing.
My Trek still looks gorgeous after having it painted – vastly better than before it was done. The decals are custom and I’ve got my name on the top tube under the clearcoat. As paint goes, if you’ve got the money and the stomach to either void the warranty or pay a little more for a factory approved professional, a new paint job can make a tired, old bike look amazing again.
A Fine Weekend on the Tandem, Capped with a Super-Nice 50 South to Milford…
This very well could have been one of the better weekends of our marriage. The work we’ve been doing to be a better couple is really paying off but the work hasn’t stopped. We’re starting to concentrate our effort. On our Co-Motion tandem, we’re gelling as we get comfortable with our roles. While our mileage over the weekend wasn’t all that impressive (at 35, 22, & 50 for the Friday, Saturday, Sunday), ride quality was through the roof.
I prepped the bike and got dressed to roll out from 5:30 to 6:50. We were driving to the start at 6:55 with a near perfect weather report. Sunny, mild breeze, and temps that called for thin arm-warmers, but only bibs and a jersey otherwise. My wife and I went though our pre-ride routine, talking and laughing about the kids, family affairs, and a lot about how fortunate we are to be us… and just like that, were ready to go.
The trip to Milford isn’t perfect. The traffic is on the heavy side and it’s no place for a nervous person. On the other side of that, the ride is absolutely freaking beautiful – especially when we get into Kensington Metropark – and this was to be our first attempt at it on the tandem. There’s some up to this ride. There’s also some down. One hill in particular had me especially nervous. An 8% straight drop on smooth asphalt. I can hit 45-mph on the Venge, but I was nervous about how the tandem would handle speed like that.
It was a long and beautiful trip to get there and I didn’t waste any miles worrying… I’d explained the cure for speed wobbles to my wife the night before and even went as far as practicing clamping my knees to the top tube a few times when we were coasting down hills to keep from overtaking the lead riders in the pace-line. Then we hit the longest coast in the history of Southern Michigan coasting. It seemed to go on for minutes. So long, my wife and I were actually laughing about it over the wind howling in our ears.
After that long coast, we hit another sharp downhill that had us, surprisingly, hit 40-mph on the way down… and the Co-Motion was rock solid. Better than my Specialized Venge on the downhill. As we peaked over 40, I knew we could handle anything the next hill had to offer without worry.
Soon after, we were at the place where the road fell off the horizon and we could take stock of just how high we were… and how far we were about to drop. Chuck shot off the front, and Jess laughed saying something like, “we’ll be passing you in a minute”. You can’t fight gravity. I upshifted to the last gear and we hit it. Hard. We passed 45-mph with a quarter of the hill left and I stopped looking. We’d reached escape velocity and all we could do was coast and hold on. The tandem was, again, rock solid. The best descending bike I’ve ever ridden. Strava would later say our top speed was 47.7-mph, faster than I’d ever been on that hill.
We coasted for the better part of a mile waiting for the others to catch up, chatting the whole time.
Sadly, what goes down, must go up; and there was a lot of that to come in Kensington park. We took the hills at our pace and didn’t worry about how far off we fell. We knew we could catch up on the flats and downhill sections. My wife and I worked together like we’d been doing this for decades, and it was awesome.
After Kensington, we went through Milford and stopped at a coffee spot that’s a favorite of Chuck’s. I got a donut and a Mango Tango to split with Jess. It was delicious.
And with that, it was all tailwind all the way home. The ride was spectacular and quite fast. We picked our average up from 17.5 to 18.6 as we took it to the barn. It ended up being the perfect Sunday morning ride.
And the day only got better…
Thanks, God.
Boo Boo Be-Doo, Boo Boo Be-Doo… and All Of A Sudden A Real Ride Breaks Out! On the TANDEM?!
That’s right, folks. If you were to look at Strava’s analysis of our ride yesterday, you’d see a tale of two bike rides. The first twelve and the second ten miles. I’d advertised the ride as “slow and short” because my wife and I had to get our daughter to her swim meet by 10am.
We rolled out at 7:30, the earliest “safe” light to Mike leading us out at between 14-16-mph. Diane took the next turn and, surprisingly, took the pace to 19-mph. Then Brad inched that up to 20 until we passed his house. Till that point, both Diane and Brad aren’t known for driving the pace, the speed was surprising. Next in line was Dale, and he is known for driving the pace. He was up to 22 in no time and I had to call up to reign him in. I know if I’m struggling, there are others on the ride who are miserable. On the tandem, it’s a little tricky to tell but that axiom held true yesterday. The pace was brought back to “slightly offensive” and we rolled on.
Jess and I had a 22-mile route planned and figured everyone else would go longer – and I have to be honest, I hoped that would be the case. She and I haven’t had a nicely paced “us” ride where we can talk and laugh and catch up… like a date on a bike, if you will (more on that in a future post; thanks, Jesse). Alas, when we turned, the whole group turned. We were in the lead on the lone tandem and we had a nice little decline for about a half-mile. Gravity being gravity, we had the pace up to 25 as things flattened out and only brought it back to 21-1/2. I mentioned to my Rear Admiral that we should dial it back because it’s kinda not cool to pull the pace back to 19, only to drive it to 22 when we take the lead.
And so we did, and cruised on.
Until Mike came around singing, “Boo boo be-doo, boo boo be-doo”, his way of saying this is too easy. We’d been up front for a couple of miles and McMike went with him to chase him down for the Gaines City Limits Sign. We laughed and let the old farts play.
Once on Ray road, about nine miles from home, Mike came around again with his “boo boo be-do” at 21-mph. We’d just led up a hill and Jess said, “Oh, that won’t do… gimme a second to catch my breath and we’re going to get him.” She caught her breath and we put the hammer down. We passed him at 24 and held that speed. Now, we figured we’d play for a mile, then drop the pace back again, but Dale & McMike and Brad came by to keep the pace up. Jess and I held Brad’s wheel but I soon chose to go around him. Brad is a freak of nature. He’s almost 75 and has an iron will… but he’s terrible to draft off of because he hangs back a little bit and he’s a little squirrely with his tempo. He’s impossible to follow on a tandem at that speed unless you’re a lot stronger than my wife and I.
We kept the pace pegged all the way home – 23 to 26-mph the all the way to our street. Phill managed to stay on our wheel but we dropped everyone else. Our average in Gaines was in the high 16-mph range. It was 19.6 when we stopped (we were Strava’d to 19.5)…
And so it was, the tale of two rides. My wife and I were all smiles, hugs and kisses after that one. The ride was phenomenal and we had a wonderful conversation about how well we’re working together on our tandem. No place I’d rather be on a Sunday morning (or any other day for that matter!).
Group Riding on a Tandem; It’s No Place for a Nervous Person (But My GOD, Is It FUN!): Part One – It Takes A Little Help From Our Friends
As my wife and I have broken into faster group rides on our tandem, captaining that beast has become easier and more difficult at the same time. In a fast group, everything happens so quickly you have to be on guard at all times – and that’s on a single bike! On a tandem, where your acceleration potential is halved, the nuances come at you double-time. I have to be prepared at all times. And I love it.
Now, before I even get into this series in which I’ll cover some of the difficulties in riding with an “A” or an “A-Elite” group on a tandem, what matters most is riding with a group that isn’t set on breaking the land speed record for cycling every week. If the group is going to hammer the hills every week, there are tactics to counter this and the right pair on a tandem can devastate single riders (double the power with the same wind resistance, or a little less with a crosswind, plus a gravity assist), without some consideration on the “up” parts of the ride, there’s little an above-average tandem couple can do to hang. If the group is willing to temper their urge to hammer the hills, a tandem is an absolute blast.
Take a simple surge on a single bike in a pace-line; three pedal strokes will usually suffice to keep up. It’ll take six on a tandem, and I can tell you, those six require full gas. I’ve increased my potential “full gas” by at least 25% just by riding with my wife on the tandem in our A-Elite Group. They unquestionably take care of us once we hit the hills, though. One guy (who is a massive two-wheel talent) gives us a little boost up a hill or three by pushing my wife’s back if we look like we’re struggling to stay connected to the group. Another, no matter where he is in the pack as we approach the hills, will power to the front of the group to take the hills at a pace we can manage. Yet another, intent on helping us get another personal best on the Tuesday night route, went the short route with us on a perfect night, when everyone else went long, just to give us a draft and a wheel to hold. We did our best to take our turns up front, but he gave us a massive three-mile pull at 23+ mph to the City Limits sign to make it happen. It was everything we had to hold his wheel but my wife secured the QOM for the loop by 16-seconds and we did turn in a new all-time fastest average for the 28-mile loop at 22.5-mph.
Without those considerations from our friends, we’d likely have been dropped in the hills. That would have been fine, of course; I ride a tandem with my wife for loftier reasons – but we both love riding with the A-Group (I always have – my wife’s love of “fast” was a wonderful “cherry on top” surprise) and having friends that help us stay with the group as we’re cutting our teeth on those rides has been simply amazing.
Ready for DALMAC – A Last Minute Check of the Trek
I checked the Trek out for DALMAC last night. It was 99% humidity and spitting on me the whole 16-mile ride. One small barrel adjustment for the front derailleur, call it a eighth of a turn, and it’s 100% ready.
Trouble is, I’m tempted to take its 16-pound stepbrother, now. The weather report for next weekend is looking quite phenomenal after rain Monday and Tuesday. I could go either way, technically. Neither bike has ever ridden as well as they are right now. I think the Trek’s setup is mildly more suited to a 372-mile tour, but there’s always the free speed of the Venge (easily a half-mile an hour for free… well, not free – it cost an arm and a leg, but you get the idea!).
Let’s just say it’s a good problem to have.
The ride was fantastic. Smooth, quick 100% crisp shifts all the way up and down the cassette… no lagging, just “click”, “shift”, roll. I love giving the Trek its day in the sun for DALMAC, too. I give the bike a little bit of a soul that way. I suppose most avid enthusiast cyclists who have as much as I do wrapped up into that bike give theirs a bit of a “personality”.
An interesting side note; I changed the tires, cassette and chain at the end of last season before I put the bike to the bike room for the winter… it still shows as a “new” chain on my chain checker and the rear tire barely has a flat spot worn up the center. Normally I’m installing a new chain and tires for DALMAC right about now (on both bikes). The tires on the Venge are showing some age but they’ve got two seasons on them… and that chain is still brand new as well. There is a most excellent reason for this.
I’ve got so many miles on the tandem with my wife this year, all of my other equipment is brand, spankin’ new. On the tandem with my wife is the best place there is on two wheels. I can’t wait till the new one comes in! Should be January or February – just in time for the 2023 season.
A Makeover… For Your Old Road Bike? Yes, Please! Part Four – What To Change; The Drivetrain
This post could end up being a massively difficult task, because there are so many moving parts to a bike’s drivetrain. Ten and eleven speed road groupsets were easy for older bike frames (steel and carbon fiber – aluminum not so much). I’ll stick to what I know, which is admittedly little.
The Ultegra shifters on my 9-speed triple went first. I tried to find replacement shifters to no avail, but I did find a small company new in the drivetrain component market called MicroShift. They made Shimano 9-speed compatible integrated (road) shifters… in a triple, that were priced well and worked as good or better than the original shifters had for a couple of years. Good enough I’d have been fine to keep the bike as it was… until a friend sold me a gently used Ultegra 10-speed groupset that I could use on my Venge. That freed up the 105 10-speed groupset for my Trek.
My ’99 Trek 5200 Triple fitted out with MicroShift’s finest.
The Shimano 105 upgrade – 1999 Ultegra to 2013 105 is a massive leap in technology and a decent drop in weight – was going to be a game changer, but I had to change a lot to make it happen. Here’s how the bike sits today:
So, the crankset is a low-end Shimano. It’s much the same tech as a 105 or Ultegra crankset, just a little heavier. I needed a new English threaded bottom bracket (BBR-60 if memory serves, but I’ll find out for sure and update the post as soon as the shop opens). The crank fits perfectly with no shims to that bottom bracket. That bottom bracket change did lead to the need for a shim change to the cassette at the rear wheel, though. The 11-speed wheel requires a shim to get to 9 or 10 speed… but I needed another to force the cassette out a little further so the chain line worked with the new crankset and bottom bracket, to get the front shifting matched up with the cassette.
There was another massive issue that required a little fabrication trickery. The front derailleur clip for the frame wouldn’t allow the front derailleur cage to drop far enough to work well with the 50/34 chainrings (52-36 worked but had a cadence hole with an 11-28 cassette that I absolutely hated between 18 & 22-mph). Finding a new clip that’ll work with a compact crank and fits a Trek 5500/5200 frame is impossible, so our shop owner welded a bit onto the bottom of my original clip and drilled out the hole (elongating it) so I could get an extra 2 to 3-mm worth of drop to the derailleur cage. That fixed the shifting and the smaller compact crankset worked fantastically.
The final issue I had to deal with was difficult to figure out. I had some chain-drop issues with the small chainring because I was using aftermarket “Amazon” SRAM labeled chainrings. That issue could only be resolved by installing Shimano 105 110-BCD 5-hole chainrings. With the aftermarket chainrings, once in a while, under climbing power, the chain would drop into the bottom bracket for no apparent reason. The problem was the cheap aftermarket chainrings. I believe they worked fine new, but probably needed to be replaced every couple of years – more often than I wanted to bother with. The true Shimano 105 chainrings fixed that issue completely, though.
Other than those solvable issues, everything was bolt-on and simple and I went from a 52-42-30 triple with an 11-26 9-speed cassette to a 50-34 double with an 11-28 cassette.
With those issues corrected, ten or eleven speed will work just fine on my 5200. I’ve heard we may get into trouble with 12, though. That’ll be a post for another day. In the meantime, my old Trek 5200 is riding like a new, much lighter, vastly more enjoyable bike.
The only question left is, should update a classic bike like that? Well, that answer depends in how you want to ride the bike and how long you’re willing to wait for replacement parts when something goes bad. Me? I’d rather ride my bike. Lots. So the change made sense.
Another Tuesday Night In Lennon on the Tandem; Hi-Fives, Fist Bumps and QOMs Abound
A while back, I wrote the following; to ride with my wife on the tandem, happily, I had to come to the realization that there was no room for the “aggressive me” cyclist on the tandem. I meant it at the time, but my wife is proving me wrong, one Tuesday night at a time…
We pulled into Lennon close on time, but with enough to take a few laps around the church’s parking lot to get the legs moving. With a barely there 6-mph breeze out of the northwest and a wonderfully sunny sky and perfect temperature, we had the makings of the perfect fast night. My wife and I, as is now custom, were twinning in matching “Ride for Peace” jerseys coupled with black socks, black shoes, black bibs, white glasses and matching Bontrager white helmets… I absolutely dig it. My wife had me raise her saddle a smidge, then lower it half-a-smidge, then push the nose left a touch, before finally proclaiming it close enough to give it a try… which was awesome, because the gang was rolling just as I tightened the seat post quick release.
We rolled, second to the last, but I’d been toying with the idea of taking a few turns at the front for the first time. The pace was easy and we caught on sooner than usual off a great boost from my wife in the Rear Admiral’s saddle. Mike and Diane announced they’d be in the left lane (and I knew why), so I tucked in behind them as the pace rose to a normal 22 to 24-mph.
Heading west seemed easy even though we were on the hard side of the breeze. We inched up in the pace-line until it was our turn… and we took it with grace and brevity. After a short stint, my wife tapped out and we headed to the back for a rest in the draft.
Heading south, now, with a crossing tailwind, we were approaching the hills with a 22.5-mph average and I was more than a little nervous. We’re great on the flats, fabulous on the downhills, but we suffer every time things head up. Heading up the Lytle hills, Chucker took the lead and slowed the pace to a reasonable 18 to 19-mph. We stayed with the group under our own steam with an impressively matched climb. My wife knows just when to lay down the power and I actually had to brake-check our climb… twice! Once we crested the hills, we hit the next set on Parmenter and our friend, Greg, gave us two extra boosts by pushing on my wife’s back. We were so strong on the pedals, with that extra help, we actually passed everyone on the way up!
We had a little help up the next two hills and amazingly stayed with the main group. We made it all the way to Shiatown with the main group, a first for my wife and I on the tandem. We had a couple of guys turn with us, two Daves, but nobody else made the turn. We took turns at the front with Fej until we hit the final homestretch and Dave took over. I had a few times during that ride where I thought about calling it good and sitting up, but I wanted my wife to get the QOM for the short route, so I dug deep and kept the power on.
Dave didn’t let up, either. We held his wheel and hammered for the City Limits sign north of 26-mph and crossed the line with 15 seconds to spare to nab Jess the QOM and another best for us on the tandem at 22.5-mph for the 28 mile route.
Sadly, there was no time for photos during the ride. Suffice it to say, we were both ecstatic with our performance. What a ride!
My Trek May Be Ready for the Big Show, But It’s No Tandem…
Every once in a cyclist’s most wonderful existence, the planets align and everything falls into place… and there are no phantom clicks, ticks, knocks, shimmies, bangs, flats, leaks, or creaks… and, God save me for writing it here, I’m there. My Venge is astonishingly smooth and quiet, as good as it’s ever been. My Trek has one “click” in the fork that I’ll never get out, and only presents when I climb out of the saddle (a new fork will fix it), but other than that, the bike is perfect. The shifting is smooth, the wheels stay true, the brakes brake… they’re perfect!
I took the Trek out for the A-100 the other day because it was supposed to rain all day and I wanted to make sure it was good to go for the next tour, where it really counts. The bike performed perfectly. The shifting wasn’t quite as perfect as that of the Venge, but when you’re parsing levels of “perfect”, eventually you just call it good.
The old ’99 5200 is astonishingly smooth and comfortable in its current setup and with my wheel/tire combination. In fact, I won’t change a thing.
Still, it’s not our tandem.
As I pulled away the other day, I couldn’t help feel a little sad that I wasn’t on the tandem with my wife. I had a spectacular time on the single bike, don’t get me wrong, but riding with my wife on the tandem has added a wonderful joy to cycling that’s simply too sweet for my inadequate vocabulary. I am grateful beyond words.
An Awesome Weekend of Volunteer Work Capped By a Perfect 100K on My Trek
The Assenmacher 100, commonly referred to as the A-100 now, was held yesterday to much fanfare and only the most hardcore of hardcore cyclists. The weather report for Sunday was terrible a whole week out. I can’t remember a weather forecast that sure of itself for a full week out in Michigan. The weather can change in ten minutes here, as we’re effectively a peninsula State. And change it did, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
The namesake to our ride retired from the main work party of putting the ride on a couple of years ago and my wife took up the title of ride director. As I’ve taken a new path in our marriage, this meant a lot of work for me over the weekend. Enough I actually didn’t feel like writing. Now, I’ve hit stretches where I didn’t have much to write about, but this was different. I simply had the “want to” worked right out of me. So, my apologies.
We worked until 11pm, about two hours past my bedtime, on Friday, till 6 Saturday, and I the rest of the day after the ride Sunday till 5:30.
When my wife and I finally crashed after Saturday’s marathon work session getting ready, the weather report was dismal. Thunderstorms in the morning, rain during the day, and more thunderstorms in the afternoon. Chucker and I talked about doing the 34-mile route in the rain and extending it if a miracle happened and the weather turned nice.
When we woke up in the morning, the forecast had the rain stopping at 6am, until 11am or noon. It’d be a wet start, but if we kept it to the 100k distance, we might escape the rain! It was a miracle! I readied the Trek as my wife headed off to the start/finish to set up. I packed my tools that could rust in my saddle bag in a Ziploc plastic bag, put my foldable rain vest in kit to go pile, pumped tires, filled water bottles, showered, shaved and got dressed.
It started raining at 6:30… a half-hour after it was supposed to have stopped. My heart sank. I started loading my car in the rain. I pulled out of the driveway and hit the windshield wipers.
However, as I headed west, the sky was unmistakably clearing up. I mile west of my house, the rain slowed. A mile later, it stopped. We were going to have a ride!
I knew, with the forecast still showing more thunderstorms at 1pm that I was going to stick to the 100k route and let that be known. I wanted to be back and under a tent eating Coney dogs when the rain hit! There were mentions of trying the 100-miler, but that would require a straight-up five hour 100-mile ride… no stops for a 20-mph average, or two stops if 22 was maintained.
We rolled out on wet roads, and I mean wet, at 8am. The roads were wet, but it wasn’t raining. I’ll trade eating a rooster tail or two for no rain, though.
The wet road says it all… along with the dirt tracks up Eli’s & Greg’s backsides.
The Trek was great all morning long. Perfect, really. It’s ready to go for DALMAC in a few weeks. I took the photos above at 25-mph. We had an awesome group. We reached the 35-mile mark and the turnoff for the 100k ride but only Dave and I turned. Out of everyone, just the two of us. Now, under normal circumstances, Dave would absolutely hammer me into the ground. I’d be a quivering, cramped heap on the side of the road. Fortunately, he’s not in full race shape because he’s been working too much… so we were actually pretty fairly matched up (for the most part – his turns up front were a lot longer than mine, but I took my lumps, too).
We kept the pace between 20 & 24 and hammered for home.
In Lennon, with a 21+mph average, I started cramping. Having ridden the tandem so much, I climb most hills in the saddle on my single bike out of habit, now. The first time I realized I was doing this, on a short incline into town, I got out of the saddle to amble up the little hill and my legs protested mightily. So much that I immediately announced to Dave I was cramping up and would be slowing it up. I grabbed a gel out of my back pocket and fired it down.
I didn’t back down but I did get dropped on the way in. I caught him at a long stoplight right before the finish, though, and finished with a bit of a pep in my step, crossing the finish line to cheers and a massive smile from my wife, who panted a massively awesome kiss on me. Now that’s how to finish a ride!
64 miles in 3h:05m
I drove home after having some lunch and showered up, then headed back to volunteer for the rest of the day. We didn’t see another drop of rain till we’d been home for an hour. The 100-milers never saw a drop of rain. I still have a tinge of guilt for not riding the full distance.
Fit Recovery 