2024 - 100 Mile Century Ride
WE DID IT!
9 Girls
OCTOBER 8, 2024
100 Miles / 13.3 mile avg.
7:36 hours
"FASTEST 100 EVER"
This is my 5th Century and the first with no wind, perfect weather, strongest riders and no obstacles to over come. Which made making a new riding record the best opportunity to accomplish. That doesn't mean it wasn't hard. It still takes perseverance to peddle 5 hrs 36 minutes even in the best circumstances.
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I hate to say this but this ride can actually be recapped in Mark Gross desired fashion. In 3 sentences....
"We rode. Conditions were perfect. Broke a Biker Chick Riding record and celebrated with a cold beer!"
OK that is all I got. That was all I had to say as we all filed into the party to be greeted by our fellow supporting Biker Chicks and husbands. They had beers in hand all anxious to hear all the stories and share in our success. No stories. Everything could not have gone better. I have no crazy hurdles we miraculous overcame or mishaps to write endlessly about. As quoted by Nancy in her one word for this ride "It was flawless"
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Well that's no fun. Surely I can come up with putting many unwanted droning on sentences to describe even the most uneventful experience.
Well challenge accepted! Lets just see how much I can write about nothing and how long I can keep your attention in this attempt. Oh, I can't wait to make Mark sit down and listen to this as I insist he let me read it to him. That is enough incentive to find a way to excessively drag this out. But you chicks better read it because you know I will ask and quiz you. Doesn't this make you want to stop reading? Or does it?
I got one doozy of a story! Let's start with how we came to be a Salt & Smoke and not Hendrick's as originally planned. I did not reveal this story in my Chick Blast because I prompted anyone to ask me about it. Sometimes I just like to tell my story, especially a good one, in person and when I reveal all the good ending in my writing, I don't get the trill of real life story-telling with all the hand gestures and facial inflections. Which there are many. Look how many extra sentences I used and I haven't even gotten to the story. At this point my husband is massaging his forehead, cringing in what looks like pain and begging to just get to the net end. Too bad.... let the torture continue. So this is really a good one.
The reservation debacle: I literally picked Tuesday for the 100 because Hendrick's was not open on Monday. I wanted to be on the trail and enjoying the whole deck like last year. I sent out the itinerary in my e-blast and then the next day called to reserve. No problem, reservation made. Then before hanging up, I asked one more question about the happy hour specials I noticed on their website. I always like to aware of any money saving deals. The hostess paused then said hesitantly, "we are not having happy hour right now." Oh no prob, thinking nothing of it. Until she begrudgingly went on to confess," we lost our liqueur license.
WHAT??? I am not going to get a beer at the end of 100 miles? I quickly said "thank you, but no thank you." Funny thing is when I tell this story everyone is most concerned with "why, what happened?" I really didn't care, I just wanted to find a place that would provide the only reason for the completion of this daunting 100 miles and this place was not it. I will tell you, when I reserved at Salt+Smoke I asked what IPA's they had so I could envision my reward and make sure Mark had it ready to hand me as I climbed off my bike. Which is successfully accomplished. What a guy!
He's not Tom though. Tom had flowers for Christy when she rolled in. He is setting a new bar and making all the guys look bad. I can't drink them, so I am pretty happy with my beer.
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THE RIDE START: We had 9 in for the 100. Lesia and Joyce sacrificed sleep to meet us at 6:30 and ride the first 13 with us to Bridgeton Levee. Everyone is now outfitted in the bright neon jackets and this was the perfect outer ware for a 45 degree start. Not to mention who is not gonna see us riding down the road. We did our prayer and as a special surprise I played a Century Anthem song my son Patrick made for our group. It was great fun! Off we went. The route is always tweaked year to year in an effort to be the best it can be. Our first leg was uneventful. By now last year we were already dealing with navigating a flat tire and phoning a friend for Rhonda. We said goodbye to Joyce and Lesia and headed for the farm fields and our first stop at Mary in Portage De Sioux. Unless you have ridden the farm fields you can not appreciate the disbelief at seeing the airport flag hanging still on its pole. This is always our barometer for how much head wind we are tackling and yes there is always wind in this vast emptiness. WOW not today. It is an anomaly.
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​Triggered to set a new Chick Record:
It was here on the first 60 that the need and soon undeniable force to make a new Biker Chick Century record took over me. Here I am riding the 100 in the PERFECT weather, the PERFECT wind (O) with the PERFECT group of strong riders. Talk about the PERFECT storm. The sun and moon could not be more lined up to knock out a new record. When I saw I had a 13.5 avg I had to take advantage. We never have that kind of avg. Our best 100 was 12.6 in 2022. My mind was made up which meant peddling at around 15-17mph at all times. The girls were always right on my heels. No one complained. By the time we reached lunch after a long 30 miles with no real break we were all more than ready to get off those bikes. I don't know if I had another pedal stroke in me. My neck was barking at me. Yeah I know it's usually feet but man today it was my neck. The break was needed and timely.
Way AHEAD of Schedule: I had to text the 4 coming for the last leg with a heads up to arrive earlier. We were running 30 minutes early. Lunch is always crazy. So many things need to happen. There is the potty break, cloths changing, new folks arriving, celebration pictures to take and then the reason for this stop to actually eat something. I feed on the chaos. The food not so much. I can't ride with a full belly. So a coffee and 2 power balls is about all I want. I get over stimulated and loose all desire to eat. I wish this could be my problem in the dead of winter when I binge Netflix for 12 hours on the couch. I can't eat enough then and haven't burned the 4000 calories I was burning today.
TIME TO ROLL: Only 39 to go. It's just a regular ride now. Amazingly enough the 61 to lunch was the longest ride anyone did this year. It was definitely a soft year with my two back to back injuries taking time off and riding easy short rides coming back. But you would not have guessed it the way these girls kept up the speed.
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UGH...more farm fields! Why does Hwy B feel soooo long. If I were to tell you, in my big fish story way, that stretch felt like 10 miles. I looked down on my GPS, after what felt like 30 minutes of straight, flat, brainless hwy to discover we were only halfway done. Shoot me now. ( as Mark will be saying as I read this to him and am not even half way done) Not to mention I am trying to maintain 17-18mph in preparation for the avg killer I was going to experience on the chotchy paved paths behind the Rec Plex. Well in an effort to be legit I looked this up, what felt like a 10 mile stretch was only 5. I could not be happier to come into 370 lake for some variety.
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The RIDE BRAN: So on the Century there is nothing but time in your own head. Especially because I spent more of this alone leading and trying to ride it hard. Here I am in the middle of a 100 thinking about riding twice my age in two years when I turn 60 and riding 120 in one day. I am looking up sunrise and sunset times to see if April will give me enough light. Admittedly when I climbed off my bike at the end, 120 seemed pretty impossible. But we will see. I got 2 years and will need some poor soul to join me. I might need the next 2 years to talk some sucker into it.
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The END is near: We took our last potty/snack break at the 370 lake pavilion. Funny thing is I couldn't wait to sit down. Heck I have been sitting for 7 hours. But it was nice not on a bike seat. Nothing like saving the hardest for the end. Only 17 to go but we had some final climbing. Nancy expressed at the end she was not a fan of tackling Mc Clay after 90 plus miles and would take 40 miles of Katy over that at the end. Personally I am NOT a fan of Katy, as you are all aware and definitely not 40. But I do understand. I will take it into consideration............Ok, I did. Not doing 40 Katy at the end. See I can be diplomatic, as long as the end result is to my liking. LOL
Benefit of holding the title of Chick Mama. Mama always knows best. I do say that very loosely. We have seen my NOT by any means know what's best.
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Close does not count: When it comes to the 100. 99.55 does not cut it. Although sounds like a cool radio station. I had to do a little fast Mom Math
(video here) to recalculate our exact 100 arrival. Discovered we were coming in .5 mile too soon. After some on the fly, literally while riding, quick math we circled the arena parking lot to be just where we needed to be for arrival. No wonder my brain was dead today. So many things and so much thinking.
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THE ROLL IN! We did it! It happened. Rolled in at 5:15 before the party was even scheduled to begin. This beat last year by 1:15. Amazing. We did it and captured a 13.2avg and completed in 7:38. Well done girls. You are all power-houses!!!
I got NO STORIES: It was so overwhelming to see so many people there coming out to embrace our success. Everyone always wants to know the stories and what happened. Which every year there are many and last year there were tooo many. But this year I had nothing. It was Mark Gross recap worthy. We rode. We beat a record. We earned a beer.
For a girl who thought she didn't have anything to say about this ride I sure managed to find lots of words to put together to eat up your precious time. I know you are always hoping for that crazy funny story that might be embedded down deep in all this text. But no. It was just a nice slam-dunk 100.
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THE AFTER PARTY!! Isn't that why we do most things we do. It's all about the celebration and we had a great one. I can't put into words the love, support, comradery that is felt in this group and it is not just me. I think everyone feels it. We all embrace each other highs and lows, successes and failures. The husbands come out supporting their wives and enjoy seeing the other chicks their wives spend so much time with every week. It is like no other group. It is such a blessing. I played our anthem song, we took pictures, toasted our accomplishment and went home to spend today in recuperation!
I gotta say I could not have been happier to NOT be getting on a bike the day after.
...until next year. We will ride it again!!!
STATS
Fastest 100 - Broke records@7:38 minutes ride time
Avg speed - 13.2
All seasoned strong Century Riders
Only ride ever with 1 mile winds
9 girls completed
2 girls rode their 1st 100 with the chicks
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Joyce & Lesia joined for the 1st 13miles
Only ride EVER with NO WIND in the Farm Fields!
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We had 40 people come out to support us at the after party!
4 joined for the last 40
Hoping I did not jinx myself by having this one the day of the ride!
