Happy Sunday!

 

Early morning start makes for dramatic lighting

Since Outriders in June my weekend riding has generally been with my friend Jay.  We've been ratcheting up the distances to get him back to doing centuries.  Something we should have been doing in the spring!  Of course the weather was bad in the spring almost every weekend and I had a big thing at work that kept me off the road.  The long distances we've been doing really underlined how unready I was this year for Outriders.  I don't know how the heck I did that ride!  Anyway, after a couple weekends of doing 77 mile rides, we were ready to do 100 or something very close.  The loop we were doing was a variation on our "Marlborough Man" route.  

90 miles/145 km of fun in Eastern MA

We met up at what felt ungodly early on Sunday, 7:30 AM.  In retrospect, given how light traffic was early on and how hot it got, I wished we had left even earlier!  

Quiet Roads were a feature at the start

Of course the light traffic was true until it wasn't.  In Sudbury one guy in an SUV had to try a punishment pass.  He leaned on the horn far too early and didn't pass close enough to actually be frightening.  Amateur.  

Despite Jay and I doing a good job staying on top of food & drink we still had plenty of water, so we bypassed a couple of our usual stops for water.  We were thinking of stopping at a particular fancy gas station in Hudson.  Well, it was actually a few miles down the road and over some climbs in Marlborough.  Jay still had some water, but my bottles were dry.

Holding up the wall in Marlborough. Not my garbage in the background.

We split a gallon of water.  I had a caffeinated GU pack, a gatorade, and a Luna bar.  We mounted up and headed out on the toughest section of the route.  A long climb up to Hopkinton, winding up going past the water tower next to the school.  Of course after all that we were rewarded with an excellent downhill, continuing on 85 heading towards Milford.  We jumped on the Upper Charles Bike Path and continued on.  It had become pretty hot, around 92F/33C.  The shade on the path was quite welcome.  

The previous day Mary asked me if it was boring doing essentially the same route for the third time this summer.  I mentioned this to Jay and his response was just about the same as mine -- no, it's better to do the same route repeatedly.  You learn where the iffy bits are and can ride it faster.  

Zooming down the Upper Charles Rail Trail

After getting to Milford and the end of the bike path, we got on Route 16 and headed towards Natick.  This was a tough stretch, quite exposed to the sun.  Whenever we got caught at red lights it felt HOT.  Still, we put our heads down and rode hard.  We didn't stop to eat so I snagged a GU pack from my pocket.

Somewhere along here a racer zipped passed us, grinned, yelled "HAPPY SUNDAY!", and banged a right turn.  And now we had a new catchphrase.  For the rest of the ride it was periodic yells of "Happy Sunday" at appropriate and inappropriate moments.

As we got closer to Natick center my mind drifted to the bakery there, its air conditioning, and its iced coffee.  Lo, it came to pass.

ICED COFFEE  AIR CONDITIONING

After some danishes, iced coffee, and water refills, we were ready to press on to the finish.  As we got close to the end we realized we would be shy of 90 miles.  That just wasn't going to cut it.  So we rode a little bit of a loop and brought the ride to 90.  

With this ride under our belt we're ready for anything now.  Sadly, I'm going to miss out on the North Shore Cyclists' Blazing Saddles Century next weekend (last year they rectified the post ride picnic issue of 2023).  

Thanks for reading.  Keep the rubber side down.