Is it okay to do a retrospective of a big memory? It's been four months now since I completed my 200-mile, single day ride (Jul 3rd, 2021). While we're at it, I just now realized that I never published this when I wrote it in Oct, 2021, so it's been way longer since the actual event. The ride itself was pretty uneventful, but the milestone in my life was somewhat significant. It was my fifth (or maybe sixth?) attempt to 'go a long ways', and the past three times, it's been a goal to hit 200, but lost my battle somewhere around 165-182 for each of the prior attempts. Various reasons for the non-completion each time, but this time I was determined!
I started out by picking a flat-ish route for this trip, while the prior rides are usually done with my love of hills and being 'out in the sticks' as much as possible. I really dislike riding on busy roads, so doing secondary, tertiary or even dirt roads has been a thing for me for some time now. Usually those back roads are more hilly, but I do like my hills, so that's never bothered me. On the other hand, trying to break 200 miles in a day when hitting courses that had over 10,000 feet of climbing was a recipe for extremes and maybe not as advisable when the goal was the "Double Century" ride.
My route this year involved a swing to the northwest, toward Lake Ontario and back. The lake is big enough that it makes our Rochester weather what it is: changeable, often unpredictable and usually windy along the lake. This particular day was hand-picked out of my week off work. I watch the weather predictions when thinking about a ride like this, trying to spot that one day when I think I could stay dry for the day. Of course, looking for a long daylight ride means riding near the solstice and that can be extreme heat as well. I picked a day with highs in the mid to upper seventies, low eighties. The winds off the lake were not the typical "in your face" from the West/Northwest that day, but had actually swung around from the North/Northeast and were only about 15MPH max. All reasonably good, but it was a bit sad not having the wind at my back for any significant length of the ride. On the other hand ... riding into the wind can be pretty miserable, so I'm okay with this tradeoff.
I headed out of the house just after 4AM and into a misty, pre-dawn world. The roads were wet from an earlier light rain that night, just enough to toss water up my butt and back while I rode. Who cares, right? As it turns out, that's a major disadvantage when you are trying to do a long ride. Wet shorts stick to you, dry shorts slide over you and don't chafe as much, but at first, not a problem anyway. As I rode south along the Genesee River toward Avon, I enjoyed the sound of birds awakening. When I got near some of the big loops in the river, there were hundreds of bugs in the air (and on my face and glasses). I didn't enjoy that much, but did enjoy the beauty of the foggy lands along the river banks. My legs took a while to stretch out and get going, but were working nicely when I got to Avon. I crossed the Genesee and headed out of the valley toward Caledonia. We had been having a Gypsy Moth outbreak around here this year and as the sun came up, I saw more and more evidence of defoliated trees. Caledonia was almost stripped bare by the caterpillars. Sad, but in most cases, the trees make a full recovery and grow more leaves by late summer.
Along the way out of the river valley, I could see a line of thunderstorms just to the west and, of course, I was headed west. I knew that this portion of the trip might be dicey with respect to weather. By the time I was west of Caledonia there was a slight mist in the air and, by Leroy it was definitely raining. I took a brief detour into a McDonalds in Leroy to grab a cup of hot coffee and stand inside drinking for a while. The rain was very gentle and by another 10 miles west of Leroy, it was all gone. Still misty, but no rain. I pedaled west to Stafford, but the combination of a pretty busy road (NY5), and the fact that the infinite wisdom of our officials had decided it's a good idea to carve rumble-strip scallops on the side of the road ended up giving me about 5" outside of the line in which to ride. Not much fun in that. I turned north in Stafford and headed through some quiet country farm roads on 237. Passing over the NYS Thruway, I was again thankful for the quiet of my road. I had to cross Rte 33, which was pretty busy, but uneventful in the end. I had several closer calls in this portion of the trip, once when a pickup truck seemed to completely ignore me and pulled out in front of me at his stop sign. I gestured a bit and he looked sufficiently shocked so I knew it wasn't intentional. At another intersection in Elba, another driver decided they wouldn't need to wait for me to turn right and they rushed around me, slammed on their brakes at the stop sign, cut me off with their right turn and thought nothing of it. You just have to assume that you are likely to be a target.
Continuing on 262, I made it to Oakfield, then headed NW on 63. Taking that all the way to where it intersected 77. I was to follow 77, with a turn in Alabama (yes, that's a town in NY), and continue on through the amazing Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. The number of birds of prey there is quite spectacular, along with lots of water birds (egrets, herons, etc.) I enjoyed a brief stop at some roadside signage and watched the birds for a while.
Shortly after, I turned north on country rd 905 and headed up to Middleport, where I took a brief side trip on Rte 31 in order to find a nice, greasy slice of pizza and some additional water. Back on the bike again, I pedaled north out of Middleport on Carmen Road, where I would remain for the next 12 miles or so. I stopped in at our cottage on Lake Ontario and said hi to some neighbors, family and friends. One of my fellow biker friends inquired as to my route and just shook his head when I explained it was a Double. I was at 80 miles at this point, feeling strong, and still hitting 17-20 MPH. When I headed back out again, I was feeling even better and began hitting a 20+MPH clip. At 90 miles or so I started to flag a bit as the sun had come out from behind the clouds and the temps rose briefly to the high 80s or so. I discovered that I had been ignoring my hydration for the last 10 miles or so. Water, plus salt pills helped to revive me and I pedaled out until I saw my odometer saying 104 miles. I figured this was a pretty good turnaround point, knowing that I'd not take the detour back past the cottage so I would need a few more miles on the outbound since my return trip would be slightly less mileage. Worst case, I thought, I would do a few laps around our (hilly) block when I got back if I still needed the mileage.
I turned off the main road (Rte 18) in Somerset to get away from the traffic and headed south through Barker. Stopping at a quick rip in Barker, I had my first mishap of the day. I tried to kick my heel sideways to get out of my pedals and managed to put the heel into the bladed spokes of my rear wheel. Let's just say I stopped rapidly, but without falling. Unfortunately this would begin a long battle with pain in the Achilles tendon from there back to home. I still had 75 miles left to go, so there was a lot of mind over matter at this point to keep the body going and simply ignore the pain. More greasy food, more water and I was back on the bike again. I continued south to Rte 104. Interestingly, this road is, about 10 miles south of where the lake is today, but it's called Ridge Road because there's a distinct ridge that used to be the Lake Ontario shoreline. Lots of cobblestone houses were built along here by the early settlers and many still remain today. 104 was too busy for my liking, but it had nice, wide shoulders and no rumble scallops to deal with. I left 104 behind me when I got to Carmen Road again. From here it was about the same route on my return, with one additional food stop to fuel me.
The next 40 miles were a gradual rise, constituting much of my 4100 feet of climbing for the day. After the food stop in Oakfield around mile 157. My Achilles was really painful by now and required significant focus to ignore the pain. I managed to hold my speed in the mid-teens to lower 20s during this part of the trip and was doing pretty well until around mile 190 (Avon), when it began to fall off significantly. Speeds were dropping to the lower teens for those last 13 miles and it was a huge effort to keep turning the pedals round and round, but there was no way I'd be quitting this close to my goal! I took on more water and my last salt pill and slogged onward. Just before reaching my starting point, I had a nice downhill and briefly pegged 29.8MPH before heading up the last, 11% gradient to my starting point. My muscles threatened to cramp up with every crank, but they remained faithful to my will for them. Whew! Made it in. Much food was consumed and I believe I may have gone to bed by 8:30 that night.
203 miles total. Interestingly, my meter showed 203.5 miles after that last hill, but the final tally recorded was for 202.87. Not arguing ... 200 was the goal. While speed wasn't my goal, I don't feel too bad about a 15.9MPH average for the 200 miles. More adventures may yet come in future years. Stay tuned.
