Sandy Creek Century

Hello again, another fun-filled day of biking, heat, sweat, water and tasty liquid goos to report about today. Yesterady, I did the the last 5 Star Century series last Saturday in Hillsboro, MO. For October it was unseasonable warm, especially for an early 4:30am wake up time.






It was a dark and humid morning for this last 100 mile bike ride. Also, it was an hour drive down to Hillsboro, Missouri so it was going to be another adventure just to find the starting location. Alas, I had better directions and an hour and 15 minutes I made it to the starting point.

After 5 century rides this I was beginning to get into a routine to prepare for the ride so I'd not forget any item, like shoes, gloves, sunglasses, body glide, etc. I had already pre-registered so the paperwork was done, just needed the map and some sunlight to lead the way. Along with my biking pal, we punched are time cards in at 7:01 am and started out with a low temp of 82 degrees! It was going to be a very hot day! The ride was setup at two loops, one for the mourning and another loop in the afternoon. The first loop was going to be 64 miles and then we finish off the 36 miles in the afternoon. It was a nice ride for the first 20 miles as we averaged a respectable 17 mph but we always tend to be faster at the beginning part of the ride as we are fresh and the heat hasn't zapped are energy yet! We tried to minimize stop time as much as possible, filling up the water bottles and moving on. It was temping to sit down but then I would not get back up so it was important not to rest too long.

The interesting part of these long rides is sometimes lost as I always focused on speed and not so much the scenery that I passed along the route. Since this ride was going to be slower I relaxed a bit and noticed more of the interesting points along the ride. At the 36 mile mark along West Rock Creek road we saw Stonehenge Estates complete with massive stone monoliths much like the ones at the real Stonehenge, a funny thing to see in that area of Missouri. There was a another interesting site as we rode in the valley of several miles of sod fields being watered and taking in the morning sun. It looked very much like what you see in the foot ball stadium accept on much larger scale. A plastic mesh protected the top of the sod (from what?) and it had a perfect painted color of green along the entire stretch for miles to see. The hills slowed us down and along with the two rest stops we managed to finish the first loop at 11:30. After a short rest and a quick bite to eat we were off for the afternoon loop of only 36 miles!

Since this was my 6th century of the year, and surprisingly my body has slowly adjusted to the long stress of riding 100 miles during the day. This ride was no different as I felt good on the second loop even with the higher temperature and more hills to climb, there was no acute soreness that would have stopped me going another an additional 20 to 30 miles more after the ride. I was a bit tired toward the end but that was too be expected. We finally rolled in around 2:30pm after 6.5 hours on the bike, punched in the time card and picked up our Sandy Creek patch for the ride. The ride was about as difficult as the July Steel Legs Century, although not as hot we still climbed over 11,000 feet and still manged a 15. 3 avg throughout the entire ride.

So, the end of the Century season is gone. It was a great year for riding, with the new bike and the newly purchased Garmin 305 I have been able to log some impressive mileage this year. I plan to get in some more rides this year but no more century rides. I look forward to the next year's century rides!

Red Horse

Brett