500+ miles later... (part 3)

DAY 7 (Friday) - Fullerton to Brainard and back 100 miles
You guessed it. I ended up doing my first ever century. Woke up at the usual time and started tearing down the tent. The mosquitoes obviously didn't sleep because they were waiting outside of my tent to suck my life juice. Luckily the Off! was within reach and they didn't get to drain me.

Brandon and I were the first persons out of town after breakfast. We kept a really good pace, though Brandon wouldn't do any pulling, he would just suck my wheel the whole time. It didn't bother me, it was fun and it was nice to have company too. We stopped at the first SAG to top off the reservoirs and so I could change my lenses to a darker tint since the sun was over the horizon.

NOTE: There was no better sight than seeing the sunrise while biking all week long.

The stop lasted no more than five minutes. We were back on the road at the same pace. The route profile showed a really nasty hill halfway through. It was nothing. The hill in question turned out to be a 250 foot climb over about a mile. It barely registered on the pain meters. It was obvious that we were gradually approaching civilization, the number of vehicles on the road was increasing. We didn't see a SAG stop through Osceola, Shelby, or Rising City. By the time we reached Rising City my camel back was empty and I was on my last water bottle. I definitely didn't want to take the chance that there would be a SAG ahead. It was feared that they hadn't come out yet, so we stopped at a Kwiki Mart, took a bathroom break and purchased some Gatorade and H2O.

All re-energized we were back on the road riding hard. Two miles down the road was the SAG stop, I was so upset with that since I hate to spend money if I don't have to. Oh well, my health is more important than a few bucks. We kept going and passed the last SAG who was stationed 5 miles outside of Brainard. Arriving in Brainard, the 70 mile mark, we were feeling real good and turned right around and started hammering it back toward Osceola and hoping to complete a double metric.

At this time it seemed as though we were riding into a headwind. We figured this is a good thing because we would have a tailwind on the way back. After about fifteen miles back, this would give us our century if we headed back, we saw Janna and Nicol riding in the Bike Masters pace line. It figured, those two finally decide to leave early and not lolly gag in all the towns and deny us our double metric. So we turned around and hooked up with them back to Brainard. I swear that the tailwind we were hoping to have on the way back turned into a headwind. We made one SAG stop to replenish supplies and finished the ride into town. Brandon and I recorded our first ever century ride.

The moment I got off my bike, unpacked my gear, set up my tent and took a shower my body just wanted to sleep. If I wasn't moving it was so hard to stay awake. One person even took a sneaky picture of me sleeping and posted it on the web. I'll leave you to find the picture.

Brainard has some good eats, just like all the other towns. They had homemade polish sausage, fried chicken, and BBQ pork sandwiches. Unfortunately for me there were no BBQ pork sandwiches, they ran out of pork. Janna and Nicol were the ones who had the last of the pork. I was sure wishing Charlotte was there. I had fried chicken for lunch and 2 polish sausages for dinner. We also went over to the Legion hall for root beer floats and brownie sundaes.

After dinner it was time for some serious sleep time. All four of us decided that we will ride the last leg together.

DAY 8 (Saturday) - Brainard to Waterloo 46 miles
After a really good night sleep we were ready to go, except Janna. She did not want to start riding until exactly 6:30 AM. I kid you not, we were lined up on the road and she wasn't going to move until 6:30 AM on the nose. I think she was doing this to irritate Brandon and me.

We were off, Franz even joined us for the final ride too. All five of us had a really good pace line going too. Then we hit some serious road construction where we had to wait a while for the pilot car to come through. We had also caught up to the Bike Masters group at the construction and decided to join them. I was in the front of the line and got to share a couple of pulls, very fun and good experience too. I was pulling when we arrived in Wahoo, then I heard the sound I never thought I would hear. My rear tire had just blown, my first ever flat. Dang it, so I pulled off the line. Janna, Nicol, Franz, and Brandon joined me in repairing my flat. Nicol went to some store and came back with this donut I can only describe as a dentists nightmare. In the middle was this chocolate and peanut butter goo and a Reese's on top. It looked deadly.

While repairing the flat a bug had flown into my eye. Having my hands covered in nasty black grime I enlisted the help of Nicol and Franz in trying to dig the bug out. It had to be one hell of a sight to see. The flat was fixed and we were back on the road home. Rest of the ride was uneventful, but still fun. We ate hot dogs, drank sodas, said goodbyes to everyone we met, loaded our cars and were homeward bound.

This was a great vacation and I would do it again. Maybe next year I can get more people to do it, because nothing beats a vacation with fun friends. Marc had said that this ride would whip me into some serious bike shape. I think he may be right. We will see when it comes to race time.

One really exciting thing to note was that I passed a cat 2 racer (Mark Merrit) on the ride to Fullerton. In all fairness he was standing on the side of the road attending to nature. He then got back on his bike and smoked us. Glory truly is fleeting.

Hope everyone has enjoyed reading this and hopefully it will give you the desire to maybe try this ride next year.