better than expected

Tom H sent out an email to a number of his regulars that he was leading a not-quite-metric-century (100km is about 62 miles, for those who don't speak road bike, so this was gonna be 59 miles). I was not sure I wanted to do it, because I haven't been in great shape... but these are friends of mine, and they've been agitating for me to come along. I signed up late, and I was in the car, all packed up for the ride, and a couple miles from home before I was really sure I was going to do it.

 Tom had ten. I took a position near the back, and we rolled out, first over the Kinkora trail, and then onto roads in Columbus.

I was wearing a Poland jersey with a distinctive graphic, and wasn't really ready when a car rolled up beside with the window down, and a couple of Eastern European faces were calling out the window, "Dzein dobry! Dzein dobry!", with great big smiles on. I called back "Dzein dobry!" ("Good day") to the Polish occupants of the car. The smattering of Polish I had for the recent trip has already come in handy.

We kept up a pretty fast pace on this flat ride. I was surprised to see average speeds of 15.4mph, then 15.8, then 16.0. That's far faster than I've ridden recently, especially on my own (but there are more hills on my 23-mile training route than there were in this whole 59-mile ride). I even attacked on one of those long, shallow hills, the way I used to be able to do a few years ago.

We had a water stop at the Brendan Byrne Forest.

 And then on to the stop at Nixon's, in Tabernacle. All the way, we kept up that fast (for me) pace.

 At Nixon's, we met a number of riders training for the Spellbound Century in two weeks... including two riders who looked to be about thirteen years old, on small road bikes built around 650b wheels, smaller than the 700c wheels common on road bikes. (No pics of them, to reduce the chance of weirdness around pics of minors.)

And back. I did well with the continued fast pace... until about mile 50, when I started to flag. The group had split into a fast group and a slow group, and a few of the slower riders, slowed further to keep me company for the last few miles.

Still, the ride page shows I completed the ride, with my average speed 15.8mph. 

I don't think I want to do another 60-mile ride soon; 45-50 is probably good enough. And I'm far better on the flat rides than on hills. But it's reassuring that I finished, with as good a showing as I had.