Monday, May 22, 2006

Cheater Bike


  Wow! That was a lot of people. I finally rode a Century Sunday. The Santa Fe Century to be exact. What a good time it was. I met Anthony at 6:30 at the hospital where the century started and ended. There were around 2800 people riding in this century. The weather was looking perfect. Anthony and I decided to get started at 7. We got our goofy lycra on and departed right around 7:05 am. We left the hospital and headed towards 14 to head down towards Madrid which is around 25 miles away. We made it down there in around 10 minutes it felt like. It was a great warm up being mostly pointed downward till there. Anthony filled the water bottles and off we went. We figured we would stop after heartbreak hill around mile 50. So up heartbreak hill we went. That hill is a steep one but short. All kinds of people were strugglin on it. We then proceeded to Cedar Grove to the food stop there which was right at mile 50. From there we continued on till Galisteo which was mile 82.4 I was supposed to meet Ella and Autumn here but Ella had a virus for the last few days so they opted to rest one more day before the week started. Galisteo is a cool little town. There was a pueblo here. We stopped for the longest break of the day here because I needed too. Ate some food and departed again for the rest of the ride. Anthony was feeling great and he pulled me a good bit especially when we climbed up from Galisteo to Eldorado. Thanks Anthony! At the end of the ride they take us onto 25 which we thought was ridiculous instead of taking us onto Old Las Vegas which is a nice more friendly road which parallels the highway. We got back to the car at 1:07, 104 miles later. Now you will see I was riding a cheater bike. I have not as of yet built a SS road bike. My goal is to do this century next year on a SS. One observation I had during the century was there are some really nice people,But a lot of roadies have this shitty attitude. This is one reason I love MTBing the people are soooo much nicer. I took a few pictures. all at food stops. After the ride Anthony invited me back to his pad in Arroyo Hondo for a Tub soak and some beers. After the soak he cooked up some bacon and blueberry pancakes(which rocked).
pre ride pose


This is once we got started at the first traffic light about a hundred yards past the Hospital.


Madrid the first food stop and a nice little town we had some climbing after Madrid.

Cedar Grove food stop randomness

Anthony making a call

the road surface

I believe this bearded gentleman was at the foood stop in Stanley.

on the phone in Galisteo

I looked for SS/fixed riders all day and saw none that is except this tandem bike a couple rode on the 50 mile out and back route.

I give the peace symbol as we prepare to ride the last 20 miles to Santa Fe

  So there you have it some rest stop photo's of the Santa Fe Century we both really had a good time on this. I hope I get a SS together for next year. The night before the century I had a tasty brew from steamworks brewing

  What is in your audio player? I have Damian "Junior Gong" Marley Welcome to Jamrock in my player courtesy of Bradleee in Jackson Hole who sent me a pic of him paragliding in HI this past week. Looks fun. He said you can fly a paraglider for 2-3 hour flights from this place in HI.

I also came across this picture from a Glorieta ride a few months back it is of Pauls Black Sheep SS

  As I was driving back from Arroyo Hondo yesterday I saw there was a fire happening in the Jemez it turned out it was right around Bandelier. I hope this doesn't effect the next installment in the NM Endurance series- the Tour de Los Alamos. Sounds like a good ol time.Good bye till next time.

5 comments:

YuriB said...

roadies are freaks. being a bike rider is where it's at, but preachin the the choir again...
the century looked like a good time.
in fact i could use a good road ride. hmmm.

Tubeular Visions said...

Nice write up man!I did a metric centry around Mt. Airy MD. on the cross check and it was fun but I wanted to do it ss so last year I did and it was even funner.funnier?
Nice pics, the beard is cool and I m glad to see Bradly doing what he does.

sewin said...

hi!
incredible, how you can win a race in a SS..... good legs!

i m learning to build my own SS to ride in my city, Santiago.

se my blog:
http://bicity-mollfun.blogspot.com/

write ya!

Tim Wise said...

Yeaa Mike I was thinking about your Quickbeam, That thing would be perfect for century's.:)

Matt said...

Congrats on the Century Ride! I've never done it - just either never had the interest or the time. Interesting on the lack of SS and fixies. You are just the guy to do it, too.

My guess is that while a lot of people know its a great course for one gear...that small but dangerous Heartbreak Hill section is probabaly the thing that scares most people away from trying it.

Regarding attitudes - my take is that a lot of one dimensional [insert descriptior here] bikers have attitude. A true cyclist appreciates them all.

Keep kicking tail...hope to see you at Tour de Los Alamos !