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Yesterday I did “The Flattest Century in the East” put on by the Narragansett Bay Wheelmen. The first thing I can say about it is that it’s not flat.

UPDATE
I was pointed to what looks to be the triple tandem

Not that it’s hilly, but it’s not flat. The terrain is much the same as the cape service road. Lots of little rollers, with a noticeable hill here and there. But not flat.

Mr. and Mrs. 13b were nice enough to lend me sleeping accomodations in Somerset for the night before, so I took them up on their offer. Very nice house. Very quiet. Very dark. No yelling drunks at 2, no garbage trucks at 5 am. Chirpy things called “crickets”.

Up in the morning, off to the ride. Made a wrong turn right away, like right out of the box. Trying to get on I-195 east from SR 6, there’s a bear right and a turn right. I turned right. I should have beared(?) right. But it worked out well as I went right by a yummy diner for some breakfast and the next entrance was just down the road a bit. Got to Dartmouth with no other problem.

There were tonnes and tonnes of cars. The ride had 1800+ riders. It was remarkably well organized, though, and the only real shortcoming was a dearth of port-o-johns. And after the diner breakfast, skipping a visit really wasn’t optional. So that added about 1/2 hour to the check-in time, and I didn’t get on the road until 8am, about an hour after I’d planned to. This is the only organized century I’ve done all year where I was near people for the entire length of the ride. Normally, there are long stretches where I’m off riding on my own.

By a strange co-incidence, I parked right next to Lynne Tolman. Yes, that Lynne Tollman.

It was also getting pretty warm in the parking lot, so I took off my knee warmers which was a big mistake. I knew I’d made a mistake about 8 miles into the ride and my left knee was saying “you know, I’m a bit chilly”. Then, at about 100k, my right knee started to howl. And for the last 10 miles, it was really, really hurting. So much so that the pain started moving up my leg and into my hip.

The result of all that was that I didn’t even come close to my 18mph goal. I finished at 17.07 mph which isn’t even the season best. I just could not get my engine going. It felt like I was dragging all day yet there wasn’t much wind to speak of. I think I ate right and drank right, but it made no difference. Oh well. I’ve got one more shot at 18 at the GSW tri-state in a couple of weeks.

I did meet a woman named Janet who was wearing at Tour de Cure jersey, so I asked her which one she did. She said “Rhode Island”. I told her I did the 7-day one, and we got to talking and it turns out she’s a friend of Bela’s.

I’m also going to have to rethink my conclusion about Vermont having the meanest drivers w/r/t bicycles. Vermont certainly has mean, aggressive, inconsiderate drivers, but in Rhode Island, they also yell out their windows. Pretty aggressive considering there are 1800 or more bikes on the road.

Most of the busy intersections had cops directing traffic. It probably had to be that way since there were so many riders, but it was sort of surprising to see. I’m used to having a cop at the beginning, especially if it’s a mass start, but I’m not used to having them all along the course.

There were a couple of interesting bikes. One was a very low to the ground recumbent tricycle. The other was a bike built for three.

If you can see the middle seat, it also has a raised crank. This was for some guy and his two sons. As Mrs. 13b said, it looks like something out of Dr. Seuss.

I finished up around 3:30, did my check-in, picked up my t-shirt, had a plum and headed back to Somerset. Took a quick shower then headed out for some my-t-fine Chinese food with Mr. & Mrs. 13b.

Drove home and pass a very, very nasty accident at the Braintree split where a smallish station wagon had rolled over (several times, by the look of it) and the whole SB hiway was closed between Braintree all the way to Quincy. Fromt here, the traffice was backed up all the way to where I got off in Roxbury. Veh bad.

But it was a nice, scenic ride. I’m not sure I’ll do it again next year, though. I was really hoping for flat, flat to go for speed, and it wasn’t flat. It was also very crowded. That’s not bad, necessarily, but there were a lot of “amateurs”. I don’t mean that in a bad way as I’m always happy to have as many people as possible ride these things, but there’s a certain type of people who dont’ follow the rules of the road, and that just can’t be allowed when there are this many people on the road. There was a gaggle of gigglers riding in a lump and even I couldn’t get around them. I can just imagine how seething the cars that couldn’t pass were. That kind of behavior is what jeopardizes this rides. At least most people stopped before whipping out their cell phones.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 12th, 2005 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Rides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.