Four Fifths of the Birmingham Century

Yeah, it seems strange to get all set up to do a century, then only plan to do 80 miles of it...but that's exactly what I did. Here's the story:

I've got a couple of friends, Russ, who was at Cherohala with me, and Russ' wife, Katie, who has taken up the fun and frivolity that is cycling, (which if you do it right is roughly akin to breathing as hard as you can while someone beats you with a strand of barbed wire).

Anyway, Russ and Katie have determined (on my recommendation) that the Huntsville "All You Can Eat Century is the perfect event to complete their first century. To that end, once they returned from consecutive trips to the exotic locals of Finland and Sylacauga 3 weeks ago, I've been training with them for the Huntsville event.

Huntsville is not a marathon long event, nor is it especially hilly. What it does have is some of the prettiest countryside I've ever ridden through, and really really sweet smooth roads that were just paved brand new 5 years ago. And rollers. Hundreds of them. Very little of this ride is flat, almost none to my recollection. You're either rolling up, or rolling down. (Sure, there are some flat sections I'm certain, but who remembers those?).

So Russ and Katie (whose longest ride to date had been 65 miles) decided that doing 80 of the BBC Century was just the ticket as a final long ride to the build up to Huntsville. It was a beautiful morning, cloudy and cool, with relatively low humidity for Alabama. We left Montevallo High School about 30 minutes ahead of the start so that we didn't spend all day riding just because they like to start their century late. Leaving town towards the wilds of Chilton County, Katie had her first experience with passing slower riders. A red letter day for her.

As we continued south I noticed that property was being cleared for another soon to be run down, ramshackle self storage facility. Which was nice to see, because you can never have too many of these eyesores in rural Alabama, and south Shelby County doesn't seem to be keeping up with the less affluent counties on its borders. A little farther on, having crossed into Chilton county we encountered a novel way of storing your "stuff". Instead of renting a self storage closet at one of these aforementioned establishments, these ingenious folks had purchased (I assume it wasn't stolen) a school bus, replaced the wheels with cinder blocks, and were storing their "stuff" in the converted school bus. Brilliant!

So back to the ride. This ride is a good approximation of the terrain in Huntsville, lots of rolling hills and mild climbing as well. We saw little traffic because it doesn't seem to be peach season yet, so the roads were all pretty empty. I was a bit ahead of Russ and Katie, so I pulled into the first rest stop and was delighted to find that they had a big box of plums. I love plums, and these plums were absolutely wonderfully sweet black plums. After two plums (plus one in my pocket for later), and a slice of watermelon, we took off again.

5 miles farther down the road, the were finally overtaken by a small group of riders who, having started with the rest of the group, had to have averaged 22 mph to that point. They blew past us and 15 minutes later the first large group (30-40 riders) caught us. I determined that I wouldn't ride with this group, and that I'd wait for Russ and Katie, but as I drifted back, I kept seeing friends and chatting. Besides, the effort staying in with them was noticably less than that of riding on my own. So as the miles flew past, I suddenly remembered that Russ and Katie were back there somewhere, no doubt cursing my abandonment of them. So I dropped off. To my pleasant surprise, R&K were only a couple of hundred yards back, having caught the back of the group and hanging until a longer hill came along. I was impressed.

We stopped at the next rest stop where I returned a pair of new sunglasses to the owner who had dropped them and refilled water bottles before leaving again.

Now, at this point the weather was still very pleasant and we began seeing riders from the previously mentioned group coming back the other way, as they were hitting the metric turn around and going back (most were preparing for the 6 Gap Century in two weeks). Past the metric turnaround, we were on our own again until we stopped and 40 miles out and turned around ourselves. I stayed with R&K for a while but as it got later, I felt like I needed to get back, so I went on ahead. After 30 mintues or so, it started to get hot...the clouds broke up and the sun came out and I actually ended up with a slight sunburn. *shrug*

I finished strongly, averaging 19.3 mph for the last 24 miles, but starting to feel pre-cramping in my calves as I hadn't done anything to prevent cramps because the day seemed so cool at the start. Lesson learned.

My favorite part of the day was a day later (yesterday) when Katie saw me at church and said "that last hill, you know the one I mean...)

Yeah, I knew exactly which one she meant...a longish steep climb with 5 miles to go. It'll kill you at the end of a long ride.

So, 80 miles covered. Lots of energy left to help Cathy clean for a party she was hosting. All in all, a great day.