We did it!

Jenn got to ride her first century over the weekend, and a challenging first century it was!

Yep, the Old Kentucky Home Tour's Pottershop Century!

The bike was great--thanks again to Bill and Kate for letting us borrow it for this event!

As the morning progressed, the buzz had gotten around that Jenn and I were going for her first century ride. By the time we got to the fifty mile point, also the decision point for doing the century instead of the seventy-mile option, Jenn was pumped up and raring to go!

Everyone who rides the OKHT knows of Pottershop Road. Duc Do provided this entry in his list of one hundred (or so) hills in the area. Pottershop Road features three climbs of note (along with several smaller acclivities) to make for a challenging bit of work ninety-five miles into a century. The first averages thirteen-something percent grade for a third of a mile, and it has a relative easy spot in the middle of it. There is a lot of chip-seal road repair on Pottershop Road, which despite its appearances, is fairly stable (albeit worse than sandpaper if one falls on it). A few feet beyond the first patch of chip-seal, my legs cramped, forcing a halt to our first attempt. We sat out the cramps, turned the bike around, and rode back down to the stop sign to try again. Second try was successful, riding (for me, at least) on the verge of leg cramps much of the time. Lowest speeds were in the three miles an hour range, so we got to work not only on keeping it moving, but balancing at that speed.

Much fun was had at the club's rest stop at the top of that first hill, when Jenn and I stopped and she jumped off the bike on her adrenaline-fueled excitement. I stayed on the bike and rested a moment, knowing I was going to need a lot more power to get over the rest of the climbs. Folks thought I was exhausted, and I was certainly tired.

Carl and Sandy Davis, who were staffing the rest stop, had a special treat for us at the stop. Carl opened a bottle of wine to celebrate that Jenn and I were (fairly) newly married, and that part of our honeymoon involved riding Jenn's first century on the OKHT. We didn't drink much--just enough to taste it and celebrate, but it was quite thoughtful of them! Pictures were taken, bottles were refilled, and down that hill we went, looking forward to the several more small climbs and two major ones remaining.

On the last one of the major pitches, our lowest observed speed was two-point-eight miles an hour. It's a little challenging doing a near-track-stand on a tandem, anyway, but at full power to boot? Wow.

Total time for the century was about ten hours. Ride time was about seven hours. Before reaching Pottershop Road, our average speed was about 14.2, down from a high of 14.7 at some point in the day. Our final average rolling speed was something like 13.7 miles an hour, giving an idea of how slow we were on Pottershop Road.

The word got around, though, and Jenn earned lots of props for doing Pottershop as her first century, and we got some kudos (and not a few "are you nuts?" comments) for riding that one on a recumbent tandem.

With all that excitement, I was tired on Sunday. It took me almost thirty miles to loosen up and be able to ride with anything approaching power. It was easy enough to get things rolling when going downhill or on fairly level ground. However, my climbing just flat stunk--my legs simply didn't want to work on anything above a 4% grade.

Oh, well. Off to work. Maybe I'll have more to say later...