As my first Big Ride in recent history, Ken and I rode Salem Bicycle Club's Monster Cookie Metric Century. I've been a good boy and training every other day (minimum of 10 miles, typically more like 15-25), but I hadn't gone above 37 miles.

We started at a reasonable pace (about 14 or 14.5), but Ken was pumping pretty fast. He started charging up hills, which caught up to him later. I stayed well-hydrated, needing to stop for bladder breaks at every pit stop (15 miles) as well as once in between. That means I stopped to pee eight times in 60 miles!

One of the highlights of the trip was a woman wearing shorts from Sturdy Girl Cycling. Go women! Anyhow, for at least 20 miles I followed a matching pair of yellow Specialized frames; the tail rider had bad bearings on the rear wheel, which was distracting. However, they were running a good pace for me. Ken held back a little bit, but mostly kept me in sight.

I sprinted for the last 3.5 miles, never dropping below 19.0mph (except at stoplights). I was greying out a little, but was able to keep at a tolerable pace for me. I was proud to have that much energy at the end of a metric century! I also had a nice surprise at the finish line- in addition to a MONSTER COOKIE, friend and Wikipedian Katr called out for me. I hadn't seen her the entire ride, so it was great to have her recognize me.

I ended up riding 63.04 miles, running at 13.8mph average speed, 37.2mph maximum speed. That equates to 4.5 hours of riding in a 6 hour period, and 1280 feet of climb. It was a really flat ride with no difficult hills (for ME, at least!).