Road Ride Report Amtrak Century 2008

I am so bummed I missed the good time. Thursday night I started to get a sore throat, Friday I was conjested but felt better in the afternoon, got all my car loaded and stuff ready to leave bright and early, woke up and couldn't even talk and felt like someone was stepping on my chest. Stayed in bed most of the day, no riding for me all weekend. Looks like you guys did the leg work for me. Next year!

 

Amtrak Century

Haha thanks for the kudos.........hell i don't know anything about road bikes i can't tell the difference between a touring bike, a sport bike, or a racing bike.....

I do wish my road bike had at least 100 mm of travel up front however :-k

 

Emejay, I must have been right behind you; I just passed that lady at the top of Torrey Pines. Those popsicles were tasty, weren't they? I was told that this is the only century ride where you can actually GAIN 5 lbs :lol:

As for the train ride, I'd call and make arrangements with Amtrack before you leave; they were VERY rude/nasty and not obliging ANYONE with a bike when I was there. I think it would even be better to arrange a later train ride and have lunch/relax at your destination than have to deal with an overworked, underpaid, starved for attention cycle-hater (not just me, the rest of the line with bikes was complaining and asking for a manager).

Lety-we sure missed you! When I ran into PUgz et al I asked about you and was sorry to hear that you were ill; hope you're better now--we'll have to ride some other time

 

This is my very first century and I'm very new to road biking but I had a blast! 100.9 miles, 2486 ft of climb and 6 hour 3 minute of saddle time, 16.6mph average rolling time....not bad for my first century. :beer:

Meet up with Doris, Jason(pugz), Steve(back of the pack) and few others and started around 6:30. Few miles into the ride I remember I forgot my sun screen so I stopped by Ralphs to pick up a tube of sun screen and pastry and Powerrade and some mint. After the shopping I did not catch up to everyone till the first rest stop, they must of booked.

Ran into Oz and his 20 year old cruiser cruising at 20+mph! What an animal!

Raced a couple of fancy carbon wheel roadies.....couple were sweating bad so I had to pass them.:lol:

Only manage to draft off 2 small groups since the everyone is stringed out and not terribly organized.

Lunch was great and had a great pile of pickles and think it really helped! Torrey pine wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Took it easy at first since I never rode that road before but after the turn I figure it can't be much more so shifted to the big ring and stood up. Feels great to pass a bunch of people but also got passed by few really fast guys.

Doris who is 65 and passing people left and right made me get off my lazy a$$ and push a bigger gear. Pugz is truly inspirational, if someone to strap extra 100lbs on me no one can even get me off my a$$ let along riding 100 miles. Heck even the fullerton lady showed up with her strange looking bike!

Great weather, great company, great ride and of course great time! Big kudo to the organizer and everyone who showed up.....oh yeah Steve that "cold" Tecate was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!:beer:

BTW Steve next time give me a heads up when you take a picture of me....need to suck in my gut ya know.:lol: