The Fall Century was coming, with dire predictions of torrential rain. It hadn’t rained all summer, and according to the so-called accu-weather people, it was all coming down on Sunday. This put a damper, so to speak, on my plans for doing the century. In days of old, I would have just done it regardless of the weather, but old age and wimpiness had set in, and I started to examine other options. I decided that if things turned nasty, I’d just bail out at the 62 split and do that instead. Of course, Murphy’s Law says that it wouldn’t start raining until well after the split, probably at the 50 mile point, where I’d be as far as possible from home.
As usual, I started out way too fast, and after a while found myself in a small group that was setting a rather painful pace. At the 62 mile split, one of the principal painmeisters, Ivan (aka “The terrible”) split, and after that the pace got more reasonable. It was, dare I say, almost comfortable for a while. I didn’t know anyone in the group, so I identified them principally by their jersey color. My companions were two red guys and a blue guy, and another somewhat orange guy who fell off the back for a while and then came back from the dead.
I had determined to practice my wheelsucking and under no circumstances ever take the lead. But after a while I realized that the blue guy had been pulling for miles, with no signs of quitting. Somehow guilt got the better of me, and I offered to take a token pull. Bad mistake. After being in the front for a bit, we encountered the first of the climbs, and I became history.
This was somewhat according to plan, since I knew there was no way I could stay with these guys on the climbs, but by judicious wheelsucking, I could get swept along until then at a smart pace, kind of like booster rockets on the space shuttle. So I settled into my normal pace and waited for the chase group to catch up.
Sure enough, rain started around mile fifty, but it was only a sprinkle, not enough to bother stopping to put rain gear on. I had not been keeping track of mileage but it seemed that the water stop should be nigh. One thing that seemed odd was that I only saw one tire track in the road ahead of me. I figured maybe the others had gone by before it started raining.
Then I got passed by the two red guys and realized that the reason I hadn’t seen their tire tracks was that they had stopped at the water stop that I missed, despite having helped arrow the ride a couple of weeks before. The one tire track I did see was the blue guy who had also missed the stop. Since the only sustenance I had that day was half an Entenmann coffee cake in the early AM, I was really looking forward to that second water stop.
By this time, my early exuberance was starting to take its toll, and I arrived at the second water stop quite ready to pack it in. I would hang out with Mrs. D. who was womanning the water stop and ride back in my personal sag van with her. So I relaxed and watched the passing of riders, poor devils, who might still be due for the torrential downpour. It wasn’t until some time later that I discovered a fatal flaw with my plan. Susan had hauled all the food out in the van, and due to the weather, there was a lot of left over food. So there was no room for me in the van! Ousted by a box of Oreos!
Fortunately, Pamela and John had just rolled in, somewhat behind schedule due to a series of mechanicals with their new tandem. I saw my opportunity and attached myself to them for the rest of the ride. And there was NO rain!
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