Man, 50 miles is a long way to ride your bike. I did a 50 mile ride on Saturday as part of the Albuquerque Century and it was hard. I mean really hard. It didn’t help that I hadn’t been riding my bike almost at all in the past 6 months. So really I had no right to ride that far and if the last 15 miles hadn’t been downhill or flat I don’t think I could have finished. But while I was unreasonably happy to see the finish line, I did it.
The main thing you forget when you don’t ride long distances for a while is how much sitting on a bike hurts your ass. That and my back muscles hurting from not being used like that for so long were what almost did me in, not my legs which is nice because it means I didn’t lose all my leg fitness. Now that I’ve done this insane ride I’m going to push myself to be ready for the 100 miles next year. That ride has 2 insane hills as well as big rolling hills on Tramway so there’s no faking that one. I’ll have to be ready for real. I’m also hoping to do some triathlons next year since I’ve been a slacker and don’t think I’ll be ready this year. We’ll see though.
I do have one suggestion for the ABQ Century folks: Do some kind of real finish line. I showed up at the finish to no applause, no picture, nothing. I figured I was just late since it took me awhile to finish but some other people there said there had been nothing the whole time they had been there either. Now to a lot of people, doing those long rides might just be another weekend but the rest of us would appreciate some kind of atta-boy or something. I don’t even need a plaque or anything. Hell, a whoohoo and a congrats would have sufficed.
But overall it was great. The food/rest stops were very well done and the route was mostly well marked. Hopefully next year some of the roads with no shoulder will be widened but that’s up to the city, not the ride people. I’m glad I did it and I look forward to going again.
