a long ride out and back

the forecast lied. it said rain. the radar backed it up. liars! it didn't rain at all and i put off doing the ironman route because of it. i hate liars! i loved my ride, however.

i knew i was going to have a great day today. i woke up at 4:00am and my legs felt great. they were ready to go. i told them to wait and went back to sleep. when i woke up again a little after 6:00am, they were still pumped, ready to ride.

i dressed slowly and took off around 7:30am with plans to ride north to tonganoxie or mclouth, turning around after the promised sprinkles started. i had mapped the distances on dailymile and knew approximate distances. for some reason, those distances were way off. tongie was supposed to be only 12 miles away. it was 14. mclouth was only 14 away on the dailymile map. it was 24 miles.

since it never rained, i just kept riding right on through mclouth. i made it all the way to oskaloosa's jefferson street before turning to come back.

the wind was perfect for the ride. pretty puny and out of the northwest. it was never directly in my face for long, so i was able to maintain 15mph on the way out.

the hills were a bit of a challenge however. the most memorable among them was the first hill out of tonganoxie headed west on kansas highway 16. when i made the left hand turn onto the highway and looked ahead, i smiled. i don't know why, but that was my reaction to seeing the road rise before me. 'now that's a hill,' i thought. i don't know what the hill's grade was, but it was long enough and steep enough that i was near my redline as i neared the summit. i just sat tight and kept turning the cranks. i was glad when i crested that there weren't more of the same following it. the descent of this hill was memorable too. i hit my highest speed of the year, 41.7mph, dropping down to main street. i caught and passed a fellow rider just around the corner headed south. he was chatting on his cell, so i just waved and rode on by. total elevation gain over the nearly 63-mile ride was 1089 feet.

i stopped only twice this morning. once in mcclouth on the way home to eat a granola bar. once at the junction of the road that leaves eudora and highway 32 for the same purpose. the energy from those two bars and two bottles of gatorade kept me going the whole way.

the only thing that could've made the ride better was a friend to share it. wish you were here! (62.93 miles @ 16.7mph)