Had a blast on another 100 miler. I've done ten centuries since April.
Today six started and three finished. One gal just wasn't feeling good, and another only planned on riding with us for about 20 miles.
I was planning on taking it pretty easy today and ride at about a 19mph pace, but....
We had a tail wind for the first part of the ride and that got us use to the idea of going fast. One of the guys said, "I could do this forever", as we cruised along at 28 mph, and enjoyed green fields, blue skies and our tailwind tainted performance. Unfortunately he said that about a mile before we turned into the wind. That was a hard wall to hit.
We hunkered down and the pulling progressively got shared less and less. We had a descent back into the Minnesota River valley, and from the top our view seemed endless. Speculation arose that we might be able to see the cities. Only our view was to the northwest and we were southwest of what we hoped to see. Despite the descent there was still plenty of work, because the path we had to pedal was straight into the wind.
I don't know what it is, but I sure enjoy farmscapes, with the soft rolling hills and the abrupt starts and stops of trees, prairies and fields. Old homesteads and barns beaten and bruised by the weather seem oddly in place, as the masters of the perfectly plowed patterns. The animals grazing undisturbed (something I enjoy doing myself), and the birds flying as if they own the sky bring an unrealistic feeling that this is the easy life, the simple life.
One hawk got me worried for a little bit. He or she seemed pretty confident flying just above us. It was about lunch time. Apparently there was a more tempting morsel hiding in the grasses just off the road.
The new green of Spring is starting to take on a mature look. The grasses are showing off their seeds to their only recently emerged cultivated relatives.
I think the farm animals are getting use to me riding by. They've quit looking up.
100/20.3 and an additional 10 mile cool down
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