The 70% Solution

This week marked the first of this season’s Midweek Century rides, organized by Jim Schroeder. He called the route for today Tulips Blooming in Solsberry.  This was intended to be a 95 mile route out to Solsberry, then riding on to Worthington, back to Bloomfield, then on to Solsberry again, finally returning to Bloomington. Jim has adopted a friend’s recommendation that anything over 95 miles counts as a century. This ride in particular would deserve it, as the route indicated 5647 feet of climbing. The weather was also predicted to be warmer by far than anything else we’ve experienced so far this year.

When we got to the park at 9 AM, we were a small group of 4: Allan, Jim, Joe, and Clair. Clair announced that he only intended to go as far as Solsberry before returning via the standard club route for the “Yoo Hoo at Yo Ho’s Ride”, for a total of 40 miles. Meanwhile Joe said he didn’t want to go as far as to Worthington, and Allan said he would really like to be back by 3:00 to 3:15. Joe and Jim are probably the most knowledgable and capable bike route designers in the state of Indiana. Between the two of them they agreed to skip Worthington and take a shorter route from Bloomfield back to Solsberry. They were right on the money as I rolled into my driveway at the end of the ride exactly at 3 PM, with 75 miles, home to home. (It did require no stopping from Bloomfield to Bloomington, though.) It may not have been a century in the end, but it was more than enough for me, thirty miles longer, than any other rides so far in 2013. I’m not in such a big hurry to rack up miles. Even for the shortened route my GPS recorded 4559 feet of ascent, and my legs are feeling it as I write this later in the evening. Seventy per cent of a century route may not count as a century, but it was just right for me.

Although there obviously had been a little isolated showers in places, we were never rained on and only felt a few sprinkles. We were glad the sun didn’t come out very much, since this was by a significant margin the warmest riding day we’ve seen so far this year. Joe’s computer has a built-in thermometer, which showed a reading in the low 90s at one point when the sun was beating on our backs and we were riding over relatively fresh smooth blacktop.

Altogether we had a great early spring longer ride.

P.S. Jim has developed a schedule of weekly century rides for the whole season, with approximately one a month being a drive-and-ride. Because of insurance issues and because he wants to try to attract some riders from outside our immediate area he is not billing these rides as BBC club rides. They aren’t on the club calendar. If you would like to be on the separate email list drop him a line or, if you do Facebook, then check out the Southern Indiana Centurions Facebook Page