A Mere Century

Despite all the pre ride angst I completed the 100 mile bike ride. It took 9.16 minutes and I used up around 3360 calories. See the full details: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/143867984 The ride itself was tough with gale force winds making the first 50km very slow, and ensuring that the ride would end in the dark. In fact I have not done much night time cycling and although I had lights it was impossible to follow the route sheets. Anyway, we made it safely back to the ride HQ without incident.

The good thing about such a ride is that you can eat anything, and have huge portions without guilt. This photo shows RB and my immense treacle pudding:

I can recommend the Priest's House Cafe in Audlem, so does RB.

I wanted a photo of me at the end, but the camera malfunctioned, so all I can offer as evidence is this heavily photo-shopped image:

At the end.

And finally, the event was brilliantly organised. A great many riders took part. The route sheets is a complex thing over 100 miles as the ride has to avoid city and town centres, along with the main trunk roads. My route card had around 100 instructions so it does take some following. In the past I have made major errors and ended up cycling significantly more miles than necessary. Today I used the dual system of the route sheet mounted on my handle-bars and my Garmin Edge 500. Apart from when it got too dark to see them, we stuck faithfully to the set course.