Let's do it!
On April 13th, I sent an email to Mrs. Robot and asked her if she thought she’d like to attempt her first century (AKA 100 mile bike ride) and suggested the North Fork Century as it’s quite flat and relatively easy (or as easy as riding 100 miles can be (and/or my sister)).
She replied, “Let’s do it!”
In my head I thought, “awwwww yea” and then realized she was talking about the bike ride.
Forks
For those of you not familiar with the NY Metro area, the North Fork is the northern ‘fork’ of Long Island. The other ‘fork’ would be south of that and contains the Hamptons and all that mess. There are a lot of farms on the North Fork – our CSA vegetables actually come from a farm on the North Fork.
First Time Century
Before this, the longest ride she had ever done was about 60 miles. Also, her bike is a fun little single speed-job. I had ridden her bike before and realized that while it was nice little bike, I didn’t think she’d enjoy it for 100 miles - luckily, that is where our pal KMAC came to the rescue and loaned her bike to the cause. She rides a nice Specialized Roubaix.
Mrs. Robot also bought padded shorts and gloves and all that for the ride.
So, let’s review:
1. She’s riding a bike that she has basically never ridden before
2. This is her first time riding a traditional road bike
3. She’s wearing padded shorts for the first time
4. She’s riding 100 miles for the first time.
Crikey.
Success
As you may have read on Orkut, we were successful. She said she suffered a bit on the last ten miles, but otherwise it was pretty uneventful. Most of the roads were flat although traffic was annoying from time to time. There was a one big hill and she handled it well.
From time to time, I’d play “Final Countdown” on my phone to motivate her. Not sure if that helped.
North Fork
It’s a nice ride. The roads ranged from quiet suburbs or farmland to annoying Long Island tourist busy – but there was always a good sized shoulder to ride on. Decent rest stops with the usual pb&j, Fig Newtons, Gatorade, and bananas.
