Riding the distance

Let's get to the point - my last post was titled "Why I don't have time to ride a century" and just a few weeks later I had a chance to use a whole day to ride as much as I wanted. And I didn't like it.

But let's start from the beginning. I decided to just enjoy a full day of riding - something that doesn't happen very often as work or family usually sort of "get in the way". I designed a route that seemed reasonable, picked a day when weather was supposed to be decent and started early enough to have plenty of time.

I took off in Winchendon, MA and moved north towards New Hampshire. There are some nice dirt roads in this area that are certainly worth visiting - roughly between Winchendon and Jaffrey. At this point I realized that there are some problems with riding a bike off-road in early spring. First - it's still quite cold, to the point when it may actually be sub-Celsius-zero in the morning. Second - April is rainy, which means that some trails may be flooded.

And they were. After carefully assessing the situation I realized that the puddle is too deep to ride through it, but shallow enough to walk through. Unfortunately, both sides of the road had enough vegetation and swamp to make it impossible to go around the puddle. That left me with one option - shoes off, bike on shoulder and walk.

Here comes the worst part. If you see that the top of the puddle has a thin floating sheet of ice on it you can be sure that this isn't exactly a hot tub.

After waiting a few minutes to get at least partial feeling in my feet, which allowed me to put my socks and shoes back on, I continued towards Jaffrey, NH. From there I moved back south using Monadnock Branch Rail Trail.

Then I rode west just north of the state border. It started getting a bit warmer and some sun was popping out. It was already afternoon and I had to take a break for lunch. It's always good to pack up some real food - sandwiches, nuts for snacking, chocolate. I hate riding with just fake "cycling food" like gels and bars.

At some point around mile 60 or so, I started getting a feeling that I was supposed to enjoy it more. In other words, weather was fine, road was good, bike was rolling just fine, yet I somehow couldn't enjoy riding the distance and adding miles. I was getting tired.

Maybe it was simply that 127km (80mi) was too much to take in a hilly terrain. At least for now. Maybe my expectations were wrong. Or maybe I need to pack up more sandwiches next time. Somehow I think that in the future I would rather go for two short rides than one really long one. We'll see about that.