2008 Beautiful Backroads - Metric Route

Metric Route Map View

MotionBased Ride Data - Metric Route

I have to start this blog entry with appreciation to my fellow NARC leaders for putting together another great ride, with good sag stops and even better festivities following the ride with a small buffet of food available and tents available for us tired and hungry cyclists. Thanks to all of those who were unselfish with their time and served us at the sags stops, for the sheriff department controlling traffic at certain intersections and helping us stay safe and thanks for putting together a new route for 2008 that was really great with little traffic for the most part and had great stretches of road to get a good pace going. It seemed flat, but I still ended up with more than 3,500 feet of elevation gain for the 66 mile route. Thanks to the Budweiser Cartersville plant for hosting the event and for letting us use their parking lot on weekends as well. I wouldn't be able to guess as to how many riders signed up, but it did seem that more cars were in the parking lot than in past years.

I was excited about riding the metric this year. I have done enough centuries for 2008 so my goals was to set a good pace early and see how long I could keep it. We started before the mass start at 7:30 and our group was Jack Shippee, A friend of his (sorry - bad with names), David Marion, Gary Quellet, Mike Quick, Edgar Lebron, Keith Bolton* and me. I was just grateful to be hanging on Keith's wheel for about 39 miles. He looked like he was a man on a mission.

We started off and the air was a little breezy and cool, but it didn't take long to warm up once the sun started coming up. At about 8 miles Edgar, Keith and me started putting on a little harder pace. Within a few minutes I looked back and the rest of the guys were not in sight, but later we heard that David had a spoke to break. For many miles the three of us keep up a very good pace. We caught up with a group of about 10 that were generous to let us mix in with them for a few miles, Keith and I kept going to the front of their group and pulling hard. We eventually pulled away from that group and the three us continued on our fast and furious pace. Around mile 30 another group comes by and we mix in with them until the 39 mile sag stop, which was our first stop of the day. I barely got down half a banana when the fast group blows by us and the guys were wanting to follow them. I never saw Keith again, but soon after I saw Edgar start to give up the chase for the ultra fast guys. Edgar and I stayed together trying to help each other because it seemed no matter where we turned we getting hit by a head wind. Now that I have the data uploaded I see that the general trend for the last half is in elevation gain. So I understand now by looking at the profile how we had such a good pace in the start and now my 19.5 mph average in the first 40 miles was in jepordary of dropping the last 26 miles.

At the last sag stop (56 miles) for the metric Gary, Mike, Jack Shippee and friend pull into the rest stop. Edgar and I joined back in with Gary and Mike to finish the last 16 miles. Jack had intention of doing the century so we parted ways and tried to keep a good pace back to the waiting festivities. Toward the end I was starting to believe my legs were cooked for the day, but in the final stretches I was able to muster up some speed for the pace line with a fellow cyclist joining in our group. Mike Quick put on an awesome display of power output in the final stages pulling away from us pretty easily. Gary and I were content roll in at a good finishing pace.

For me it was a good day. Except for the last miles I did the majority of the ride with Edgar and he dropped off in the last few miles to deal with sweat getting into his eyes, but we worked together for many miles and had a good performance for the day.

It was good at the end to get a plate of pasta and a couple pieces of baked chicken, sit under the tent and talk with my buddies about the ride.

What is next for the gang?
For me I look forward to continuing riding with the brew crew on the same roads, but October 4th there is the Raisin Hope Foundation Ride that I really enjoyed last year. The route will probably have Fort Mountain, which is a very nice climb if you like that sort of thing.