Shenandoah Mountain 100 & 2009 bridge to bridge

well. the SM100 happened. i took over an hour and a half off my previous time finishing 10hrs 35mins.

moving along...

after deciding to partake in the 2009 bridge to bridge incredible century bike RIDE on monday i had few days to train and even fewer to start making up excuses...

jonathan lubkeman and I worked (like top 10) the first 35-40 miles. it seemed like 6-8 people were and when we got back into the bunch speed slowed to 18-19mph. i realized this was not the smart thing to do about 2 hours in. oh well, i felt it on 181/221. this year it was 55 miles to 181 instead of 49.something.

181 went by okay. got bottles from jimmy gragg twice. the brp from 181 to BR was a second wind and i descended to price park with little braking. first cramps came at sims pond. great. 221 was super foggy at first, catching cars that had previously passed us. getting past holloway was a relief and soon i had 100 miles on my ticker. good thing we had six more to go. getting inside the gate was helpful but it seemed steeper than two years ago...



once inside, only mark smith passed me. he started at 11... one guy that i caught kept unclipping, walking, then climbing back on to sprint. confused by his ways i let him go but other than mark i think i kept it moving then. the last straight came quickly and i expected more switchbacks but every few seconds a roar of applause, etc would come from the small crowd. then turn right. done.

oh, the start was dry. it only began raining ~1 hour in. thankfully the next 5.5 hours were consistent rain, although the exposed sections of GM had tremendous winds. like get blown around on the bike going 3mph. brakes worked mostly the whole time although i had to open the rear brake qr for standing climbing because the wheel would scrub the pads. gears began to deteriorate ~75 miles in on the BRP near roseboro rd. that became annoying. my time ~6hrs 45mins or something.

thanks a bunch to jim gragg for his ticket and driving and bottle fills, trevor critcher for safety pins, ray reid for yelling something at me on 181, and darcy for standing in the rain for hours at the top of a cold foggy place.