100 Miles for World Bicycle Relief

Posted by Jeff Carter
on August 20th, 2012

Yesterday I rode in the Wrigley Field Road Tour. It was a lot of fun believe it or not. We had a good day to ride. There wasn’t a lot of wind, and the traffic was relatively light. It wasn’t too hot either.

This was the third time they ran this race. Todd Ricketts and F.K Day really do a great job. The first couple of years, they rode to Milwaukie to a game. This year, we rode out and finished at Wrigley. As a long time suffering Cub fan, to walk on the outfield grass was amazing. I posted a bunch of photos on Instagram.

The race is broken up into 20 mile segments, and they have water/food stops along the way. They also have a lot of cars and motorcycles out on the course to direct traffic, fix flats and do mechanical work on bikes that break down. The only real risk you take is mental and physical.

Normally, I ride my bike a lot in the summer. Years ago, I had back problems and had to give up running so I went to biking. I bought a Trek 5500 frame on Ebay, outfitted it with Dura Ace gears and off I went. This summer, I rode my bike exactly twice. I wasn’t motivated and I got busy. The last time I was on my bike was April.

Yesterday, I rode it 100 miles to make up for all that!

I had ridden a bike a long way before but had never done the proverbial “century”. Centuries are to bikers what marathons are to runners. I didn’t have a goal in mind when I started the race. All I wanted to do was finish. When we lined up, there was a guy smoking a cigarette next to me so I figured I was in good company.

For the first 40 miles, I did pretty good. My body felt okay. At 60, I started to cramp. At 80, I was dying and if it wasn’t for two guys who carried me along at 18mph through around 15 miles, I might not have made it.

My friends that were riding were much faster than I, and in better shape too. I didn’t want to burden them, so I rode most of the race by myself. If you haven’t biked, biking alone is much more difficult than packing up and biking in a group. I can see why the peloton in pro biking is so valuable.

My body today is sort of sore. Not overwhelmingly. Just muscle soreness from being an out of shape rider and holding a position for 6.67 hours. I rode on average around 15 miles per hour the whole race. If you want to do the race next year, sign ups happen around March.

In the meantime, I would suggest calling up Higher Gear, buying a decent bike, and using their training room all winter to get ready.

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