Finally! I’ve been waiting all year for this ride. So, it’s the Friday before the ride and I’m sitting at work with all the guys. Everyone is joking, and making wise cracks about how the weather is going to turn to poo on Sunday (the day of the ride) No worries here though, I’ve done checked, and know it’s going to be good. Unfortunately, we have no idea what the planned route is going to be. So, of course, here come the wise cracks about getting lost… Ah the joys of having “FRIENDS”. My only response was this: “If I get lost and have to ride an extra 5-10 miles, well I’m going to say screw it and just do 100!”

Fast forward to Sunday.

The ride is supposed to start on Mass street in downtown Lawrence, so I show up about an hour early to get my ride packet and map. WOW! They changed the ride this year to make it one of the hardest Octogintas ever. (Basically, they searched out hills and added them.) Oh well. Keith from work met me at the start, as we had already planned on staying pretty close during the ride. We also ran into several of the Saturday morning Muffin riders.

I’m not going to bore you with 100 miles of recaps, but I will say it was a good ride. The first SAG stop had a good breakfast of eggs and waffles. Leaving there though, we did miss our turn so we ended up back tracking about 4.5 miles (so 9 extra miles). Then, shortly after that, I had a flat. No big deal, just took about 15 minutes to get it all changed out, and back on the road again. From there, it was rather uneventful. We stopped at all but one of the SAG stops and refilled our water bottles.  About 70 miles in, we pulled into the lunch time SAG and had a good bowl of soup. (Kinda craving that now as a matter of fact.)

Up until this point, we’d been making pretty good time, with an average speed just under 19 mph, but Keith was starting to burn out, so we slowed it down. Those hills were really wearing on both of us. I got to thinking and remembering my work time jests at this point and figured I’d bring up the topic. So, I mentioned to Keith that we were going to end up closer to 90 miles than 80. I told him that I thought I was going to go ahead and ride on past the finish to get an extra 10 more miles. That way, I could call it a century! After much prodding, he agreed to ride it with me.

So, to make the long story short. We finished off the Octoginta, then added some extra miles to make it an even 100. All in all, a great day!