Limbs and Kidney
Saturday, May 17th, 2008
The mileage munky calculates that since mid February, the bird legs have chubbily jogged over 260 miles and the birdbike has been spun over 800. A good chunk of the latter was eaten this weekend just gone.
First off was a second 10K around Central Park – the birdlegs coming in a few seconds slower than the last one:
Then, the day after: following a blearly-eyed 3 AM start, a ride through the dark to Penn Station, and breakfast with a few hundred other nutter cyclists to catch the train to the start of the Montauk Century in Babylon. Right out of the blocks at Bablyon, T’s new saddle fell apart – she’d a screw loose, you know…. A queue and a fix by the kindly resident mechanic in the car park and the off for proper. First 40 miles were splend: bright sunshine and coolish temps., a decent pace, and easy riding.
Then T. drove over a 13-inch nail and imploded her Slime-filled back tube. Green, greasy sputem all over the shop. Unprepared gits don’t carry all the right sized inner tubes, it seems. Leaving me to ride ahead 10 miles or so to pick up a new one, and back again for T. to remove the splattered guts of the old tube and replace. All of which put us right at the rear of the pack and an hour or three later than we would have liked. Best slice of the ride was just about to come, however: along the beachfront west of Westhampton and the speed up and down and over of Ponquogue Bridge:
With temperature and rain drizzle starting to drop, T. took the handy opportunity, and no doubt sensible decision, to hop on the Bail Out Bus at Official Mile 70 (which, it transpired, took her on a pointlessly circular tour chasing a mad, lost, bike lorry driver) and I continued at a fair clip through the worstening Wet. A few miles from there, the odothang clicked over my very own personal century for the day, and there was Much Rejoicing:
There are no doubt breathtaking views of the rugged coastline on the way into Montauk and the end of the terminal moraine that is Long Island, but all I saw was grey splatter in the worstening downfall. The only real hills on the Century are conveniently placed right at the end, just as one’s knees are feeling the miles in the rain. Finally pedalled into the inn that is the finish line to find a lack of food, drink, or dry clothes (forkers), and a zoo of milling centurians and grumpy waiting staff.
Here be the full route spun:
