2022 Civil War Century

 This Civil War Century may be the last century I will ride.  The metric's are so much more appropriate with a good 4 hours of riding.  I was very determined to make this right, despite the difficulty of the 4 categorized climbs and the sheer hardness of it all. For motivation, I bought myself the official jersey of the ride.  No way I could skimp on the century distance looking that good :-)I took the ride slow and easy.  The first climb was 7 miles and meandered up as best I could.  It was an ok climb and pretty carried on to around mile 30 when the 1st rest stop appeared.  Each rest stop had peaches...

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2019 Civil War Century

It's been a while since my last century and I thought I would jump right back in with both feet.  Well, the Civil War Century is all that and more. Pre-ride smiles all around Dan Wolfe and myself have ridden many rides together, as well as the Civil War Century a couple times before.  I guess it had been too long to remember the pain as was evident in this pre-ride photo where we are all smiles.  The ride starts with an 11 mile climb so the smiles wear off quickly. 33 miles down and already the climbing is just crazy.  Looks mostly downhill after mile 10 to mile 30 but those downhills go fast and then it's...

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2018 Reston Century

2018 Reston Century Me!, Dan, Jackie and Dave Let's start with the OMG weather was AWESOME today!!!!  I hope everyone got outside because these beautiful days don't come around enough (on weekends). Jackie met up with on the course and asked if she could ride with us.  She like the fast pace.  In the end, I think Dan and I would only slow her down. It was a fast ride through 50+ miles and then reality kicked in to slow it down a bit.  Still, rolling country side was great workout and plenty to look at.  There are some serious mansions out there, and I'm wondering who cuts that grass?  No way are my kids...

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2018 Chocolate Tour

2018 CHOCOLATE TOUR The other weekend (August 3-5) Danimal Clarke and myself heading north to participate in the Penn State Chocolate Tour bike ride.  Not a century this time, our goal was the 75 mile route.  Spoiler alert .. one of us was over that distance and one of us was under ... you guess? First let me throw many kudo's in Danimal's direction.  One is he's got a sweet F150.  Pretty much like the ride below.  And you know what an F150 can do?  That's right, it tows! Danimal's F150 Ride Popup City What Danimal doesn't do is drive the F150 when towing, so yours truly got that assignment. ...

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Deep Creek Century 2018

Deep Creek did not disappoint this year.  Last year my IT band kept me at 75 miles, two years ago felt so poorly only made 62 miles, five years ago was the only 100 mile victory.  2018 is a new year, with a new course, with a new can-do attitude and most importantly .. a new 2018 Specialized Sirrus! Let's start with the weather as it was a miserable forecast.  It looked like it was going to be thunderstorms from Friday afternoon all the way through Sunday afternoon.  The ride was Saturday.  It was such a bad forecast I was going to convince my trusty century companion (Mom) to stay home because the tent was...

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Rehoboth Beach Half-Marathon

Why would anyone want to travel to Rehoboth Beach in December to run a half-marathon?  Good question, the answer is because Dave Kelly would.  Dave starts training and shares his plans with myself, Danny Clarke and Tom O'Reilly.  Of course we are in so we register right away and start running. Training went fairly well for two us.  Come race time Christy (Danny's daughter) takes his bib # and runs the official fastest half-marathon Danny will ever run in his life.  To his credit, Dave still ventured down to Rehoboth to support us.  Tom successfully ran his first half-marathon and is looking for more.  And...

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Lifeline 100 w/Jon Chen

LIFELINE 100 The Lifeline 100 is a fun local ride which loops north and south of Annapolis, Maryland.  It's easy on the knees as there is "only" 2400' of climbing for a metric century (65 miles).  Yes, this was supposed to be a full century ride but my IT-band got sore early (why I don't know) and 65 miles is 25 miles further than Jon Chen has ever ridden. Weather was great, a little cool to begin.  I still say the worst part of these trip is getting up at 5am and change.  It's an easy drive to Kinder Farm Park for the start.  A "show-n-go" so we took off as soon as we got there. First Rest Stop at Mile 20 We...

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