Kenny Lucas
DEEP CREEK GRAN FONDO
SAVAGE CENTURY
The Savage Century ride at Deep Creek is the toughest ride in the area that I know about. On Saturday June 25 I was reminded just how hard that ride can be. There was some training ahead of this ride, but obviously a bit more was necessary. I had a great practice run with Dan and Rich out in Middleburg, should have done that 4x more. I did ride Fountainhead the weekend before, hurt my knee, then didn’t ride all week. Maybe I should restart my Wednesday rides out to Purcellville?
Bottom line is this is the first century that I happily
opted for the metric instead. That’s 100
km’s which on this course is still very difficult. I only walked a bit on one hill, Pigs Ear
road, ‘cause even at full steam I’m not sure I’ve got the gearing to get up
that ridiculous climb (note to self, other people did).
Deep Creek State Park is a beautiful place to spend the
weekend. I rode up Friday and pitched
camp. I didn’t have my typical camping
buddy with me (Mom), so I opted for the provided food on Friday night at the
aquatic center. A pretty good night’s
sleep.
Amy Charity is a former professional biker. I think she retired last year. She gave the guest speech and it was pretty
good.
Amy had 5 points that I might remember.
Amy had 5 points that I might remember.
- Just keep pedaling
- Go for it
- Practice moderation (while still going for it)
- and I don’t remember the 4th
The 5th is the best, “Don’t be a Douchebag”. Her point is that it takes relationships in
the cycling business to get a break, to get that loaner bike, to jump start
your career and to get on your first team.
It’s a shame that more people don’t follow this advice in their
lives. So I walked up to her, said “I’m
not a douchebag, and I’d love a picture”.
My first professional women’s biker photo! Yaaaayyyyy!!!!! For the record, she was quite cool.
The start of the race was comfortable. Just a slight chill in the air that hung
around for the entire day as the sun was hidden behind clouds. A couple miles in and BOOM! Here’s the first
KOM (King of the Mountain) timed hill.
It goes up Wisp mountain. Really not a big deal, just a baby for what’s
to come.
It was a routine ride to the first Aid station at mile
20. The toughest part of the entire ride
is between Aid 1 and 2. There are 3
KOM’s and they are monsters. That’s what
zapped me, just blood-sucking energy draining monsters. Even the riding in-between hills was no “eat
a sandwich” routine pedal.
So at the 53-mile mark there is a left arrow (100 mile) and
a right arrow (100 km). It took
absolutely no hesitation for me to turn right.
I was worried that after the ride I would regret taking the
shortcut. No, that didn’t happen. What did happen as a result of the shorter
ride is my knee only hurt until 4am, not the entire next day.
Saturday after my ride, I showered, took in the scenery,
talked to a few people, watched the amazing Amy Charity finish the
double-metric (126 mi) in 8.5 hours, drank a bunch of water, and eventually
cheered on Dan Wolfe as he finished up the century. Good for him to stick that out. What a difficult ride that must have been.
Then we hear this “ahem” from behind us. The group in the
site next to us decided to go camping for the first time. They had no clue how to start a fire. They would have died on that Tom Hanks
“Castaway” island. Basically, we carried
my fire to their pit. Then I had to educate
them that blowing on it won’t make the fire go out.
A great night’s sleep and then I woke up to drive 5 hours
down to Camp Raven Knob Scout Camp. So
far so good here. Just had a heckuva
adventure trying to find the Orange Trail.
That’s in the next blog.
I may come back to Deep Creek because the camping is so
great. I’ll train a little bit harder
for it next time as I’m not getting any younger.
Click for Strava statistics
Click for Strava statistics
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