The story behind your first century ride (either Metric or Imperial)

[steverob]

When chatting with friends recently about cycling and more specifically, the longest rides we'd ever done, we all seemed to have stories to tell about the first time we broke through that magic century barrier - whether it was 100km or 100 miles. For some reason all of us remembered those particular rides vividly and none of them were just straightforward "I went out and did a slightly longer ride than I had before" tales. So I thought I'd come on here and see if I could tease similar stories out of people on CycleChat to see if it was something that was unique to just our little group, or whether everyone else also had a tale to tell about their first century.

I'll post my own story below in the next few minutes, which is about a metric century (as I still haven't done an imperial yet), but if you have done both a 100km and a 100 miler, feel free to post about whichever one you want.

 

[Markymark]

No satnav thingy so did the route by memory and distance measured using wheel revolution sensor. Got home and realised only done 98 miles. Did the most arduous and boring 6 laps of the block to get to 100.12 miles. Not bettered it since.

 

[DCLane]

Mine was quite simple: In the April of 2013 I'd tried to do 100 miles and got as far as York (about 45 miles), frozen and soaked when the weather turned unexpectedly.

Cue June and another attempt to go over 100 miles when I'd not gone beyond 80 before, despite several 70's. I set out on a nice day to do the April route again and finished on 119 miles with no issues: Dewsbury-Selby-York-Wetherby-Leeds-Bradford and home.

 

[Kestevan]

My first 100 miler was more by accident than design. I posted something about it at the time......
https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/my-first-sportive.71074/

 

[Milkfloat]

Mine was an accident as a schoolboy in the late 80's. I planned a trip around the Kent border with a couple of friends over 3 days, staying at various friends/relatives houses on the way. We got around from our starting point in Herne Bay around to Dungerness, then when we got to my friend Matt's Uncles house where we were going to stay the night, we found that he had forgotten that 3 of us were arriving and he was 'entertaining' that night. So with no real way of organising anything, we cycled home. Ended up with about 110 miles and rode for a couple of hours in dark without lights. I think the most I had ridden in one day before was about 50 miles. As a 14 year old it did not seem to be much of an achievement.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Back in the 1970s me and a school pal decided to cycle from home in the Midlands to Aberystwyth. We were planning to take a couple of days getting there, but when we reached our half way stop at Clun it was still early, so we decided to carry on. The facts that we were heading into Wales where it is not flat, and that our lights were barely adequate, and that we were less than half way there had no effect on our teenage logic. I don't remember much about it apart from being scared on descents down sheep-strewn hills in the dark, seeing the lights of Aberystwyth in the distance, and not being able to walk the next day ... and having the 100 mile bragging rights!

 

[iandg]

I was 12 years old. I'd joined Stafford Road Club a few months earlier and had been on a few club runs with them. It was suggested I have a go at a 100 mile reliability trial.

 

[steverob]

My tale is quite a long one, as it actually starts in early March 2015, a month or so before I achieve my goal!

Amazingly my application to RideLondon had been successful (first time!), so I knew I was going to have to start upping my mileage PDQ to be ready for that, but at that point my longest ride had been a local sportive the previous summer which was just over 55 miles, although I'd done about 60 miles on the day if you include riding to and from the start.

My "new" road bike was in for it's first real service at the bike shop I'd bought it from - not my local one (they didn't have the model I wanted in stock when I was buying 6 months previously) but one about 15 miles from where I lived. However it's a nice ride out that way and I thought I owed it to them to give them a try at least once - turns out they were terrible and I haven't been back to them since!

While I was waiting for it to be serviced (it took two weeks due to them forgetting to order in the right parts) I was back to riding my old steel bike, which even then was really showing its age, but I managed to coax it round a long but relatively flat ride, for an area near the Chilterns anyway, and ended up doing 58.3 miles. I probably could have gone and done the extra few miles, but I really wanted to break the barrier on my new bike. Plus I figured that if I could do that distance on a bike that didn't really fit me well and had a terrible set of gears, it should be dead easy to do on my new and better bike, right?

So I started to plan my ride for next weekend - would get my wife to drop me off at the bike shop and then ride a circuitous route home that would give me 63.5 miles, with a couple of challenging hills en route, but nothing too serious. However about 40 miles in, my legs just started to give up. At first I thought it was because of a headwind, but even when I turned out of that, I was still struggling. Then on the next hill at about 47 miles, which was one I'd done without too many problems before, I had to stop twice (was almost tempted to walk it) and decided that it wasn't going to happen today and quit the rest of the route, choosing to coast the most direct route home from there. When I uploaded it to Strava, I called it "Too Far, Too Soon", although I did set a new record in that (unintentionally) it was now my longest single ride, beating the effort I'd done the week before - as it turned out, by about 100 yards!

So for the next few weeks, I went back to just working on my fitness and doing my usual 35-45 mile rides to build my confidence back up. I got to the second of Saturday in April and I had planned to do 30 miles that day, then maybe a slightly longer ride on the Sunday, but the weather was surprisingly nice and I thought that maybe I could extend it and swap, doing the longer ride first if I felt good. As it was, the early parts of the ride went smoothly, so 30 miles soon became 40 and at that point I figured I should try some climbing (the century was still not even on my radar), so I headed for Ivinghoe Beacon. For those of you unfamiliar with my area of the country, while the Chilterns are almost solely short but steep climbs, Ivinghoe is a rare exception much more like Box Hill. And that day I absolutely flew up it - turned out to be a PR at the time - leaving me wanting more.

As I headed back home, I turned (once again) into a headwind, but while it was tough going, I wasn't completely dying on my arse like previously. Plus I saw two cyclists about half a mile ahead of me on the long straight main road and I could swear I was reeling them in; very, very slowly, but they were definitely getting closer and with a target to aim for now, I was motivated to keep going. BTW, this opportunity doesn't happen much to me - I typically ride at a pace that it turns out is just fast enough that I don't often get overtaken, but still way too slow to normally catch any other riders. As I closed the gap to about half the distance I originally saw them at, they then turned off the main road and headed onto the lower parts of one of the steeper local climbs - as this would also get me out of the headwind, I thought I'd follow and see if I could catch them. I did eventually manage to catch and sat on the back of the second rider, but only for about 50 yards, because it happened just before the T-junction where you turn left to do the second (and steepest) half of the hill - they made this turn, but I knew that I was spent having trying to reach them and so turned right back towards home.

At this point I suddenly started paying attention to my Garmin again and noticed that I was almost at 50 miles. Given it was going to be a minimum of 8 miles more from here to home, this was the first point I figured that 100km might be possible. The next 2 miles were mainly downhill meaning I could save my energy and then everything heading towards home from there was fairly flat, so I started planning a way I could extend the ride to make up the extra distance. I was approaching Aylesbury from the south-east and I live in the north-east corner of the town, but I figured if I went the long way round via the western side of the ring road, I thought it might just be enough.

As I started to go round the edge of town I was trying to calculate in my head how far I had to go and each time I did, it seemed to leave me just a little short, but I wasn't 100% sure of the distances to go as I wasn't used to coming home via this route. I decided to detour into a couple of housing estates that I passed, hoping that going through all the back routes with their twisty, turny closes would add on more than sticking to the main roads and that might just give me enough. Eventually I reached an area of town I was very familiar with (as many of my rides do come home via this bit) and I knew that when I passed a certain pub, I'd have exactly one mile to go to home. As I went past it, my Garmin said I needed just 0.85 miles more and while I knew at that point I was set, I didn't actually celebrate until I'd actually officially managed the 100km, which happened literally just as I topped the final (small) climb only a few hundred yards from home. Couldn't have planned the distance much better if I'd tried!

 

[robgul]

July 2003 and the Dunwich Dynamo - about 120 miles, overnight from East London to Dunwich on the Suffolk coast. A surreal experience riding with hundreds of others out through the edge of London into dark lanes, following twinkling red rear-lights and seeing the dawn start to break at about 0330.

First 100km was in June 2003, one stage of a ride over a few days from Stratford-upon-Avon to Harrogate via the Humber Bridge.

Rob

 

[mythste]

I got dragged along by ~20 cycle chatters from Manchester to Llandudno!

 

[Alan O]

Oh yes, I remember quite vividly - both were when I was a student at Leeds University (1977-80) and I used to cycle a lot round the area. My longest day's ride had been around 50 miles.

100km: I woke up early one Saturday morning and just decided to ride back home to Liverpool, so I fastened my bag of bike stuff to my rack and within an hour I was on my way. I had maps that covered the important part to and over the Pennines (which was spectacular - I can still remember some of the sections to this day), and decided from there to follow the road signs though Rochdale, Bury and Bolton (less spectacular).

It was the day I had my first kerb-strike event, on the E Lancs road on the final leg. I was too close, my pedal hit the kerb, and I neatly somersaulted on to the grass verge. Thankfully unscathed, just embarrassed, and my first thought was "I hope nobody saw that".

The distance was approx 75 miles, which is around 120 km.

100m: Just a few months later, a uni friend liked the idea of cycling home too, so I went along with him - to Birmingham. That one was a bit better planned. My best memory from it was rounding a bend in Chesterfield and seeing that church with the twisted spire - I had no idea it was on our route.

My other big memory was downing a few pints of Holden's Black Country Special that evening.

The distance was approx 125 miles, and it remains my longest ride - though I've done a few more 100m rides since.

Alan

 

[iateyoubutler]

My first century (imperial) was a spur of the moment thing one sunny Sunday morning. I set off going here, there, and everywhere, and never more than about 20 miles from home at the furthest point - so I could call it a day and head back home if I needed to.

At the mid 70`s point I`d had it, and was going to call it a day, but I got a text message from a friend of mine asking how the ride was going and that he was waiting to hear from me at the end and tell him all about the ride. That was all it took for me to dig deep and keep going, and going, and going, until I finally made the 100, which I didn`t.......................

When I got home I was a mile short and had to go around the block a few times to get to my target, but got there!

Was knackered for days after! I`ve done loads of century rides since, but that one was the most memorable

 

[PK99]

Not mine but my Daughter's maiden 100 miles.

She was in her 3rd year at Oxford and emailed:
Dad, do you think I can ride a hundred miles? - there is an Oxford to Cambridge ride, do you think I'm up to it?

Now, how often as a Dad does one get to inflict pain on one's child with a clear conscience?
Of course you are, College rowing 8. Good engine. 100 miles no a problem.

[I should add that her cycling to date had been limited to 30 towpath miles and commuting around oxford]

Roll on a few weeks and an email arrives:
I am in a world of pain and have lost the ability to have children.

RESULT!

 

[User482]

I would've been about 18 or 19, and was persuaded to do a 110 mile charity ride round the Forest of Bowland. Having only a mountain bike, I locked out the suspension fork and pumped up the tyres, and headed for the start. With a couple of friends, we fell into a group of beard and Carradice types, who a) knew the roads well, b) had machinery rather better suited for the purpose, and c) were deceptively fast. After about 50 miles and having done a couple of stiff climbs, we were starting to blow, bade our companions farewell, and dived into a café. A friend asked the owner if they had anything with plenty of carbs. The owner, who turned out to be a professional Lancastrian, replied "I don't know about no carbohydrates, but I'll do you a bacon and egg butty". Replete, we soldiered on, ever more slowly, with regular injections of dandelion and burdock (which turned out to be a less than ideal energy drink). It's a beautiful part of the world, but needed return visits to appreciate it fully. Finally, I crawled back to Lancaster, crawled into the bath, and remained there for several hours, contemplating the futility of existence.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

The story of my first century was that I thought these things were measured in kilometers but it turned out to be in miles. At 100 I could not see home.

My memories of it made up for the pain. I forgot my helmet and it was a no-helmet-no-ride ride. I faked a helmet by wearing a new red baseball cap that someone got as schwag in a race bag. I cut off the peak and got away with it at the start. Unfortunately it rained and the dye in the cap ran all the way down my face and neck and shoulders and I looked like roadkill on a bike.

Then, my riding buddy was also under the same metric/imperial illusion and he was properly tired and cold. We stopped for some reason or other and he took his helmet off for some reason or other. He also took a leak but wasn't looking where he was doing and pee'd all over his helmet. By the time I saw it, it was too late. I may have hesitated in pointing it out, I can't remember. Anyway, he was so nonplussed he simply put it back on. It started steaming in the rain and a passer-by noticed and shouted his head is on fire. He got a middle finger as reply.

That's the day when I discovered the recovery hot toddy.