January Century

I had challenged myself to do a century a month, but I resisted signing up for the Bike Journal contest until I had at least done the first one. I was rapidly running out of weekends in January, so I decided that the last Saturday would be my last chance. The weather Friday would have been perfect, but unfortunately I had to work. The weather lived up to the forecast–upper 30’s with 15mph winds.

My route would start at my house in Saint Louis and head northwest to cross the Missouri River into St Charles. From there I would head east through St Charles County and cross the Mississippi River into Illinois. I would then head south, cross the Mississippi again and go though downtown Saint Louis. Finally, I would head west towards home. I mapped out the route on Bikely.com www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/14622 and it said it was 85 miles. I figured that would give me some buffer for wrong turns. If I came up short, it would be easy enough to add on miles at the end.

Because of the temperature and the wind, I was concerned about getting cold. My commutes can be much cold than this, but they only last about 40 minutes. Being out for 8 hours is quite different. I’ve noticed that I am more cold tolerant that most people, but I wanted to have options. Here is what I decided to wear. Torso: Craft long sleeve base layer, Short sleeve jersey, and Illuminite jacket. Legs: cycling shorts, Amfib tights. Feet: thick wool socks, Sidi winter cycling shoes. Hands: Specialized winter cycling gloves with liners. Head: helmet. In my trunk bag I brought a balaclava and a long sleeve jersey.

I left my house a little after 7:00. The good news was that since it was Saturday morning, there was very little traffic. The bad news was that the first part of my ride was directly into the wind. After only a couple of miles, I saw the bicycle archaeologists from last week headed in the opposite direction. I waved, but this week I was on a mission and did not have time to see what they were up to.

After about 15 miles, I reached Creve Coeur Park. Here I left the road and got on a multi-use path that circles Creve Coeur Lake. I am not that crazy about riding on multi-use paths so I went fairly slowly. There were a fair number of joggers and dog walkers. The park wasn’t crowded, but I wasn’t expecting to see anyone in this weather. In one of the more isolated areas of the park I saw a buck and a doe crossing the path in front of me. The reason I come through Creve Coeur Park is that there is a trail that crosses the Missouri River alongside Page Avenue. This is a new bridge and it was designed with bicycles in mind. The bicycle lane one the bridge is totally separated from car traffic by a concrete wall. After crossing the river, I was at a parking lot for the Katy trail. I would not be riding the Katy today, but I did stop briefly to have a snack. At this point I had ridden 21.6 miles at 15mph rolling speed.

From there, I went through St. Charles and into St. Charles County. Since I had turn to the east, I no longer had a headwind. This part of the ride is also very flat so my speed increased. This is the part of the ride that I had never been on before so I was a little concerned about getting lost. There weren’t really a lot of roads that I could make a wrong turn onto, but I would have rather had some signs that told me that I was still on the road that I though I was on.

After about an hour, my speed suddenly dropped to zero. I was still moving, but my bike computer said I wasn’t. Since this was how I was planning to measure my century, this would be a problem. I stopped to see if I could figure out what the problem was. The problem was easy to find; the spoke with the magnet was on was broken. The wheel still seemed be true, so I moved the sensor to a different spoke and continued on. At this point I had traveled 44.6 miles. Since my last stop I was averaging 18.7 mph.

At the next convenience store, I made a brief stop for some chocolate milk and a candy bar. Next I crossed the Mississippi River on the Clark Bridge into Illinois. The Clark Bridge is also fairly new (1993) and has bicycle lanes that are separated from traffic by a 5-foot wide buffer zone. Even though the speed limit is 55, I feel very safe on this bridge. On either side of the bridge I noticed a lot of people watching the eagles. This time of year you can see bald eagles in this area. I saw some in the trees but I was too far away to get a good look at them.

After crossing the bridge, I headed south on the Madison County Transit Confluence Trail. I am a big fan of the Madison County trails. The only complaint I have about this trail is that there is a section about a mile long mile long that is gravel. I saw someone on a bicycle that was looking for deer antlers. After that I saw 6 wild turkeys next to the trail. Later a pair of cyclists who were headed the same way passed me. I sped up to talk them for a little while, but I wasn’t going to be able to maintain that pace so I said goodbye and dropped back. While riding on the trail I noticed that my glove liners were getting sweaty. I took off the shells and just used the liners.

Just before the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, I decided to stop for lunch at Hardees. At this point I had covered 65.5 miles. I had average 16.6 mph since my last stop. Once inside I took off my jacket and noticed how sweaty my jersey was. I had been so worried about being too cold, I did not notice that I was getting too warm. Since I wasn’t moving anymore and my clothes were damp, I became quite cold even though I was inside. I was shivering and put my jacket back on. I think that I learned an important lesson about long cold weather rides.

After lunch, I crossed the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge back into Missouri. This bridge was built in the 1920’s is now only open to bicycles and pedestrians. From there I headed south on the Riverfront trail. This took me almost to the Arch. My original plan had been to head west towards home but I needed to extend my ride to make it a full century. I decided that to continue south and follow the route that Maplewood Bicycle uses for their Tuesday night rides. I also decided that I would stop at Maplewood Bicycle to get my spoke fixed. Getting the spoke fixed took about 40 minutes. I still did not quite have 100 miles so I added an extra bit on my ride home from there.

Final stats
Distance 100.04 miles
Rolling time: 6:02
Clock time: 8:19