Wine Country Century = Wet Country Century

We had planned to do the Wine Country Century that starts in Santa Rosa, but with the possibility of rain (30% according to Weather Underground) we thought we'd do the 100K route. But plans don't always work out exactly as one hopes. As kb5ql over on BikeForums.net commented: "It rained. And rained. And KEPT RAINING. It didn't stop. It rained some more. Did I mention it RAINED?"

Then we missed the 100K turn marker, which had been rained off the road. We ended up on the 100 route with a lot more climbing. That turned out to be a good thing as climbing was about the only way to stay warm. Normally uphill is a grunt, downhill is a reward. This time up was a warming relief, down in rivers of flowing water was worrisome at best.

Tricia rocked. She is so tough! She just cranked her way through the day. I, however, got so cold and wet after the first rest stop if there had been any way to just concede and just be warm again I would have done it. But there was no one to surrender to. Eventually pedaling hard warmed me up. After about 40-something miles we though we'd had enough of that kind of fun and took a 10-mile bail out back to the car.

Highlights:

• Best thing about the ride: Hot peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! What a grand idea.
• Second best thing: No problems with the rims heating up on big downhills.
• Feature: Tricia say she didn't dehydrate at all, she just absorbed all the water she needed.
• Feature 2: No wheel suckers. My massive rooster tail kept them all at bay.
• Feature 3: Sunscreen savings!
• Bonus fun 1: Missed the 100K turn and ended up on the 100 mile route
• Bonus fun 2: Flatting in the rain. That makes it a full-experience ride, and it didn't cost any extra!
• Priceless: Bailing after 52 frozen wet miles and going wine tasting on the drive home.

Learning experiences:

• Water resistant doesn't mean what I thought it meant.
• "Thirty percent chance of rain" still leaves a lot of room for a downpour.
• I worried about the weight of my bike, but failed to factor in 97.3 pounds of wet clothes.

Results:

• 52 miles
• 2700 feet of climbing
• 1 case Sarah
• About 1.5 hours of grunge grime filth bike cleaning on Sunday
  

Wine Country Century ride

The fun started Friday night before the ride when we met up with our internet gang from NorCal Bikeforums.net. We had about eleven of us show up. The food was grand, but the service, with a smile, was slightly screwed up. It didn't matter, they comped a lot of it and we had fun anyway.

The actual ride launched at about 7:00 the next morning from Wells Fargo Event Center. We started out through Santa Rosa farm lands, mostly pleasant small roads with not much traffic. After our first long climb we turned to do a section of the 200K ride that would take us up some stunningly steep hills (20% plus in a couple of spots) with beautiful views then dump us almost into the ocean.

The decent was so steep the ride organizers have a woman in a skeleton suit holding a warning sign and calling in a Halloween voice "Slow down." What a blast.

We had planned on a 100 miler, but our friend Pete, being, well, Pete, had other ideas that involve combining, subtracting, improvising and generally scoffing at the official map. He supplies us with "Pete-isms" as well. Starting up a steep climb he yelled "I'm in the wrong gear!" quickly followed with "No, I'm outta gears!"

After riding with Pete a few times Tricia has started to be able to decipher his comments:
Before starting a climb, when Pete says "It's not that bad" he means "You'll be in your lowest gear, standing up, and will perhaps make it, furthermore, the decent following will be the cyling equivalent skiing double-black-diamond death run.

"It's not that far" translates to "Maybe less than 20 miles."

"We'll be there in 10 minutes" leaves off the "if you were driving a car" part.

Tricia was glad she wore her "We can do it" Jersey as we ended up riding 112 miles out of 100 miles.

The actual ride the organizers put on was well run, the rest stops were stocked with goodies and the rest rooms lines were survivable. The only part I didn't like was riding right past winery after winery and not stopping at one of them. That just seems wrong.

The biggest plus: Tricia's bars didn't slip. Her chain ring didn't fall off, and there were no bee stings.

Flickr slide show of a few photos