Guerilla Century

Jonny Reb and El Comandante on the trail. (Ride pictures by Brad Click)

Our 100 mile ride, yesterday consisted of a mostly bike-path circumnavigation of Denver. Cherry Creek Trail/470 Trail/Bear Creek Trail/South Platte Trail/Front Range Trail/Sand Creek Greenway/Highline Canal Trail (plus a few fill-in miles at the end to bring the total up to 100).

Here, we are about 60 miles in, having stopped for a light (2,000 calories) snack at Subway. The day had started off somewhat overcast and dreary, but it had begun to clear nicely by the time we stopped for lunch.

The Front Range trail goes north from the confluence of the South Platte and Cherry Creek. Along the way you pass through some areas of pretty scenic waterway juxtaposed with industrial wasteland. I always feel a little like Mad Max, when riding through here.

Seventy five miles in, we hit the Sand Creek portion of the ride, and this is what greeted us. The frozen trail had thawed and turned to sandy peanutbutter. For some pretty good stretches of trail we crawled along at 3 miles per hour. It murdered us, for a bit, until we decided to abandon our original plan, and follow Chambers Road down to the Highline Canal and turn south. had we not done this, we would have gotten our complete 100 miles without the added wandering around at the end.

Brad's Rivendell Bleriot was nice and clean, when we started out. It is somewhat less so in the "after" picture, though it seems to be a bit cleaner than...

the XO-2. Obviously, my knobby tires throw a bit more gunk up in the air than Brad's Fatty Rumpkins.

You can see the aftermath of a nice mud-fest here.

At one point, the bikes were so muddy that my rear derailleur was ghost-shifting,

and neither of our front derailleurs would drop to the small ring, since they were so crammed full of mud.

Once we got onto the Highline, we seemed to catch a second wind. Actually, I think that we were just so relieved to actually be able to pedal that we hauled ass, despite being tired. We rode the mile 85 to mile 93 portion at between 17 band 19 mph. That was much more satisfying than creeping along at 3 mph.

So, I've got two Centuries down, on the way to my goal of 12, this year. Hopefully, they will only get easier.

Now, it's time to clean my poor Bridgestone, using the trusty wheel and bumber brush. (Oh, those crazy Chinese!)

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