Berryville Century of 2006

Isn’t it amazing how ugly looking parents, namely the fog and chilly dark morning, sometimes produce a beautiful looking child, namely wonderful sunny day? That is exactly how it was yesterday: shivering in the early morning and enjoying the life for the rest of the day. I started the ride and made no mistakes for the first couple of miles when missed to take the right turn. Instead of turning right and engaging the north loop, I continued straight because it felt so north! It did not help that at that crucial moment I was passing a group of other cyclists, which took my attention away from other things. After couple of miles, when the Sun that was up to that point on my right, somehow moved to my left, I realized that I had made a mistake. Well, too late to go back. Keep following those blue and white arrows on the road and complete the south loop first! For those who are not familiar with the path of this ride, it looks like number 8, although some may argue that it looks more like the mathematical symbol for infinity. The ride has the north and south loops of roughly equal length (50 miles each) that connect at the bike start/finish point in Berryville. If followed properly, century riders would complete the north loop before engaging the south loop. As you may conclude from the above, I did them in reverse. In retrospective that was not a bad choice. At the first rest stop I was the first biker the staff had seen that morning and accordingly as a rarity was greeted with attention reserved for VIP-s. It could have been that the site was closed because I was too early there, but I was lucky. My luck continued later on with riding the north loop and realizing that the rest stop there was still open. Only a few bikers were still there discussing various philosophical aspects of biking and effectively postponing their return on the road. To make it short, I was greeted again as perhaps the last rider pulling in for this year. Small numbers make miracle. Another side effect of riding unconventionally yesterday was that for long stretches of space I would not see other bikers. For example I did not see a single other biker for at least 15 miles while riding north. The bottom line is, by making a simple error I inadvertently discovered an art only known to politicians: make a mistake and make it work for you! About the terrain, rolling, rolling, and rolling. The south was definitely hillier than the north. Compared with Reston Century, this ride was definitely less physically demanding, which made me spend only about 4800 kcal in 5h 43min. The organization of the ride was great. So was the food. Refreshing some old direction arrows painted on the road could help. This ride was great experience for me in particular because it gave me an opportunity to honor the 100^th anniversary of my agency, the Food and Drug Administration.