Joel Hainley : San Francisco Bay Area Software Consultant

Chico Velo’s Wildflower Century was the start of my quest to ride a century a month for the next year. My cousin lives in Chico along the park and offered to let me stay at her place Saturday night so I went up Saturday afternoon. We stopped by the registration desk the night before so I was able to pickup my water bottle, t-shirt, bandana/map, wristband and other stuff. CV had some stuff sacks made up with the wildflower logo on them which was a very cool idea. Then I took her out to dinner, we visited for a while then I went to bed so that I could be up early and ready for my ride by 6am.

Waking up the next morning, I had my usual pre-century breakfast of cheerios and instant breakfast and decided to ride over to the fairgrounds instead of just picking up the ride as it passed close to where I was staying. I was a little nervous about the ride I’ve been really busy with work and travel and haven’t had a lot of time to train so I was a little concerned about how things would go. So I came up with a gameplan, “ride slow until after lunch”, I wouldn’t start pushing until after the hills were over and I was into the flats.

I rode to the fairgrounds, then did a u-turn and dropped in behind a group of people heading out, forcing myself not to pass them, to simply hang out and enjoy the ride..100 miles to go. I whistled Leave It To Beaver most of the day. The first climb after leaving town was up some dying road which reminded me of some of the worse parts of Morgan Territory road. Back down highway 32 to head towards Honey Run Road was fun..I passed lots of people while coasting. I carry spares of a lot of things on centuries mostly out of habit, because when I train, i tend to train alone, and I’m always trying to be sure I can make it home without having to call in a favor to get picked up in some remote part of the bay area. Carrying spares and some cytomax packets ( in case they run out..like adventure corps did in Death Valley Spring last year..nothing like riding into the last rest stop and finding out they only have coke and electrolyte tabs for your break ). All of the stuff I carry gives me a little more weight to pull up hills, but makes the downhills more fun! ;-).

Honey Run Road was humbling for some, I saw a joker riding a multi-gear that didn’t have a gear bigger than my fixed gear and was struggling up Honey Run. It was nice and cool going up Honey Run Road, and since I had my game plan I dropped to my climbing ring and just whistled my way up the hill. Looking at the views across the valley and the occasional view passing me .., “lots of purdy girls on this ride..might have to do this next year”

Arriving in Paradise I sent a note to Dad telling him I had reached the top of Honey Run, last time him and I rode up this hill I was 9 years old, he still twitches when we talk about it. I rolled into the first rest stop and had to deal with a few logistical things, water, food, bathroom, and I saw a few Diablo Cyclists in their jerseys standing around. I almost talked to them, I’d like to start riding their wednesday evening ride up Mt. Diablo with them but I’ve been too busy with things to really commit to that.

Most of the rest of the ride before lunch was characterized by “heat, climbing, heat, climbing”. Table Mountain was only nice when I realized I was the top, the climb wasn’t bad, but the heat sucked. There was a Ham sitting at the top assisting with communications for the ride, but he looked a little lost among all the cyclists and I was afraid if I started a radio conversation with him I’d be there two hours later.

It was a coast into lunch after that, then it was a coast into the farmlands, and from there it was sorta like before lunch except it was, “heat”, “wind”, “flats”, “heat”, “wind”, “flats”, I perservered and finished up the ride at just over 8 hours of riding time for the day and a little under 9 hours of total time for the ride. Total mileage was just over 103 miles.