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Big Dog Century Challenge The UMCA Year-Rounder Century Challenge was inspired by the Big Dog Challenge by Lisa Paulos |
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UMCA Year-Rounder Century Challenge
Monday, December 4, 2000 was the only day of the month when the mercury rose above 32 degrees where I live in Cedar Rapids, IA. A mere 7 hours for the entire month, and I was fortunate enough to ride my final century of the year, securing my success in the first Big Dog Century Challenge. It is a simple competition devised by my husband Rick: ride at least one century each month for the entire calendar year. The local group of Big Dogs (four friends from the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois), all Paris-Brest veterans several times over, along with Ultra Big Dog Wayne Hanno), formed the guidelines in December 1999, and the challenge was issued. The most serious restriction is that the rides that must be ridden in Iowa or Illinois to discourage traveling to Hawaii or Florida to rack up warm weather miles while it was blustery and cold for us at home.
The first eleven months were typical for the midwest. There were cold rides for the first few months, even a snow delay in April. There was snail-pace producing wind in May. Conditions were never bad enough for an entire month to put my ultimate goal in jeopardy.
December 2 and 3 were both cold and very windy. I delayed my attempt until Monday the 4th. Throughout the year, I had an 12.5 mile circuit route in my back pocket for emergencies. I could ride eight laps of it all night if I had to. I could stop at home during each loop. Given the December conditions, I decided to employ this plan. I thought I could complete one lap each hour, and with a lunch stop and a few other stops here and there, I would be done in nine hours.
This sounded like a winner to Rick, but he thought I could spice up the day by riding a different bike for each lap. It sounded kind of fun to me. Our entire basement is filled with a variety of bicycles, and surely we could find eight of them to fit me. We agreed on this on Sunday evening, less than 12 hours before I wanted to get started. The first task was deciding what bikes to ride. The second task was pumping up 16 tires.
Here is what I rode:
- Dahon folding bike, 3 speed with 16" wheels
- ancient woman's Raleigh 3 speed
- Gary Fisher mountain bike (Rick's) the worst fit of all
- VooDoo mountain bike (mine)
- TitanFlex
- Softride Norwester
- Fuji Sundance ancient mountain bike
- KOS Cruiser, my usual commuter bike, 3 speed with fenders
All the bikes were arranged in a bike rack, which was moved to the empty garage stall for the day. When I completed a lap, I would take the bike to the basement and take another from the garage. When all the bikes were ridden, I was finished! The 100 miles took me 11 hours. The only lap that took me less then an hour was on the TitanFlex. It was heavenly. The transition from the woman's Raleigh to the Fisher mountain bike was most uncomfortable. I was sitting bolt upright on the Raleigh, then was almost in a Superman position on the Fisher. I broke a spoke on the Softride, but was only 4 miles from home, so I kept pedaling. One highlight was finding the mother load of coins, $0.56 worth on Lap 1, to bring my yearly total of money found on the road to $10.48. But that's another family challenge. I rode the final two laps after sunset with many lights on. The temperature was below freezing and the wind was picking up from the northwest, as forecasted. Little would we know that the remainder of December would see few days above 20 degrees, many more days below 0 degrees, and a record snowfall of 35+ inches. Better lucky than good in this weather!
The entire ride was satisfying, fun (sort of) and very long. I thought I would never get finished, but when I did, the Big Dog Century Challenge was in the bag for me.
UMCA Year-Rounder Century Challenge
Preparing for and riding centuries