Right on, ride on

This weekend’s ride started on Saturday morning. I began it a bit later in the morning while I waited for some rain to pass and, as designed, the ride was shorter than last week’s. After the rain moved on it became a very nice day, and perhaps a bit too nice as I opted not to put on any sunscreen and now have somewhat reddened shoulders and arms to remind me to apply it in the future.

I chose a Minuteman Bikeway extension ride that went from the Bedford end and hit Walden Pond and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park. I haven’t been to either location and have been wanting to visit each for the last few years. Added bonus: Hanscom Airforce Base – the first airport I’ve ridden to.
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Training for the Century Ride means doing long rides in a progressively increasing manner up until the max event. I need to do a long ride every weekend which can be troublesome during the New England spring. In short, the weather won’t always be pretty, but I intend to be out there doing my thing anyways.

This past week I got more serious about my cycling passion with the purchase of some solid rain gear. Up until now I’ve worn nothing outright protective for rainy conditions, I’ve just trusted that I packed an extra outfit to change into when I get to a sheltered place, which was usually within 30 minutes.

This method breaks down on long rides. For qualification I generally consider any ride that is more than an hour long to be a “long ride”. Long rides may subject you to unpleasant conditions which were never an issue for me last summer; it used to be any ride would have been rescheduled to guarantee fair weather.

So I made some purchases during the week and now have cyclist-oriented rain pants and coat, fingered gloves with an optional second layer that adds more protection, and somewhat unrelated some Pocket Rides maps which I was planning on using to plot my long rides.

In some respects I feel a bit under prepared for the Century still. I am still forming logistics for all the rides leading up to, and including, the Century. I already have a couple of the Pocket Rides packs which have won me over for the simplicity, completeness, and presentation they offer. The new ones add rides that start and stop at either end of the Minuteman Bikeway. I thought to myself: “great – I can combine last week’s Minuteman 30-miler with one of these to make a longer ride, slowly building my base distance while keeping some things familiar which can make the time go by a little easier.”

Or, maybe not….
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