Tuesday, August 01, 2023

First Century Ride of 2023

This past Saturday, I did my first Century ride of 2023.

Yep, 100 miles.
That's right ... On my bicycle.
Yep, in one day.
No, my butt is fine.
Nope, I'm not crazy.
Yes, I know you don't like to drive that far.

Spoiler alert ... there are a lot of similarities between my First Century Ride of 2022 and this one. It was also done the last Saturday of July.

If you've been following me, on this blog, you know I'm "training" for September. 

In September, I'm riding 1,000 miles to help raise awareness and money for the Children's Cancer Research Fund with the Great Cycle Challenge.

If you can afford it and are against childhood cancer, you should donate some money to help with the cause. If you want to help my fundraising effort ... you can donate at



Like First Century Ride of 2022, I got started right around 5AM, which is about an hour before sunrise, so I had to use my headlight and go a bit slower to start than I typically would.


Also like,  First Century Ride of 2022 I had my 3 liter camel back along with a water bottle filled with electrolyte-filled H2O. I also brought food in the form of Picky Bars.

I planned a loop starting at my house, bringing me back after about 80 miles. 


This route took me up the C470 bike path to the Cherry Creek trail, but here I did something different... I went South along Cherry Creek rather than North.


I've never been on this part of the Cherry Creek trail, and I really enjoyed the "new" path.


About half way through the ride, I ran into a little road construction. Because of this, and not really knowing how the loop was going to go ... I decided to re-trace my route back rather than continue the loop.

Eventually, I'll want to do it. I just wasn't feeling it Saturday.


So ... I headed back towards my house.


The heat of the day was increasing, but apparently I planned about perfect, because I finished up my water right as I pulled up into my driveway.

At this point, I had finished 80 miles.

Again like First Century Ride of 2022, I rested a bit, and the Beer Model got her Pedego ready. We headed toward Morrison for lunch.


We headed through Bear Creek Lake Park, taking long ways around to make sure I'd end up with .over 100 miles by the time we got back home.


We had pizza and beer at Red Rocks Beer Garden. I've been past this place literally dozens of times, but this was my first time actually here.

I'm certainly going to have to come back. 


After lunch, we headed back through  Bear Creek Lake Park, again taking a non-direct route and enjoying a beautiful day.

We got back by early afternoon. I finished the ride with 102 miles and almost 4,000 feet of climbing.

Not a bad day on the bike.

My legs were not even hurting too bad the next day.

I think this means I'm ready for my 1000 mile September.

Feel free to follow my September progress on https://greatcyclechallenge.com/Riders/EricShepard even if you don't donate.

I'm sure I'll post more on this blog between now and the end of September



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