Jun-06, 0630, solo -- 74-85 F -- 6h09 elapsed -- V-100 #4
1h17 chat with my former supervisor 1.9-miles before the turn-around. Don't ask me what we chatted about. All the usual things men chat about during a stream of consciousness conversation. And I'm confident that neither of us could possibly recall even 10% of what we chatted about. [However, I am sure that some of our conversation was about personal repercussions stemming from the coronavirus lockdown.]
Second major stop at the CVS at Bay Leaf (start/finish of many of my old Perms). There was a young guy and his girlfriend rest-stopping in the shade. He had completed approx 80-miles of the cycling leg of a virtual team Iron-Triathlon for charity while she was providing periodic "SAG" support. Chatted with them for a bit.
But the big time waster at the CVS was the clerk forgetting to ask for my CVS card (and me forgetting to offer) -- I had to use a human cashier because the mgr-on-duty was refilling the self-serve cash register. I walked out of the store to my bike; then, as I loaded up 4 Arizona Tea cans into my bottles (replacing overly warm water) and putting two of the cans into two of the jersey pockets, I realized that I had paid $4 plus tax, instead of the sale price of $2 plus tax. Back into the store to get the price adjusted. Cashier had problems getting the refund to take -- and eventually gave me a coupon for $2 CVS bucks -- when I was a retail "asst. mgr.", I would have just taken two actual dollars from the till and chocked it up to customer satisfaction (and informed the store mgr and the cash room dept.). Anyway, the process took more time than it should have.
The point of the ride was to actually drop by and visit / chat with my former supervisor, so I did not begrudge those 77-minutes. The time wasted at the CVS, however, did put the successful completion of my virtual 100k in danger (due to a possible hors delay). I was still concerned about that -- but admittedly not much concern -- as I rode past my friend's that lives 3.44-miles from my abode. (I started thinking that I would need the extra 4-minutes that the extra 1-km would allow. However, when I coasted to a stop just outside my door, 6h39 elapsed -- even for a 100k, I had one minute in hand -- and for 101k, five minutes in hand.) Correction: I finished at 12:39 pm --> 6h09 elapsed, not 6h39. Brain failure due to too much sun/heat?
No photos. WAY too overcast for most of the ride to get decent photos. And once the sun came out, I didn't want to stand around in the rapidly rising heat.
[Addendum]Likely only those have ridden multiple-multiple times with me on the Bruce Garner / New Light Rd "finish" will understand (e.g., BobB, the Irregulars):
After doing the first approx 45-miles in the faux single-speed 39/15 -- an easy ride outbound that had been, and an easy ride back, also, although the breeze was in my face the entire return leg -- anyway, after approx 45-miles of faux single-speed, I was on Bruce Garner Rd and the legs were "wanting to ramp it up," so, you know what happened, "time-trial" on Bruce Garner / New Light.
Except that the legs didn't have quite enough to keep it up all the way to the bottom of Ghoston. I backed off the "time-trial" -- perhaps while still in Granville County on Bruce Garner -- but I did maintain a cruising speed, into the breeze, 2 or 3 miles per hour faster than I had been riding most of the day.
Then, just inside Wake County (or, as I think about it, more likely just before it), three guys pulled out of a driveway riding mountain bikes (?) or at least some pretty wide tyres (tho not "fat tyres"), and I easily overtook them at cruising speed. However, when I got even with the first guy, he looked over at me with a smile/smirk and what appeared to be a licking of his chops. I knew he was thinking I was some racer-boy dude on fancy equipment -- HA -- and he was gonna' "show me."
He picked up his pace as I moved ahead -- picked up his pace just enough so that (at cruising pace or perhaps just a bit more) I could not complete the pass and get back over toward the fog line and was instead stuck out in the middle of the lane. But only momentarily. Somewhat annoyed, I said out-loud, "okay, I'll give you something to chase," and hitting the pedals with seriousness I and was going 25-mph within seconds. All three of those guys were hanging on.
The legs were somewhat wearied from the short "time-trial" from only a few miles before, but I was determined to uphold the honor of the slow pack of the randonneuring world. I did bog down a bit on the first non-trivial upslope inside Wake County (non-trivial to me, but sometimes, even for me, it is trivial), and the lead rider of those three was creeping up on my right side -- into a dangerous position for him because if I moved suddenly to my right, I would clip his front wheel and he would go down -- but I didn't do that. Instead, I doubled down and still they were hanging on. I started wondering how long I could keep this up. Approaching the Northern Wake firehouse, they were still on my wheel, but a couple hundred yards after the firehouse, no one was visible in the mirror. Where had they gone? I didn't know.
But I had maintained the honor of the slow rando pack, and no longer "in danger" of being passed, I backed off the pace to a sustainable one .
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