Apple Cider Century Flood Report

This passed Sunday, September 25, was the day of the Apple Cider Century.  It was supposed to be the day that Jennifer did her first 100 mile bike ride.  Instead, it was a major fail!  All of last week, we had been watching the weather, and it continued to get worse as the week progressed.  On Saturday night, Jenn and I had a little discussion about what we would do with the rain.  Since the weather forecast called for rain pretty much all day Sunday, we decided that we probably would not complete a full 100 miles, but we wanted to do something since we'd already paid the $40 each to enter this ride.

On Sunday morning, we woke up to wet roads but little rain.  We loaded our bikes up and drove the 20 minutes to the start location.  It wasn't raining at all, but everything was wet, and it was quite cold (50 degrees or so).  We both were wearing tights, long sleeves and jackets.  After going through the registration process and picking up our wrist bands, we got our bikes unloaded and were ready to begin.

I've only ridden one century ride before, and it wasn't a sponsored event.  This event was quite interesting.    Jenn and I both started analyzing people and their bikes as we walked around the starting area.  So many people were OLD.  So many people had signed up for the 15mile, or 25 mile, or 37 mile rides.  So many people were rocking cruisers and mountain bikes.  It wasn't at all what we expected.

We "drained the radiators" at the porta potties, took a quick picture of the starting banner, and we were off.

Within the first five minutes, it was raining.  The rain wasn't too bad and was almost just a sprinkle/mist, but we were certainly getting wet.  The course really was quite a nice route through country roads that were in pretty good condition.  Every turn was marked with a large apple painted on the road with an arrow (as the stem) pointing which direction we needed to go.  They had several different colors to distinguish which route to take.

After 28 miles, we made it to the first SAG stop.  We were pretty wet and very cold!  They had PB&J sandwiches, check mix, cookies, bananas, grapes, hot potato soup and water.  We chilled there for a little bit and ate up.  I started to get really cold, and we knew we needed to get back on the road.  After a quick look at the map, we decided to make our own course that would take us back to the 4runner/start area.  We made it back with no problems and rode a total of 43 miles.  Neither one of us was disappointed since we knew we wouldn't do all 100 that day anyway.  We grabbed our plates of hot spaghetti, salad and apple pie to finish off our Apple Cider Century experience.

On our way home, we had to pass over the 100 mile route many times.  It was pouring rain, and we saw a bunch of people still getting sick riding away.  It turns out that the route goes less than a mile and a half from our house.  So here's the plan!  This Sunday, which is supposed to be really nice weather, will be the day we do the century.  We'll just ride from our house to the route and make the giant loop back.  Hopefully it'll work out better this time.



In other news,
Jenn and I went to South Bend last Thursday night to see one of our favorite celebrities, Dave Ramsey!  He was doing a book signing at Barnes and Nobles, and we wanted to buy his book, get it signed and meet him.  It was really cool!  Here are a couple pics. (Sorry for the quality)

EntreLeadership is his new book with principles of business

I think he only has one outfit!

He signs so fast, you can barely see him!  :)

This was a "replica" of Dave's car that he started his business from

Tomorrow is going to be a blogger meetup as Jenn and I will meetup with Kevin and Jennie Neumann in Grand Rapids to go see Switchfoot.  I'll take a bunch of pics!

Also, I'll post a blog on the whole Marathon debate going on in my head.

Thanks for reading!