2018 Fixie Century

CHAPTER ONE

The Ride

One of my very few cycling goals this year was a fixed-gear century. I’ve had this particular fixie for almost two years, and it’s time to break the three-digit barrier. Oh, I suppose I ought to define a couple terms here for some of my readers:

Fixed-gear (aka fixie): A peculiar subset of road bicycles. Has only one gear, as opposed to as many as 22 gears on some others. It also has no coasting mechanism, so whenever the bike is moving, the pedals are turning. This all means that when riding this bike, I cannot shift to a different gear to match my pedaling speed to the bike’s speed, nor can I stop pedaling and rest. I can only increase or decrease my pedaling speed, which does limit my high speeds as well as my low speeds.
Century: Many bike ride distances are given names relating to the ride’s distance. In this case, a century denotes a ride of 100 (or more) miles. By strict definition, 99.99 miles is NOT a century, but that’s a subject for another blog.

Everybody clear on that? (If not, Google is your friend.) Okay then, back to my tale. It’s now August, and summer is slowly passing me by. I’d ridden a century two weeks before, so I know my fitness is there. Weather looks favorable for a south century, if perhaps a little warm. Mid-week I text good friend Dennis to see if he’s up for a long-ish ride on some unexplored roads. (Kind of a trick question, I know he’s in training for a long event and can use the distance.) Predictably, his first response is “Sure!” Followed almost immediately by “How long is long-ish?” I replied about a hundred miles. He’s in. I’d done a quick survey of roads I’d not previously ridden on Google Maps, and estimated a route of about 103 miles. The estimate turned out to be reasonably accurate.

Saturday morning at 6:00 I’m in my driveway putting on my biking shoes as Dennis pulls into the drive. He quickly unloads his bike, finishes his preparations, and we saddle up and roll out at 6:09 am. The sun is just a bit above the eastern horizon behind us as we begin our trek westward for the first stretch. We roll down roads we’ve been on before, for what seems like thousands of times, through the edge of Danvers and further westward. It’s barely 7:00 am, but west of Danvers we pass four familiar cyclists heading back toward town. We wonder just how early did these guys head out?

A couple of hills, and we’re about to make our first direction change. We navigate our way past the booming metropolis of Lilly, with one more mile westward before turning south onto unfamiliar roads. (As I planned our route, I would zoom in on Maps to confirm that the roads I was planning on riding were, indeed, paved.) We headed south on a lovely county highway, straight as an arrow, mostly flat, and with almost no traffic (possibly because it was still only a few minutes after 7:15 am). First rest stop on our quest for 100 miles: Minier. Casey’s is my go-to mid-ride replenishment stop while riding: a candy bar for energy, a Mountain Dew for fluid and caffeine, and water to refill our bottles.

Southbound again, heading toward my old stomping grounds of Lincoln. Within a few miles we cruised through Armington, and onto some more unfamiliar roads south of US 136. Not knowing the terrain here was a bit of a disadvantage, as the road went through a series of rollers (repetitive hills for you non-cyclists). Not exactly ideal riding for the fixed gear. A few more miles south and we turn west. Dennis asks “Aren’t we already west of I-55, and why are we going further west?” “Trust me” I replied. He did. About 4 miles later we turn south onto roads I’d traveled as a much younger man, but never by bicycle. We rolled into the town in which I “grew up,” Lincoln. A quick trip past the old Hannah family homestead, and we stop at Thornton’s (gas station/convenience store) for fluids and energy.

Having refueled, we climb back on our steeds once again, riding north on old Business Route 66 through town, turning again onto unfamiliar roads a mile out of town. “If I’d been a cyclist when I lived here I would likely be very familiar with some of these roads,” I mention on our way north, but when I was a local, I didn’t really ride much. We ride on a few miles of central Illinois flatness as we skirt the east side of I-55, passing by Lawndale. A few zigs and an equal number of zags, some more rollers, and we ride into Atlanta for our third scheduled refueling stop. By now it was late morning, and the temperature was steadily climbing, so we were both pleased to see a table with chairs inside the air conditioned Casey’s. We gladly sat down for a few minutes to enjoy the coolness, and eat and drink a bit.

From here the roads were ones upon which I ridden numerous times, but not so for my traveling companion. It was good to know exactly where I was, where the next turn was, and to see familiar landmarks. From Atlanta we headed north and east, encountering some hills at first, and as we crossed into our homeland, McLean County, more flat, straight roads. A few miles before we reached our next sustenance stop, we encountered a fellow rider, Bob Standard, waving as we passed. One last time we stop for fuel and fluids, this time in Heyworth at the Huck’s. By now, it was quite warm, and we were happy to take advantage of the indoor table and chairs nestled in behind the video gambling machines. While out on a bike, you never really get a perspective of just how hot it is getting outside until you cool down in the a/c for ten minutes before going out to finish your ride. Oof.

We go out to remount, and feel ourselves wilt under the heat. 80 miles in, with only about 20 back to the finish. Cruising on now-familiar roadways, we make our way north, back toward home, a shower, and beer. (Not necessarily in that order.) Hitting the south end of BloNo, we now have to deal with more traffic than we’d seen for the first 95 miles, but still not so bad. Finally in the home stretch, heading up the friendly confines of the Constitution Trail, we pass my workplace, and I spy a bike I’d been building the previous afternoon loaded in a customer’s vehicle, heading to its new home! Less than a mile further on our trek (more specifically, Dennis on his Trek and me on my Specialized), we heard a sirens’ song, and pulled into the pearly gates conveniently located on the trail. More commonly known as Keg Grove Brewing.

We once again sat in the glorious air-conditioning, and did a bit of re-hydrating...this time with a refreshing cold beer. At this point we were a scant bit over 99 miles on our journey. Mission all-but-accomplished. We’re relaxed, and reasonably sure we’d achieve our goal. Air-conditioning is so fine, and more beer is so very tempting, but we have something to finish. Back on our bikes for the final few miles home. We roll into my drive a few minutes later with 102.78 showing on my Garmin. Mission accomplished...and yet another beer to finish.

CHAPTER TWO

The Numbers

My “superpower” is the ability to hit a mileage (or time) target on the bike to a fair accuracy. I take particular pride in one ride last year in which our goal was 100 miles. On that day my fellow travelers changed our finishing point mid-ride a couple of times, finally settling on Kemp’s in Lexington. As I stopped on the sidewalk in front of our destination, my Garmin displayed 100.18. Pretty close. It’s worth noting again that anything under 100 miles (ie 99.99 miles) does NOT qualify as a century. While 102.78 miles may seem like a reasonable finishing distance for a century, it is a little outside of my normal parameters. It seemed a bit long for what I'd ridden for a century in recent years, so I checked back in my bike log. (Yes, I have meticulous data of rides I’d finished stored somewhere on Google’s servers.)

I don’t ride a large number of centuries, and the vast majority are not T-shirt rides (organized centuries generally reward you with a shirt for your troubles.) Most are just “get up in the morning and ride until the odometer reads three digits left of the decimal” rides. This particular century was my second for 2018. In 2017 I logged two such rides (longest being 100.18), only one in 2016 (101.54), two in my recovery year of 2015 (long one at 100.40), and seven in 2014 (longest at 102.44). Not sure how I managed so many in that one year, but that was the year I set most of my personal records. I had to search all the way back to October 6, 2013 to find a longer ride, at 103.01 (my only century that year!) Five years, fifteen hundred-milers. Averaging three per year. Guess I still need another one this year!

More numbers: So, as I mentioned earlier, on this particular bike I can neither shift nor coast. Knowing this, and also knowing the gear I run on this bike, it’s fairly simple math to determine how many times I turned my pedals in the course of 102.78 miles.

I measure the diameter of my tire in inches. 27.0625 * pi gives me my distance traveled in inches for every time my rear wheel makes a complete rotation. 85.019. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll round this to 85. One mile has 5280 feet, or 63360 inches. (This would all be so much less cumbersome had we adopted the metric system.) So for every mile ridden, my rear wheel turned 745 revolutions. Given my gearing on this bicycle (48/15), this means that for each mile traveled, my crank would turn 232.8 times. It follows then, that over the course of my century my legs turned those cranks almost 24,000 times. Since both of my feet were turning those cranks, if you’re the type who counts your steps throughout the day, I could have well counted some 48,000 steps!

Even more numbers. Note the two maps below. Both are of centuries I’ve ridden (Both with Dennis.) While not exactly to scale, these maps are close to the same scale. The one on the left I refer to as the “compact century.” With very little overlapping, the compact century spanned about 14¼ miles east-to-west and about 10½ north-to-south. In the fixie century, we spanned 20 miles east-to-west and 30 miles north-to-south. Similar distances covered, yet a huge difference in area encompassed!

EPILOGUE

And there, you have it. A brief (or not so brief?) recollection of my activities on August fourth, 2018… and a look into some of the things I ponder as I ride.

I hope you enjoyed the read as much as I enjoyed the ride...Until next time, CHEERS!