Third time’s the charm?

May be more like three strikes  your out.

Today was the Reston Bicycle Club’s annual century ride and once again I signed up for the metric half century, which sounds further than the 32 miles it actually was. The RBC Century was the first organized ride that we did after getting our first two trikes in 2008. It was just Nathan and myself riding but we managed to “grind it out”. Last year my wife joined us but our speed hadn’t improved much. I was determined that this year would be a big improvement and was looking forward to the ride. I almost missed the event altogether because it was next weekend. Luckily I stopped by the local bike shop and the topic came up in the conversation. Since it was this weekend I became a team of one: Nathan is off at college and my wife bailed on me to travel up to Williamsport, PA for the opening of the LLWS. Surely being 15 pounds lighter myself, with new gearing on my trike and "nobody holding me back" I could do better than “grind it out”.

I rode “warm up” rides on Friday and Saturday averaging about 10 miles each. So this morning I head out to the Century with high hopes, at least once I convinced myself that the rain would indeed pass quickly, which by the way it did.

So how did my lighter self, with a lighter trike and higher gears do? I was actually slower than the previous two years! We averaged 10.4 the previous years and I averaged 10.3 today. I went faster at times but the hills really did me in today.

Overall it was a fun outing. I met lots of new people and spent a lot of time answering questions about the trike, why I chose that to ride, etc. I even ran into a new trike rider during the event and a local rider just out for a Sunday stroll.

Maybe I can keep working on this “meat engine” to get it faster. But maybe, just maybe, I should stop chasing speed and enjoy the view.