Graduation Ride: Or How I Decided I Need A Compact Crank

I am a member of the NYCC.  I joined last year and did one of their Special Interest Group (SIG) rides; the "B-18".  From the website:

The B-18 pace − progresses from a 45-mile ride at 16mph on the first day, to a 100-mile ride (with full century option) at 18mph by early May.

I was planning on  doing it again this year, but caught some heat from my past group members, accusing me of sandbagging.  Message received, and so I joined the A-19 SIG.  Same theory, but more challenging (way more challenging, as it turned out) for 12 weeks.  Apparently they upped the challenge quotient this year, which is cool.  I managed to stick it out.  However, yesterday's ride, I feel, went beyond challenging....Call me a whiner, but I don't know, I felt it bordered on cruel (I wasn't the only one who thought so, including some of the ride leaders).  While this is not an excuse I will say that I was riding on a full crank.  Most everyone else was in a compact or had a granny ring.  I wish I did too; I suffered.  It made the climbs so much tougher.  I know, "Just think how much tougher you are for doing it in a full!"  Whatever.  It hurt, and I so badly wished I had a compact when everyone was soft-peddling up the hill and I was mashing.  My knees are shot.

The "Graduation Ride" was 103 miles with three big climbs in it (not to mention the other various hills at the end strategically placed for the ultimate mind f*ck).  

Ok, let's get the show on the road. We left the city at 7 AM and headed north towards Harriman State Park and Bear Mountain.  I won't go into detail since that would be pretty boring, "it was all uphill, it was challenging, I made it to the top, blah, blah, blah".  You've done it, you know.  One fun thing was riding straight into a triathlon while the bike portion was going on at Lake Welch.  While we were on the outside of the cones (and thus off the course) having the cop on the bullhorn trying to direct us back onto the course because he thought we were in the race was pretty funny.

The ride was BEAUTIFUL!!!  I definitely did not rush up the hill (as if I could).  After the second climb I wanted so badly to jump in here.

I was still feeling ok at this point.  In fact, I felt good until I summited Perkins Memorial Dr.

Heading in and up, up, up....

Halfway there.....

At the top!

Click on this photo for a panoramic from the top.

My group

I made it.

Of course the ride down was great and there were some awesome downhills on this ride too.  There should be with over 5,000 feet of climbing (the woman who did this route said her Garmin said 7400 ft.).

We headed over the Hudson River across the Bear Mountain Bridge and this is where is started to go downhill for me at mile 70.  There was so much more climbing after this.  I know on a century there is a point where you have to dig deep to get through and believe me I dug as deep as I could and it was hard, really *insert expletive here* hard.  My legs were tired of mashing up the hills.  It didn't help they were still fatigued from all the walking I did at the show earlier in the week for 4 days, my run on Thursday and swim on Friday and my knee was still bothering me.

When we turned into the last 14 miles we still had 8 miles of constant climbing and then the sky opened up and poured rain.  It actually felt good.  I was covered in salt, grit and sweat.  It was refreshing, now if it only made my legs feel better. We finally reached the last 6 miles of downhill (my max on the downhills was 46 mph!) and headed into town and straight to beer and burgers.  Food never tasted so good.

The bikes on the train ride home.

I am not sure how I feel about this ride.  Am I proud of myself for completing it?  Yeah, I guess so.  However, I am not happy with the performance aspect of it.  It was slow and painful for me on the hills despite all the hill climbing I have been doing.  No doubt I was dropped again and again towards the end except for maybe two or three of us.  It makes me wonder how I would have done if I had a compact crank, but I suppose it's a moot point, but I can't help myself.

There was plenty of very upset people including some of our leaders and of course, some folks who thought it was great.  I'm not surprised at this, different strokes.  I am not going to look back at this ride fondly at all and in some ways, it kind of ruined it for me, but that's my problem.