Watching the tour too much...

Well this weekend was my yearly road weekend riding the MS150 to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. This was my 10th year doing the ride so I decided to do something different. I usually ride a century on Saturday just to get one in the logbook for the year but I've never ridden more than 110 on a single ride.

You know you've been watching the Tour de France too much when you think... wonder what it feels like for the guys in the tour when they ride those 140+mile stages like coming up in stage 17. So I made the decision to do the ride in a single day... how hard could it be? Well when I hit East Lansing at mile 82.5 I started second guessing my decision but my fate was set as I had not brought anything with me for an overnight stay. Note 1/2 way was not at mile 75 since construction had caused a reroute adding 7.5 miles to the ride... make that 15 more for me so my ride was now looking to be 165 miles. Long story, short I pulled back into Davisburgh 9 hours after I left with 158 miles under my belt. Why not 165? That's another story that involves missing a turn and getting directions from a local guy (shooting a bow and arrow in his backyard where I think I heard banjo's playing in the background) on the quickest way to get back on route without mentioning that pavement would be helpful. After cyclocrossing it across muddy back roads Kona style for a few miles I found myself 7 miles ahead in the route.

I originally had some thoughts in the back on my mind about making it to the race today but with what looks like a tattoo of my seat on my butt and nothing left in the legs I thought it best to recover. Good news, I raised lot's of cash for MS can mark my 10 anniversary ride done a day early. Hope you had a great race guys (and Crispy out west... looking for the update)!

Jim (who clearly would have missed the time cut at 9 hours, hats off to the pros)