Little Red Riding Hood Century Ride

Every year the first weekend in June - the BBC puts on a ride called the Little Red Riding Hood Ride. It is not a race, just a ride. You can do several lengths. 30ish, 60ish, 80ish, and 100 miles.

I have wanted to do it for years but never trained and never felt good about it. But this year... I had a great trainer (my husband) who got me a indoor trainer for my bike so I could start spinning inside back in November. For months I spun inside and then in-between the rainy weather I biked outside.

I had lots of friends and family take turns watching my kids while I road- and a few more baby-sitters than we usually get. But the end result was total success.

Angela Isaacs is great- she road with me and made the day memorable in more ways than one.

We wore our SBR jerseys from our bike shop. It was fun to see how many people noticed us in them. They are really cool!

Anyway. We set off to do a 100 WELL! not just finish it but do it well. Ang has done several long rides/centuries before and knew how to do it well!

We did our share of "shameless drafting". We would see some fast riders going past us and jump in behind them and draft! This was the key to a good race. You get to do less work, and go faster. You just have to stay with them! We did do our own pulling too!

This is me at the finish. 100 miles felt like 50 because of the many rest stops with wonderful food:) and because drafting saves your legs, your back ... your energy.

Sadly- Ang crashed at mile 87. She got back on her bike until mile 90. but with a cracked helmet, gears that wouldn't shift, a ripped up jersey, a wobbly tire, and a black spot in her eye that was limiting her vision... she stopped. I am proud of her for stopping!
It is pretty amazing to ride one day with 3,000 WOMAN ONLY riders. I will do it again next year if someone wants to jump in with me. IT WAS AWESOME!