48 Mile Road Ride

Yesterday yielded an excellent, fairly large (for me) road ride. I had to be out of the house for the morning while the pest service was convening war on the carpenter ants that have come around. Initially I thought the guy only needed us out for 2 hours, but then he said 3. So, I grabbed an extra bar, and set out on the road. At first I thought I'd dressed too warm. It was supposed to be a rainy day, and my various thermometers said 56 degrees, so I had tights on, thin wool base layer and a thin long sleeve jersey, jacket in back pocket. Right as I set out, it was totally sunny and my cyclometer thermometer read 70 degrees! Eeek. Weather held, but the temp on the cyclometer did drop, and things were fine. I rode out and did my first climb up McBeth, weather was ideal. About 10 seconds after reaching the summit it started to rain lightly. I proceeded down Fox Hollow which is a fairly long and fast descent. Within a minute, it was raining hard, and the temp had dropped a bunch (down into upper 50's). At this point I pulled over and donned my jacket. I was glad I did, as the rain just got harder and colder, and it was stinging my face, etc. Quite the turn of weather. Of course, by the bottom of the climb, the rain had calmed down, and it was real light. I kept cranking and knew that to be out 3+ hours I'd need to refill water, so headed towards the "town" of Crow. Crow amounts to a few houses, a gas/convenience store, and a combination middle school/high school. But hey, the gas station always has gatorade or something. By the time I got to Crow, I realized I was into it pretty good, at 32 miles and just shy of 2 hours. I for some reason thought I was only half way, so figured I was in for a pretty big ride, which was cool. I hadn't done 60+ miles in a long time. I nabbed a 32oz Gatorade, and a 12oz V8, and some of those junky peanut butter-cheese cracker things. It was noon, and I was hungry, even though I'd had a bar and a gel (but a light breakfast). Refilled bottles, drank the V8, ate the crackers, and carried on. Turns out I was actually exactly 2/3rds of the way through the ride. The roads back went fast, and the total mileage turned out at only 48 miles. I was glad to be back earlier as I needed to get back to work, but was bummed it didn't turn out to be 60+ miles and 4 hours. Still, a great ride, and I had good weather for most of it, mostly just that one descent that took the bulk of the rain, which was fine. Recovered very well, and don't feel the ride this morning, nice!