Century Drive

just so happens to also be a Century Bike Ride! I'm in Bend to ride a few long climbs before joining a few of my maniac friends on a 140 mile circumnavigation of Mt Hood on Monday.

I rode Century Drive last year during a week of hard cycling over here while training for Furnace Creek 09. This year I don't have the luxury of that kind of time. I chose my two favorite rides here and am doing them on Saturday and Sunday.

There were a lot of serious bike folks on the road today. Part of it was that there was an organized bike event, "Sunrise to Summit" that went from Bend up to Mt Bachelor and back. But even after Mt Bachelor there were a lot of bikes for country that is many miles from any likely starting point.

I took a few photos of this beautiful country but don't have my card reader with me. Come back later in the week to see the update.

The weather was just perfect for a bike ride. Not too cold, not too hot. I climbed from Bend (~3500 ft) to a high point near Mt Bachelor of ~6400 ft in the first 22 miles. Long climb checked off the "to do" list. Just a few miles past the summit I stopped at the Elk Lake Resort and had lunch. From here on the route would be on a generally descending track all the way back to Bend via La Pine and Sun River.

I stopped near La Pine and got a chocolate milk and an orange/vanilla ice cream bar.

Century Drive used to be an honest 100 miles but over the years road improvements have taken some of the zig zagging out and shortened it up a bit. I managed to get my 100 because rather than take Hwy 97 back I took frontage roads when possible. Hwy 97 isn't that bad really, nice wide shoulders with a rumble strip near the fog line to alert drivers should they "wander" but holiday traffic had the road busier than normal so I ducked off when I could. The only section I had to ride was from near the summit at Lava Butte to Knott Rd, about 7-8 miles, and it's all down hill! Like able to maintain nearly 35 mph downhill!

A great ride.

Tomorrow a ride to East Lake and back, a few miles less, but still climbing to 6400 ft, and it's pretty much all uphill for the first 40 miles, and the last 20 are definitely all UP hill. ;-)

............BIKE............LIFECYCLE.....ROLLERS....TOTAL
Today.......100...............0...............0..........100
Jan........618...............0................0..........618
Feb........692...............0................0..........692
March......940...............0................5..........940
April......934...............0................0..........934
May........905...............0................0..........905
June......1152...............0................0.........1152
July......1020...............0................0.........1020
Aug.......1000...............0................0.........1000
Sept.......100...............0................0..........100
_________________________________________
TOTAL.....7379...............0..............5.........7384