The Ride of the Century

It’s over.

After a summer of training, the 100 mile bike ride—The Best of the Blue Ridge Artie Levin Memorial Ride, is over.  It was fun. It was grueling.  It was rainy.  It was dry.  It was good.

Here are the stats from my bike computer.  It only runs while the bike is moving, so it will not account for the rest stops of which there were many.  Distance: 103 miles; Average Speed 16.8 miles per hour.  Time 6:07:32.

I won’t trouble you with a blow by blow account of the agony of this thing, but in general terms we rode from Buchanan to Goshen then turned south and rode through downtown Lexington and back to Buchanan.  It sounds so simple when you put it like that.

As I’ve been blogging here, this is the first year the ride formerly known simply as “The Artie” (in honor of Blue Ridge Bicycle Club founder and famous Roanoke fitness guru Artie Levin) has been an official fundraiser for the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

This is an awesome ride.  It is a gorgeous route, as pleasant as 100 miles in this part of Virginia could possibly be.  We rode along creeks and fields framed by mountains and historic buildings.  Postcard setting after postcard setting.

I was more focused on keeping my legs from cramping than the history of the region but WSLS Cycling teammates Troy and Gordie agreed that we were probably cycling past barns, houses and outbuildings that had been there when Civil War soldiers walked the same roads. 

The course was like that.  It had a sort of intimacy I’ve seldom felt on bike rides.

The ride itself had one strenuous climb and a lot of rolling terrain.  But it also had several sections that were downhill or flat.  The three of us rolled along in a pace line averaging 22 miles an hour, with what felt like no effort for mile after mile. 

The MS folks had enthusiastic volunteers staffing rest stops every 10 miles.  The meals after each day’s event were great and much appreciated.  The course was well marked and easy to navigate and the support staff passed us at least a dozen times making sure all the riders were not in need of help.  Bike mechanics were on hand for everything from tune-ups to catastrophes.

This was a small ride in terms of turnout.  Maybe 100 riders total over two days, but that feels like a stretch.  But the folks at MS Society should take heart.  When people in other parts of the U.S. see the scenery in the southern Shenandoah Valley and hear about the quality of the riding here – it should begin to draw from hundreds of miles away.  The $50,000 raised this year will only grow.