My first century (Ottawa-Iola-Ottawa)

I have a full writeup on the adventure on my blog here:

The round-trip took me almost exactly as long as John L’s ride of 5/28/2011 (http://www.bikeprairiespirit.com/other/recordstable.php). Naturally my phone gave out, so I have no GPS record.

I’m glad to note that the condition of the trail continues to improve. There were still some holes & cracks here and there, but it’s better than it was just a couple months ago; and I’m given to understand from the folks on this site who rode big stretches of it in July and August (which I didn’t do) that it was worse still at that time. This weekend, it was very rideable and only a couple small stretches were a little “sketchy”.

With the cold temps (35-50 all day, overcast all day and somewhat windy) I saw only a few folks on the trail all day. I saw a couple joggers near Garnett, a walker near Richmond, and on my return ride, 3 guys on bikes passed me heading south (if you guys are reading this – I probably looked pretty weary when we passed…I was very well into my 100-mile ride on this cold day…after we passed I thought, “I bet those guys are thinking, that guy isn’t gonna make it” 🙂 ).

Saw a few deer on the trail – there’s a little family of deer that I think I’ve seen twice now in the past few weeks near Princeton – a number of dogs (a couple of whom I thought might menace me but never did) and a cat or two. Stretches of the trail are very pretty with falling leaves covering the path.

No issue with downed trees or anything, although I did find every spiderweb on the trail with my 6:30 AM start, hehe.

As I mention in my blog writeup, this is the last really long ride I’ll do on the PST this year. I’ll go out for stretches – probably not much further than Richmond – but nothing huge until next riding season.

I’m looking forward to the progress on the extensions to tackle the still-longer trail; and I’m planning to tackle my second full-trail-ride shortly after the trailheads reopen.

I still hope to get a century in this season. It’s a miles stone I just haven’t gotten eight hours next to each other to accomplish.