Wanderer Bikes 100 Miles To Benefit The American Cancer Society

Wanderer Bob Vogel completed a 100-mile ride on July 11, 2004 to benefit the American Cancer Society. Below is his report.

The ride was fun and incredibly rewarding. It was amazing that so many riders showed up. I don't know how many thousands, but the Ben Franklin Bridge was packed side to side and end-to-end with riders at the start. Things started to spread out on the down side of the bridge and out onto the roads, but there were always plenty of people to draft, making the going relatively easy on the flat route to the shore. Every now and then I'd see a group of 4-8 riders in a pace line cranking away at 20-25 mph, and I'd latch on to the end and hitch a ride for a while.

We rode that way for 62 miles, with really well-stocked rest stops every 15 miles or so, with free bananas, orange wedges, yogurts, PowerBars, TastyKakes, Bagels, water, Gatorade, smoothies... yum. But when I got down to the end and started on the Century Challenge (a loop of another 38 miles to bring to you 100), for some reason not a soul was on the course at the time I entered it, and I didn't run into anyone going out. The going got very rough being solo, as the wind was picking up pretty hard and I was going right into it (after 60+ miles in my legs).

Just when I was thinking this was a bad idea, I saw another rider way up ahead, so I put the hammer down and worked hard to catch up. This took a good 10 minutes of hard riding, only to find that the guy I caught was totally toasted and was limping along at 10 miles an hour... too slow (it would take forever to get back), so I kept on going. Then, a few minutes later, way down the road, I saw another two guys rounding a bend. I really wanted to hitch up with another rider or two so that I could get a breather drafting. Again, it took me about 15 minutes to catch these guys, and they were also hurtin' and riding slow. But we were nearing the half-way point in the loop and there was supposed to be a lone rest stop coming up, I rode with them for about two miles and we hit a little oasis... more bananas, orange wedges, yogurts, PowerBars, TastyKakes, Bagels, water, Gatorade, smoothies... yum.

There were about 20 people chilling at the rest stop, and I noticed a bunch of guys in cool jerseys from their riding club. This was my ticket back. I asked them if I could join them, and they said, "sure, the more the merrier." Turns out, they were pretty tired too, and I was feeling resurgent to be in the group, and have the wind at our backs on the return part of the loop. There were a few strong riders who stayed in the front for the group to create an air barrier. I worked my way up to the front and started to help pull the group in rotating shifts. It was just me and another big guy up front for the last 5 miles... we were going at a steady clip of 20-22 mph, and nobody wanted to take over.

When I got to the end, we had traveled 103 miles in 5 hrs. and 50 minutes of riding time. That's about a half million spins of the peddles. Ave. speed for my trip was 17.5 mph. I really was feeling quite fine... only a little sleepy, since I had to get up at 5 a.m. to get ready, eat, and make it down to the start point by the 6:30 a.m. start time. I ate more food when I got to the end (a big park with large celebration). . . and then the best thing happened. I found a tent where they were giving free full body massages to the riders. I was the last guy they took. The girl giving the massage was really good, digging down pretty deep and getting to some cricks in my back and shoulder that I've not been able to get rid of for months.

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