We started out at Fallen Timbers Middle school. I arrived at around 6:45 after stopping for a ham, egg, and cheese croisanwich at Burger King. I hadn't planned ahead and made any arrangements to ride with anyone. Instead, I figured I'd find someone I knew in the parking lot and join their group. That's pretty much how it happened, too. After checking in and getting my map and number, I saw Kevin, Brian and Billy standing in the parking lot as I prepared my bike. It was only by chance that I looked up and saw them leaving the parking lot. I quickly hopped on my bike and caught up to them. That group ended up including myself and a guy named Scott as well. We rode together until just before the second refreshment-station stop where we picked up another guy we called "Ohio State" because he was wearing a bike jersey with the school colors and symbol on it.

At the first refreshment station, we rolled right past because we were only 9 miles into the ride. Unfortunately, we were supposed to turn around and track back through Oak Openings after that stop. Instead, we rode a different route and caught back up with the real route another way. We were all still feeling really good at the second rest stop which came just before the 30 mile mark. There, we refilled our water bottles, ate some grapes, cookies, trail-mix, and bananas.

Between the second stop and lunch, we took a fairly direct route to Farnsworth park in Waterville. I've never been to that park, as far as I can recall. The view of the river at the building where we ate lunch was really nice. For lunch, they offered "tacos" that were really burritos... sort of. I guess you could call them soft tacos, if you wanted to. They also had PB&J available for sandwich making. They had the same fruit here as at the refreshment stations. They also had cookies and brownies. I partook in most of that. Yes. Yes... I think I had some of everything.

When we left the lunch stop, we had two additional riders. Matt, who was HUGE and pulled like a truck, and Chris who rides the same kind of bike as my co-worker, Tim. So, at that point, it was "Ohio State", Chris, Matt, Scott, Brian, Billy, Kevin and myself.

"Ohio State" was the first to drop off - because Ohio Sate fans are weak. Chris was next. The rest of us stayed together until the split where Scott turned off. Scott was only doing the metric century ride (62 miles/100 km). Right around the time that Scott was heading in a different direction, my bike really started knocking and "ting"-ing a lot more frequently. It had done this in the past and it is really annoying. Apparently, there are about 800 things on a bike that can go wrong and 700 of them result in a knocking/ting-ing sound. Everyone was convinced that my front wheel wasn't on tight enough. Unfortunately, when stopping to tighten it didn't help. After a short ride, we stopped again and it was determined that I have some loose spokes. I suppose it could be worse - much worse.

From lunch to the next refreshment station was an un-real 30 miles. THIRTY MILES! No place to refill water bottles or pee or get some additional protein. Nothing. They'll have to do something about that next year. It was nice to know that from the NORTA scale house where were did finally refill and refresh, we only had 20 miles to go. Kevin, who is part machine, left before the rest of us. I'm sure he was glad to be rid of those of us who struggled to keep up at 20 so that he could push along at 24 or 29... whatever he did. I'm sure it was more than the 23 that we hit a couple of times with the tail wind.

At around the 95 mile mark, Brian commented that he was getting a cramp in his right quadriceps. Shortly after that, he rose up out of the saddle to stomp on the peddles after a stop-sign and he commented again that he was getting a cramp in his right quad. Around the 97 mile mark, he rose up out of his saddle, un-clipped both feet from the peddles and slammed on the brakes. He fell to the ground and said "Oh my god! Oh! Oh! Pete, HELP ME!" His quads were rock hard and throbbing. He couldn't bend his legs and he was in a lot of pain. I turned around and practically fell off my bike because I had trouble unclipping. I dropped down on my knees and pushed against the bottoms of his feet trying to stretch things out. It didn't work. Neither of us knew what else we might try. Billy and Matt were far enough ahead of us that they didn't even know what happened and they just rode on. Soon after Brian hit the ground, Chris and Ohio State rolled up and stopped to help. Eventually, the spasms and cramps stopped or at least subsided enough for him to continue at a reduced pace. At the next stop sign, there was another cramp, but he worked through it.

We stopped for our well-earned ice-cream cone in Whitehouse before we hopped onto the Wabash trail to finish out the last mile and a half. Kevin and Billy were waiting for Brian, there. I guess Kevin was his ride home.

Some things I learned (or learnings that were solidified) on this century ride: