Helluva Hilly Hundred and Frederick Century
The Helluva Hilly Hundred was a nice little ride starting from Potomac, MD. The day turned out to be warm and clear. I left the first rest stop a bit early and was able to make it to Mountville Rd (A short steep climb near Jefferson,Md) around the time the rest of the group caught up to me. Halfway up Mountville, we turned onto Marlu Ridge and made our way up to the top. There were beautiful views of the Potomac River and the Middletown Valley. This was a rare ride where I stopped for lunch with the group at Tresie's Pizza in Jefferson. Usually, I just down a couple of powerbars and take it easy for about an hour. We worked our way through the Middletown Valley and back south through Point of Rocks, MD. I overshot my turn on the way back to Potomac and went a little out of my way. The ride started at 8am and I got back to the car a bit before 5pm, the ride was 100 miles and 7000 feet of climbing.
Monday's ride started in Thurmont, MD and worked its way into Abbottstown, PA. I stopped at the first rest stop with the group for nearly an hour and when we got started again, my right knee was pretty tight and bothered me for the rest of the ride. I skipped lunch because I was worried that the knee would lock up. There wasn't much climbing, but it was gusting pretty bad. I took one wrong turn and ended up ironically in Detour, MD adding 4.5 miles to my ride. About 5 miles from the end, I thought I had a tailwind, sat up to read my cue sheet, and got hit by a gust of side wind that dropped me to the pavement, hard. I landed on my left elbow, bounced onto my back (camelback) and my head slammed into the pavement. My helmet took the impact and after taking an inventory to make sure I wasn't hurt, I proceeded on. The whole rest of the way, I kept thinking that the group was going to catch me becuase of my detour and my fall, but they showed up about 15 to 20 minutes later. My ride distance was 106 miles, ride start 8am end 4:45pm.
