Back in May I was scheduled to ride The Art of Survival with my high school buddy Roger and my training for that event had gone flawlessly but the weather didn't cooperate and I did not attend. About a month ago I got an email from Roger: “Call me about Ride the Rogue.” Ride the Rogue is a metric century starting in the town of Rogue River, Oregon. There is a river named The Rogue River, and it is after that river that the town and the ride are named. The start and finish of that ride are about a half hour away from the town of Jacksonville, Oregon where Roger’s brother-in-law, David lives with his wife Sarah. Both David and Sarah were riding, as were Roger and his wife Janet and then they invited me along. This is the same group of us who attended Eroica back in April We were getting the band back together!
A month was not enough time to complete my standard* training schedule for a metric century but I had been training quite a bit and so felt I was in pretty good shape, and besides, I had been rethinking that standard training plan. Conventional wisdom is that when preparing for a ride where the main challenge is the length (a brevet, a century, a metric century, etc.) the longest training ride should be between ⅔ and ¾ as long as the challenge. Ride the Rogue is 63 miles long, and thus my longest training ride should, by that standard, be between 42 and 47 miles long. The second longest and longest rides in my “standard” plan are 45 and 56 miles long, the 56 mile ride is longer than it needs to be and in fact the second longest should be long enough. By eliminating the 56 mile ride, I would be able to complete my training for that ride, and that is what I did. An interesting implication of that is that had I used this new plan for Art of Survival back in 2021, I would have completed the plan and attended the ride, avoiding a major trauma in my recent cycling history. That said, it is not clear that would have been wise given how tired I was feeling back then, but it does make me wonder.
Roger and David are much stronger riders than I, a fact I don’t see changing no matter how I train. For that reason, when I rode with Roger and Janet and David and Sarah at Eroica, I did a shorter ride with Janet and Sarah rather than the longer, harder ride that David and Roger did. Thus, when Roger invited me on Ride the Rogue, I wondered if I might do that again. “No,” Roger said, “bring your eBike, David and I will draft off of you.” I hoped he was joking, for I knew, even with my eBike, we would be evenly matched at best. That said, it sounded like a plan so that’s what I did. My Orbea Gain eBike had been riding a bit rough recently, so I took it in to my LBS, Veloro Bicycles and they fixed it up in time for my 45 mile training ride. It has never ridden better, thank you Veloro!!
David and Sarah had invited me to stay in their gorgeous home. Roger and Janet were staying there as well which made for a wonderful social experience. I arrived late Friday afternoon, we got up early the next morning to drive the 30 minutes to the 8:30 am start, and we were off.
Sarah and Janet were supposed to start their 40 mile ride at 9:30 but because the beginning of their route and ours were the same, they started early with us so that we could all ride the beginning together. The metric century featured three rest stops which were first rate, having all the essentials; bathrooms, water, and a variety of snacks including the cyclist favorites, PB&J and bananas. The ride never felt crowded. We would see other cyclists occasionally along the route and there would be several at each rest stop but most of the time it was the three of us riding alone. The first part of the ride was on very quiet roads through beautiful mountains covered with pine forests. Virtually all of the 2200 feet of climbing was in this part of the ride. This was followed by a stretch on flatter, busier roads, not as magnificent as what came before but perfectly acceptable. The purpose of this event was to raise money to extend the bike paths that run along the Rogue River, so appropriately, the last stretch was on the paths we were supporting. The paths were wonderful. In case it is not obvious, I heartily recommend this ride!
So how did my ride go? Was my training sufficient? How does a metric century with eAssist compare with a metric century on a conventional bike? How was my Orbea as a long distance bike? The ride went well, I was able to keep up with Roger and David and I never got too tired, suggesting my training was sufficient (and also not excessive, which would have left me fit but too tired to make use of that fitness.) The fact that I was able to keep up with Roger and David is a tribute to the eAssist. My Orbea has three levels of assist as well as a no-assist option (level 0.) I rode my 45 mile training ride entirely at level 0 to increase the training that ride provided. When I ride around my neighborhood at Level 1, at the end of 3 hours of riding, I have about 21% of the battery charge left, not enough for a 4th hour. I estimated that this metric century would take me about 5 hours to complete, so I knew I could not use the assist, even at level 1, for the whole ride, so during the ride I turned it off when I could keep up without it and only turned it on when I needed it. At the end of the ride, which lasted 4 hours 49 minutes, I had 22% of my charge left. Both times I rode the Golden Hills Metric Century, I averaged 13.3 miles per hour. In this metric, I also averaged 13.3 miles per hour. This would seem like the eAssist gave me no benefit, but this ride had 2201 feet of climbing whereas Golden Hills only had 1517 feet of climbing, so the eAssist basically made up for the extra climbing. Also, I think I was less tired at the end of this ride than I was at the end of those two Golden Hills Metrics. My Orbea was great to ride, it only had one issue. Near the end, I had a puncture caused by a thorn from where I parked my bike at the last rest stop. That is not, of course, a problem with the bike, but how hard it was to repair was. It took many tries with the three of us working together to first get the tire off and then back on. I am pretty sure that I would be unable to repair a flat by myself which, if I cannot remedy this, limits the usefulness of this bike.
Anyway, we did get the flat fixed, made it to the end, and rejoined Sarah and Janet who had been waiting for us for a couple of hours. Fortunately there was both beer and a band at the start/finish line so they didn’t mind. Here is the group picture we took at the finish line:
* I have successfully completed this “standard” training plan (including the ride itself) only once, for the 2019 Golden Hills Metric Century. However, that ride went so well I declared the training plan I used for it a standard.
