MS-150 Bike to the Bay!

Well, I completed the Bike to the Bay for the 7th time this weekend.  This one was the most challenging for a host of reasons.

Saturday we rode from Dover to Rehoboth (around 77 miles), than jumped back on our bikes and rode back 36 miles to Milford.   We had about 2700 cyclists this year.  At the beach I got a quick neck and shoulder massage to help with some of the aches before departing.  My buddy, Susan, and I rode pretty hard back to Milford.  We had pretty savage headwinds both ways.  Not sure how that happens,  We were about 10 miles from MIlford, when Susan said to me she didn't believe the weather could be any worse, when we got clobbered for the next 10 miles with a cloud of gnats.  They were everywhere and got into every open pore.  When we got at our stop off point, I never enjoyed a shower more than that night.  112 miles on the first day felt pretty good.  My partner had never ridden a century so I was really proud of her.  My wife joined us and we celebrated that night with a great spagetti dinner and half a glass of red wine (that's my limit).
Got to bed early and slept really well.

Sunday morning, we slept in since we knew we were well ahead of the pack leaving from Rehoboth.  We pushed off around 6:30am.  We kept a good pace and hit all three rest stops on the way back to Dover.  It was great being the first ones at every stop.  A lot of cheers from the volunteers setting up their stations.  They took a lot of pictures of us and were great cheerleaders.  We spent a little time at one of the rest stops admiring the 3-year old rescue great dane that a couple had brought with them.  Oh, and by the way, the wind on Sunday, was more intense than on Saturday.  As we got to about 5 miles from the finish, I finally started to feel the weekend catching up to me, and really had push to maintain the pace.  Susan took the lead for the last two miles which helped to get me through.  We were the first to cross the finish line 
at Dover.  We were so early that the Bar-B-Q wasn't even setup, but we had already decided that we were geting mac n' cheese at the local Wawa.  Can't believe how great that tasted.   It turns out we missed the rain by about two hours.. 

I can't believe how great it is to do these events.  Zero aches and pains, and ready to start back up the training.   Since my surgiversary is on Wednesday, I always use this ride to rekindle my energy and celebrate my new life since the RNY.  Life is good and it great to have all of you to celebrate and share it with.

Rob

 wow Rob, I really want to start doing these kind of rides.

Congrats - on EVERYTHING!!!  Sounds like a great event, and mac n cheese sounds DELISH!

Happy Surgiversary!

Those were some pretty challenging conditions, wind, bugs ... glad you beat the rain!  Congratulations on another fantastic ride.

Cassie