Sunday, 6:30 AM: Arrive at Bear Creek High for my third participation in the Delta Century. The usual good organization by the Stockton club is in evidence, as there are flag persons to direct parking, and the registration table is well-staffed with friendly faces. The high winds I experienced during the drive to Stockton Saturday night have died down, and the sky has high clouds. I’m thinking these will burn off and a fine day is in store. Wrong! Anyhow, I’m stoked to be going for my first (non-metric) century in over 15 years, but I’m also wondering if I’ll really make it or if my legs, arms or butt will give out at some point.

6:45 AM: I hit the road, having elected to wear my windbreaker over shorts and a short-sleeved jersey, plus my usual gloves and helmet. My leggings are left in the car. "I don’t need them right now," I figure, "and it’s only going to get warmer." Wrong again!

I’ll describe the ride in terms of approximate mileages (taken from the route map) and/or times, for reasons involving my cyclometer that will soon become clear.

Mile 17, nearing New Hope School: Noticing a pretty good headwind on each Western leg of the route. Hoping the wind won’t keep up this way; it’s likely to burn me out early. Then I start to feel something that seems like a few fine drops of rain. "Is that rain I’m feeling?" I call out to two riders ahead of me. One of them is trying to be optimistic. "No, it’s snot!" he calls back. At least I think that’s what he said.

Mile 19, about 8 AM: First rest stop at New Hope School: I was right about feeling rain; it has turned into a steady, cold drizzle. I’m thinking about how it will be to ride 75 miles on wet pavement, with my tires spraying cold water on me, and I’m not liking it. I linger, hoping the rain will let up, but it doesn’t; the pavement just gets wetter!

When I leave New Hope, I discover that the rain-sheltered spot where I left my bike wasn’t, and so my seat is thoroughly wet. Nothing to do about it now. Riding out, I see several others taking routes back toward the start. Probably they are the wise ones, but I didn’t prep myself all spring for a century only to bail out this early. When I turn west toward the delta I am the only rider in sight.

The going is miserable. The rain is steady and cold, and the gusty wind is in my face. I am grateful for the stony pavement that would be annoyingly bumpy any other time, since it allows my tires to pick up and throw less water! At least the pavement markings are clear and easy to follow.

Mile 24: I’ve reached the delta and my next good chance to bail out. The route turns left, but I know about 1/4 mile to the right is the lunch stop and a chance to go indoors. I turn left. I don’t know why.

Miles 25 to 33: This is the first half of a clockwise loop that takes me west from the lunch stop and then back to it. The conditions are kind of awful: headwinds from the west and cold (though not heavy) rain. I get an iota of extra comfort by putting a sweatband on my head and pulling it down over the tops of my ears. At some point I resort to singing to keep my mind off the cold. It works, but that doesn’t keep me from being embarrassed when a group of riders comes up behind me without my noticing. I think the headwinds have me down to about 10 mph, far too slow if I’m going to last for 100 miles. But I can’t tell for sure, as my water-flooded cyclometer loses its sanity and begins reporting speeds from 0 to 80 mph.. All I’m thinking is that I want to make it to the lunch stop and then think about what to do next.

Miles 34 to 47: Somewhere after 9 AM things begin to improve. The rain slackens, and I can see the clouds to the west are broken up. Maybe there will be sunshine after all! (There was maybe 30 sec of full sun in the early afternoon.) As the route loops back around to the east, I pick up a tailwind and start to ride fast. This is great, except for the bumpy delta pavement. When I look out at the road ahead, everything is slightly blurred due to road vibration. Thank heaven I have a carbon frame.

My first big adventure of the ride occurs near mile 33, and almost without my knowing it. I am nearly across the first of several steel-decked bridges on the route, when I hear a sliding sound from behind me. Two guys with bikes are standing at the far end of the bridge, and they shout that I have almost been hit by an SUV! As the behemoth exits the bridge they shout, "Hey, give a bike a brake!" They tell me they watched it overtake me on the bridge, slam on its brakes and "go sideways" on the wet steel. Glad I didn’t see it. What amazes me is that to enter the bridge the guy had to stop and make a turn. So he accelerated too quickly with me in plain view in front of him. My windbreaker is neon yellow, so I don’t think he could have missed me.

This was a lesson to me, though. For the rest of the ride (and in the future) when crossing one of those bridges, I will wait for a big break in traffic, so that I can be alone on the bridge. Right of way or no right of way, if a car hits me I’ll be just as dead.

Mile 47, about 10 AM: Made it to the lunch stop at the Jean Harvie Center, though it’s too early to eat much. The 100-mile route loops back to here 32 miles later, so I will nibble now and eat then. Many people are huddled inside, and a couple of volunteers have their cars running so the heaters can be used to warm the hypothermic. I’m thinking that a full century is probably out of the question, as my legs are getting stiff, my shoes are wet through and my butt is threatening to be quite sore any minute now. Still, I feel well enough to go on, so what the heck? At this point my cyclometer is registering forward speed even when my bike is still. This way I cover 15 miles during the stop.

Miles 47 to 79: Leaving the lunch stop I am resolved to survive for at least 32 miles so I can return to the food! The going is much better now than in the early morning, as much of the pavement has more or less dried out and the wind seems lighter. Once or twice I even see my shadow as the sun almost breaks through a thin spot in the clouds. By now my cyclometer has settled on a speed of 0. Around mile 56 I overshoot a turnoff. It is at the beginning of a section whose pavement markings differ from the rest of the route, so I guess I rode by without noticing the arrow. Fortunately I am soon stopped by some riders who did the same thing and had ridden much further in search of the turn. I don’t know how far I’d have ridden in the wrong direction, considering that I had no working cyclometer to tell me something was wrong!

I roll into the water stop near mile 68 along with 2 or 3 other riders. The volunteers tell us we are probably in the "middle 20s" of riders on the 100 mile route. I know I am no speedster, so I can only attribute this low number to the rain’s having chased away most of the riders. A pity, but very understandable. Oh well, it just means more for the rest of us in terms of the food and support provided by the Stockton club.

The ferry crossing just after the water stop is a first for me. Not exactly an epic voyage, but picturesque nonetheless. Also it is much safer than crossing a bridge!

My second big adventure comes around mile 75. I call it the incredible Dog Ambush. I am riding about 17 mph past a front yard with a heavy screen of bushes that are close to the road.. Suddenly there is an explosion of barking and two dogs sprint out at me! Luckily they aren’t real big or real fast; their top speed is a little slower than I am riding. But one of them has timed his rush so that he gets in front of me, and he sprints along at an 11 o’clock position, with his head half turned to bark at me. The other boxes me in at 5 o’clock.

I have to slow down a little, but I am able to get around the lead dog and outpace them both. The whole thing takes 5 or 6 seconds, but it provides me with enough adrenaline for the next 10 minutes. Fortunately neither dog tries to bite me. Maybe they are running too fast or maybe they are just out for the fun of the chase. Anyhow, after I get past them I begin to reflect on their technique. Not bad, considering there had been fewer than 25 riders ahead of me to practice on. Maybe by the 50th rider they will have it down to where they can steal somebody’s wallet right out of his shorts.

Mile 79, about 1:30 PM: I make it back to the lunch stop in one piece. In fact, I feel no worse than I had at 48 miles, so I began to feel pretty sure I can finish the ride. My shoes have (mostly) dried out, the volunteers are playing 60’s music on their boom box, and the sun is even providing some warmth. Things are looking up!

Mile 101, about 3:30: I make it the rest of the way without incident, still able to sit on my seat and lean on my handlebars without agony. My cyclometer, still registering mostly 0 mph, shows a total distance of 65 miles with a top speed of 280 mph. The number of cars still in the parking lot at Bear Creek High is quite small. Inside the school, people tell me that riders had "left by the hundreds" during the morning rain. The volunteers seem philosophic, but it had to be a big disappointment to see the weather cut down the ranks of their riders.

The Stockton Bicycle Club deserves all the more thanks, from those of us who did finish, for organizing on their usual grand scale what turned out to be a smaller event than they must have expected. I hope this year’s weather doesn’t hurt their enthusiasm for the Delta Century, as I am looking forward to a sunny ride in Y2K!