A couple of weeks ago I headed to the big apple to ride the Gran Fondo NY. It was a fun weekend and a good way to get a real long training ride in. We started on the George Washington Bridge in NYC to Bear Mountain and finished in Weehawken NJ by the waterways terminal. Initially I thought the ride was 160km, then I learned pretty much the day before that the ride was 177km. Great! An Ironman distance ride! Perfect! This was not a race per se, the only thing that was timed were four climbs. The rest was a cycle at your pace and have fun kind of event. Since I was cycling on my own (the guys did not ride with me), I decided to treat it like a training ride. I was not in race mode at all and did not even race the climbs. I just took them steady. I also took minimal time at the stops with just enough time to refill my bottles when needed. It was a long day but a good one with over 8600ft on climbing. I am really happy I got that ride in! I wish I could have performed better in terms of rankings but I am ok with my performance. Total ride time was just over 8hrs, yes a long day! lol! My total climb time was 1:10:44 which placed me 60th in my division (W19-39) out of 113 starters but 77 finishers and 162nd female out of 312 starters/205 finishers. On another note, the guys I went down with rode together and I caught them at the last aid station with 40km left of the ride. I was pleasantly surprised to see them there and shocked at the same time. They were taking their time at the aid stations fueling up so I ended up catching them!!! Hehe! Here are some pics of the ride:
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| heading to the start at 5am taking the subway in NYC |
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| waiting on the GW bridge |
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| bird's eye view of the start |
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| climbing |
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| and more climbing |
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| 35km to the finish |
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