Preface:
Horsey Hundred is a Memorial Weekend ride put on by the Bluegrass Cycling Club, and is based in Georgetown Kentucky, just north of Lexington. Mileage options for each day vary from 15 miles to a century. Terrain is anything but flat, but very few hills are steep enough to cause anybody problems.

Rest stops are arranged at approximately 20 mile intervals, and include cookies, fruit, Gatorade, and water. Oh yeah, and porta-potties. The routes I rode were quite rural, so the rest stops were about the only opportunity for such mundane tasks as refilling the water bottle. Late May weather in Kentucky is mild. Some riders wore light jackets early but they didn't wear them for long.

Horsey Headquarters is at Georgetown College, (not to be confused with Georgetown University.) For a modest fee, (OK it's really cheap!) riders may reserve dorm rooms for the weekend. Organizers allow riders to specify if they are riding a tandem or recumbent, and try to put those people in the first floor rooms. There are also hotel accomodations and a campground in reasonable proximity.

This was my first Horsey, so I really didn’t know what to expect. Kentucky isn’t known for being flat, so I asked around my club whether gearing the Baron for hills would be advisable. Nope, the consensus was that there were only a couple of ‘challenging’ hills, and that my 11-25 cassette  and 56/42/30 chainrings should be sufficient. Since my wife would be travelling with me, we got a hotel room instead of a dorm room. My wife is not a cyclist, but she wanted to visit the Kentucky Horse Park, which is just a few miles down the highway from Georgetown.

Saturday morning the weather was perfect: sunny and warm with a mild breeze. Quite a change from the conditions I’ve been subjected to so far this year! Michigan has been cold and rainy so far this year. I rode from the hotel to the Horsey HQ, spotting Than Cramer as I rolled up. Than had his super street P-38, outfitted with a large Coroplast tailbox and front fairing. He was riding with his friend Tim, who was on a wedgie. I started out with them, but somehow we got separated on a few of the first mid-sized downhills while leaving Georgetown.

Road conditions ran the gamut, from nice to quite poor. Most roads were quite narrow, some looked more like driveways. At one point, a bike on my left ran me into a wash of gravel, causing me to nearly end up in the trees. I managed to stop without losing skin. After that incident, I decided it was prudent to ride my own ride and let others ride behind me if they wanted, but not alongside. Here's one that did.

I had promised myself to stop at all the rest areas, so at the first one I waited a bit for Than and Tim. No luck, they must have really been slowed by the hills. For myself, I was wondering if I could maintain my pace for 101 miles, when my longest ride so far this year was about 50 miles. Perhaps because the hills were small enough to power over, that’s exactly what I was doing, and my legs felt it already. Never one to slow down if it can be helped, I immediately concluded that the only way to tell if I could make it would be to try. After downing several cookies, a banana, and some Gatorade, I laid back down on the bike and took off.

From here, the hills got larger. There were a few grinding uphills that got me down in my small chainring, and one even got me all the way down into first gear. On that particular hill, I saw three broken chains and heard of a fourth. To go with the uphills, there were some nice downhills. Several were in the 45 mph range in spite of poor road conditions or visibility. More than once I rounded a high speed curve to discover a stop sign bearing down on me. I traded ‘leads’ with a trio of young studs, getting passed by them on the big uphills, and passing them on the big downhills. Eventually they got away from me. Overall, I gave as well as I got, and the Baron proved to a lot of people that yes, recumbents can do hills.

After the second stop, the breeze was in our faces, and the upright riders were complaining. The ubiquitous stone walls (above) that seemed to line all the fields were head-height for me, and combined with my small frontal area, the net result was that the wind bothered me not in the least. I put the bike in cruise mode until lunch, passing just about everything on the road. Contrary to my promise to myself, I skipped the 3rd rest stop, since lunch was only a short distance up the road at that point.

Lunch was at mile 60. Bikes lined the fence leading up the hill to the picnic area. I left mine parked near the bottom. The fare was plain - hot dogs and chips, but I heard few complaints. The biggest problem I saw with lunch was a shortage of water. Volunteers were kept busy filling the dispensers from the one available hose. By now the day was getting quite warm, around 85F, and still sunny. I found a shady spot to eat, made a few minor adjustments to the bike, then took off..

By the 80 mile mark, I was starting to feel decidedly tired. This was already my highest mileage day so far this year, and it wasn’t over yet. This time, the stop was in a park pavilion at the bottom of a hill. When I stopped, the brake rotors were hot enough that I didn’t want to lay the bike down in the grass. I ate more cookies, and drank a bunch. Then I sprawled out on a picnic bench and rested for 15 minutes. Much better. Lying in the cool shade seemed to help, so after a few more cookies and glasses of water I was ready to start the last leg. Of course, the leg started with a climb back out of the park, up the same steep hill.

I was told that the last leg was mostly flat. Well, this was Kentucky, so I didn’t believe it. True, it wasn’t flat, but the hills were much easier. I finally rolled back onto the HQ grounds at 3 pm. About 6 ½ hours for 101 miles, including stops and lunch. My on-road average was 17.8 mph, with a high speed of 51 mph. The calorie counter function on my HRM was reading 7800.

Sunday dawned cloudy and threatening. The weatherman predicted scattered showers, and the temperature was a much cooler 60 F. I had planned on doing the 50 mile route, but somehow ended up on the 37 mile route instead. No matter, at least it was covering previously-unseen territory. Today saw fewer of those stone walls, and more wooden horse fences. That made my view better, since I couldn't see over the walls. Some pastures even had double rows of fences, spaced closely enough to prevent the horses from jumping. The terrain was reminiscent of yesterday’s early rollers, and it wasn’t long before I was charging down one hill to get momentum for the next. I passed one recumbent that looked vaguely familiar as I zoomed by, so I slowed. It was Larry Varney on his Bike Sat-R-Day, riding with friend Don Gieringer. Don had his wedgie instead of his Gold Rush or his Bike Sat-R-Day. I rode with Larry and Don until the next stop, where we met up with Ken Kramer on his Gold Rush. From there I rode with Ken for a while, until I finally succumbed to my weakness, chasing uprights.

Lunch was only peanut butter sandwiches, along with the standard fare of cookies, fruit, and Gatorade; but then, what more do you need for a 37 mile ride? I ate and visited for a while before taking off alone. Finally, coming back into Georgetown, a strong tandem team passed me at a stop light by rolling past just as the light turned green. They were standing and cranking, and checking their mirrors for me; so I took it as a challenge. Off we went, climbing the good-sized 3-4% hill. I had closed most of the gap by the time the grade eased off, and I accelerated to passing speed on the ‘S’ curve at the top. The were doing about 28 mph when I finally caught them, just before the second curve. After congratulating each other on a great sprint, we rode the rest of the way to the HQ together.

Recumbent sightings: Not as many as I'd expected, but a good variety were present. I saw just about every RANS model, several Easy Racers, Visions, a Linear, Lightning, even a couple of homebuilts.

Summary - Overall, I’d say this ride was a keeper. Stops were reasonably spaced, and well stocked with cookies, fruit, Gatorade, and water. I only saw one SAG vehicle on the road, but with roads that narrow it was probably more practical to hang out at stops and wait for a report to come in that help was needed somewhere. Most of the roads were narrow but lightly traveled. Although flat spots in the route were rare, few of the hills were terribly steep or long. I enjoyed the hills in spite of insufficient training. I never felt disadvantaged by riding a recumbent.

I have two criticisms of the ride.  The first being the fare at lunch. A little more variety would be welcomed, especially by vegetarians. The other criticism I have is the road markings: 2 inch stenciled letters, 15 feet from the intersection, just doesn’t work. At 20+ mph they were easy to miss, and too close to the turns for reaction time. They seemed to realize this, because some of the markings on the second day were much larger. Great Job, BCC! It's a loooong drive for me, so I can’t promise I’ll be back next year, but I can promise that I’ll be back someday.