First Century Ride

The Tour de Livingston 2010 began at Mt. Brighton on 10.10.10 and offered various distances and loops. The event is organized by the Howell Rotary Club and had several local sponsors. This was my second time attending  the yearly event and my second attempt at completing my first century ride. I decided to raise money the second time around as the donations helped local people in my community that needed food, clothing and a place to stay. The fundraising goal was $500, which one would think this would be easy…but it was not. I truly can feel for people who do this for a living as getting money from for even a great cause is just hard work. The good news, after hard work of endless spam and phone calls, the goal was reached.

The event itself, well one could not have asked for better weather, started off nice cool then slowly warmed up to 80 degrees around noon. The bike routes this year were so much improved from two years ago and well marked. I do not recall needing to refer to the maps at all. The first loops was 62 miles which took us to Pickney/Hamburg area to Ann Arbor and the to Dexter. The food stops were ideally located(especially the one at the Dexter cider mill). The journey down Huron Parkway was just amazing as it was newly paved. Did I mention the people were just so friendly? I rode by myself, but really was in packs of riders all day. It was fun, meeting new people and jumping from bike pack to pack. After getting back to Mt. Brighton we had some lunch, then headed out for the second loop of 38 miles which took us through Kensignton Metro-Park and Island Lake. I waived to my house as I rode by! I should mention that before the parks, we rode behind the GM proving grounds and those were some serious climbs. I felt like I left a few legs behind after climbing a few “hills” that were 1 mile long. We finished back at Mt. Brighton, which I had to circle to officially push my cycling computer to read 100 miles.

Overall the day, the people, the event and even the weather were great. I would highly recommend this event to anyone, and be certain I plan to sign up next year!