Riding one mile is cake. Ten, a round-trip commute.  Thirty, a long weekend ride. One hundred? That's a  century.

And I did it for the first time Friday. Greg and I dragged ourselves out of the house at about 6 a.m. -- to make a round trip to Magnolia beach. To tack on some extra miles, we looped around Alamo beach, Placido, Riverside Park and then went grocery shopping (by bike) afterwords.

As single-day adventures go, this was great. The lowlight was me almost getting myself killed when I didn't see an SUV coming up behind me while I turned left. Generally, I'm extremely cautions in taking turns. The lesson here -- triple check over your shoulder before you turn. Keep in mind, if it's windy and loud, your cycling partner might thing you asked "Is it clear?" rather than "Are there any cars?"
Thank you to the kind man in the Lincoln Navigator who did not kill me.

After I stopped sobbing hysterically over my brush with death, we rode into Alamo Beach. A man driving away told us surely, we were headed the wrong way. The wind picked up and hard, cold rain (or hail?) drove at us from the side.  Fortunately, the Indianola Baptist Church, with its big, inviting awning was right across the street from us we sat there and ate lunch, figuring we were doomed to get crushed sitting on a church porch.

Did I mention it was cold? Seriously, I learned even in July, in South Texas, bring some long sleeves or a blanket or something. But it blew over, we made it to the beach. Greg, who since moving here a couple of months ago has begged me to go to the beach, announced he didn't want to get all sandy.

The best surprise is both our legs felt pretty good by the end of the day. Possibly because the terrain was mercifully flat. As my mom would say though, we had sore hineys. (I swear, she would say that. Or tushes.) And the back of my neck  and shoulders were all kinds of sore (Anyone know if this means my handlebars don't fit?) And we were as hungry as a couple of raging brontosauruses.

All and all a great ride. Anyone have a good route for a century ride mapped out they'd like to share?

Leslie