Proof...

Hah. A random guy took a picture of Jon I. and me when we finished riding the Bay Century last month. He just emailed the picture to me. The ride followed an overnight typhoon, riding through two regular flooded roads, one *salt water* flooded road (and by flooded I mean 6" over the bottom bracket), and over thousands of sticks and branches, as well as heaving the bikes over then climbing *through* the upper branches of a huge downed tree.

Jon I. is the bicyclist on the right. I'm the refugee from Olympic Powerlifting Team on the left.



Please note the weather. It was only raining *a bit* at this point. Looks like dusk, right? It was actually about 1:15 PM.

Water had been running out of my shoes for most of the ride. I was so wet, that I had stopped being prune-y. On the positive side of things, the extra water in my chamois made it feel like I was on some kind of new gel chamois. A slimy, leaky, ice cold one. When I stood for hills and then sat down, water would squish out of the chamois and little bubbles would come out of the crotch of my shorts. I only noticed it because of the hissing noise it made when the water drained.

The Bay Century is a really great ride, comprised of truly rolling hills in Southern Maryland on the mainland side. There is a lot of scenic horse country, and a lot of nice, peaceful backroads. It also has an epic rest stop at Chesapeake Beech on the boardwalk, around mile 80 or so. They serve Hammer nutritionals, much better than the vomitous regular Gatorade stuff you get at most centuries, and it's put on by Snow Valley, a race club that also does some high speed touring. I wholly endorse this ride if you're a touring century rider, a first timer looking for a stiff (but not dire) challenge, or a racer looking to put in 5-5.5 hours of zone two training with some rollers and a couple small-ish hills thrown in. (I heard 4500 feet of elevation change, total, mostly on false flats). I wouldn't recommend riding it in the rain, if you can help it.