The Super Century Preview

I hear that tomorrow there is supposed to be a major football game on TV.  One that people get together with friends to watch and eat a lot of food.  With that in mind, my friends over at Team Virtus came up with the horrible idea of riding on their trainers for 100 kilometers (thank god they decided to make it metric rather than English) to burn off all of the calories consumed while watching the game before the game actually happens.

I don't own a trainer, but I was intrigued, then I opened my big mouth and signed up.  They did say you could ride outside if you must, so that is the option I'm going to take.  Now I'm sitting here trying to plan a route.  The easy-but-boring option is to go ride the same levee trail in Chesterfield that I have ridden 3 times already this week.  It's 7.9 miles end to end, so 4 round trips should get me 63 miles.

The left photo is the most visually interesting part of the trail.  Unfortunately, most of the trail is more similar to the right photo.  Thanks to Great Rivers Greenway for the pictures.

Pros:  FLAT, close to home, I can wait until the morning to go get my bike, since it's sitting in my office a mile from the trail head.
Cons:  Susceptible to any wind, boring trail, since I ride this all the time right now, 4 round trips on it tomorrow will bring me even closer to trail burnout.

The next option (which I hadn't really considered until 5 minutes ago) would be to do the same thing on Grant's Trail.

Image from Great Rivers Greenway.

Pros:  Flat, though I think there is 200' of elevation gain over the 8 miles.  Relatively close to home.
Cons:  Repetitive.  This trail is also 8 miles long, so I'll have to do it 4 times as well.  It's the opposite direction from work, so I need to go get my bike tonight.  There are a lot of stop lights on the trail.

Option 3 is to leave from the house and ride 62 miles.  It was a little scary when I saw the map of what it will actually take to get that far.  Combining the ride I did on New Years Eve and the one I did on one of the nicer weekends last month (the far point on the New Years Eve ride was where I started that one) only came up to about 50 miles, so I put a leg in to take me over to Grant's Trail and to do about 2/3 of that.

Pros:  I can start from the house.  No repetition, except for the out and back part of Grant's Trail.
Cons:  The hilliest option.  I need to go get my bike tonight.  Traffic.

Option 4 is the one I initially thought of when I said I would do this. It would be to go over to Madison County, Illinois and ride the awesome trail system they have over there.  There is a 26 mile loop I can do twice, then pick an out an back on one or more of the other trails to get my 62 miles.

Image from Madison County Transit.

Pros: Flat.  I don't have to ride anything more than twice.  I could get my bike in the morning.
Cons: A 90 mile round trip drive to get there.

What do you think?  Help me decide!