I’d resolved after seeing the forecast temperatures of next week that I’m going to cut back on the longer rides.
Today I might add something: “and big climbs.”
But I think I got it just about right at 47 and a half miles. “Just about,” because the big climb of today earned its nickname “The Bastard” by the time I was done with it. It was consistently 12%, and the relentless summer bugs that orbit your head when you’re most defenseless (on climbs, moving slow, no breeze, no way to lose them), well, they were out in force. Not as bad as last year when we first encountered them on a hill not far from this one, but bad nonetheless.
Still, it was an excellent day. Five AM start, generally flat for the first 20 miles. Kind of beautiful, kind of interesting. A bit of morning mist along the river…
A little time to mess around with whatever interested us beside the path…
(Albert and I kind of attract our share of sideways glances from the early morning geezer squad, I’m sure.)
We weren’t necessarily intimidated by the climb ahead…although there didn’t seem to be a reasonable way through the hills we were seeing…and Albert was on his single-speed…
And yet, we made it; and at the top of every hill is a hill on the other side — but going down. Our descent took us into a lovely valley for the next 15 miles. As we rode, we expected the exit — one more bit of a climb to get out on the other side…a climb that never came. Oh yeah, we were hitting 3 or 4 percent every so often, but nothing dramatic.
So when we took our last left and I saw a sign for a cemetery, I remembered as I was planning the route — the cemetery was on the big downhill out of the valley, meaning, we were done climbing for the day. A great feeling, and kind of a pretty cemetery too…
Here’s the route with the elevation profile at the bottom. We started at the far left (west) side. The big climb started at that little nub that sticks out on the east side, and the cemetery descent starts at that sharp left at the center bottom.
It was great fun. I look forward to more…