P.S. If any of my fellow carousers are wondering, I even survived my ride this morning - we ended up doing the 20-mile Three Bears loop instead of our original plan, and somehow I managed to complete it with my best time ever by 10 minutes! :D Didn't even use the granniest of my granny gears on Mama Bear -a first! I guess all that "hydrating" last night did the trick!
As photographic proof I offer this view from the bottom of Papa Bear. (This was taken while (barely) moving - one of the benefits of an extraordinarily slow rate of ascent is no camera shake! :o) It's a nice view... which is good, because it looks pretty much like this for a very long time! Then you round the bend, and it's more of same...
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