Thom and I opted for the flat metric. Bewtween our three tours and the awesome ride with Jo last week, we've done A LOT of climbing. I think I'm working on my 6th Everest.

Anyhow...

The metric was very scenic with some low rolling hills - excellent course for a tandem. We were on our singles, but a tandem could really fly! We faced Shasta most of the way to our turn around point. Since up until now I've only seen Shasta from Rte. 5, I was suprised to discover that it has a cinder cone off to one side of it.

We blew past the first rest stop at mile 14 and went on to the second at mile 33. It was very well stocked and we were quite pleased with our average speed up to that point. I don't really like to draft on a ride like this - keeps me from looking around. Thom doesn't seem to have that problem, so most of the time I was pulling, with a few breaks when he pulled. There was so little traffic, that we did do some side by side riding as we ate. We saw very few other riders on this course.

After that rest stop we started up the biggest hill of the day. Maybe it was half a mile long, not very steep. When we turned to go downhill, we were faced with the worst pavement of the day. Every fifteen feet or so, the asphalt had cracks that were a few inches wide and deep. Thom practiced bunny hopping, dropping a banana in the process. I just gritted them out.

We then crossed under the highway and headed into the wind. It was about 25 miles back to the course start, all of it with a headwind. We pacelined it back, skipping the third rest stop on our ride. This section wasn't quite as pretty, but it was pleasant. Thom has no instrumentation on his bike, so it really amazes me how consistent he can be when he pulls. Although every time he asked me how fast we were going, he'd increase his speed a mile or so.

The lunch spread at the start/finish was excellent - a couple of different kinds of salad, chicken, steak or veggie burgers, baked potatoes (THE BEST!) and chocolate cake! You could have had carrot or vanilla cake as well.

I would definitely do this ride again. The scenery was gorgeous, the support was great, and the lack of traffic and low number of riders made it quite enjoyable.

V.

PS The quiche Sarah got us for breakfast today was REALLY good - even though it had fungus in it.