I rode almost 20 miles after work last night. Was hoping to ride Wednesday but we had thunderstorms so I had to postpone to Thursday. It was hot, I was dripping sweat at the end, but I'll take a September heat wave over winter cold any day.
Last Saturday I did 41 miles in Virginia, in a rural area around Warrenton. It was a nice route, some roads I'd ridden before and some that were new to me. The ride leader says he likes to do variations of it in the winter, so I'll keep an eye out from them. Afterwards we had lunch near the ride start. There's a cluster of buildings on land that was purchased by federal government back around WWII and used by cryptographers (or something like that), and now they're a brew pub, small cafe, produce market and museum about the Cold War. We got food from the cafe and brought it to the brew pub for a nice post-ride lunch.
Then on Monday our bike club had our annual century ride. I helped at a couple of rest stops, taking leftovers from one that closed early to another one that was open later, then driving to a third stop to help out until it closed, then driving back to the ride start by way of the final rest stop while picking up route-marking signs along the way. It was a long day but perfect weather and lots of fun. We did run out of food at one rest stop, and at the post-ride picnic were already talking about how to keep that from happening in the future. The ride is in an area that is not close to any grocery stores so it's not easy to get things on the fly when you start to run out.
Tomorrow is one of my favorite rides of the year, the Civil War Century. I'm doing the metric as usual. I'll be riding with someone from work and will be on the lookout for some bike club friends who will be doing a longer route. The food is always great at this ride, fresh fruit from local orchards and ice cream from a local dairy. I'm looking forward to it.
- Gray 2010 carbon WSD road bike, Rivet Independence saddle
- Red hardtail 26" aluminum mountain bike, Bontrager Evoke WSD saddle
- Royal blue 2018 aluminum gravel bike, Rivet Pearl saddle
Gone but not forgotten:
- Silver 2003 aluminum road bike
- Two awesome worn out Juliana saddles