We did our first scheduled ride out of Performance Bike in Greenwood last Thursday and it was really a fun ride in spite of heavy rain. Six of us left the shop at 6pm and headed south through Johnson and Morgan counties to inaugurate our new Thursday south side route, with cloudy almost threatening skies, warm weather and most of us with rain jackets on,,,, just in case.
We made it almost a half mile down the road before the clouds dumped on us and inaugurated some of us in rule #9 The Rules because we got wet!
A good place to point out Sam's reminder on this week's email to make sure that you have at least a working tail light on your bikes every time we go out as Spring weather is unpredictable and at this point in the season a delay could put us home after dark.
It was a brisk morning with the start temperatures hovering in the low 30s but we threw some chemical toe warmers in our shoes and headed out. I soon discovered that I had overdressed and had to tie my jacket around my waist to keep from sweating up a storm and being as wet as I had been on Thursday. Everyone else seemed to be ok, I could have been so hot because I had the most fat :)
We crossed State Road 144 and made our first discovery that the flooding we had been hearing so much about was going to affect our ride.
So we altered our route and headed west up Kitchen hill, which I think all of us agree is the equivalent of Centenary without the traffic.
An hour in we were at the base of Observatory hill and made our first Category 5 climb of the day.
(a note for those of you on the team who are riding Nashville and Death Valley, even though there is not anything quite as steep as these hills on those routes, anyone who has spent a summer doing these climbs and completed for example, the Jubilee pass climb will agree that this is great preparation both in fitness and mentally for a long Cat 2 climb like that)
We had 4 Catagorized climbs in total and numerous difficult climbs besides.
On the way back we decided to ride up SR67 on the shoulder to the base of Observatory as our planned route back was flooded and closed. We won't be doing that again, simply because the shoulder is littered with trash and we respect our tires to much to put them through that again.
When we got to the top, Sam and I could not resist taking one more trip to the top of Observatory before heading back to SWW. It was a fun albeit cold day!!
We had planned to come straight back on Mann all the way, but when we got to Fox Hill, the group decided that we had not yet climbed enough so we took a little detour to the top of Fox Hill and came on home that way. By this time the temp had climbed to a balmy 49 (still felt like the 30s :)) but we were all still relatively comfortable.All in all a great ride and we are planning on doing it again this next Saturday as one of our team members from Kentucky (Steve Lewis) will be visiting for the JDRF Gala that is this Saturday also!
Come out and join us, you can find the route from last week HERE !!
I hope to see you on Saturday!
Michael
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