Neither of us had ridden much for a while, so we decided on about a 27-mile route and moseyed the whole way. This ride was exactly what I needed: a relaxing ride, not too tough in terms of distance or pace. Though there was a decent amount of climbing, it was much easier at our relaxed pace.

It was an unseasonably warm day, probably in the upper 40s. And sunny skies. Aside from a little wind, it was a fantastic day for a ride. We rode a subset of this ride, but we did the loop in the opposite direction. So there were no new roads, but we rode some in a new direction.

Carmel Ridge Road was one highlight, but in this direction, it was mostly climbing.

These folks had their own private bridge. The sign over it read “Rodgers’ Bridge over Branstetter Hollar.” Nice.

As time wore on, the shadows grew longer.

Somewhere along the way, Dave’s knee  started acting up. And then his other knee. He has had some knee problems on and off for a while now, and they certainly were bothering him on this ride. I think it may have hampered his ability to enjoy the ride … which is too bad because I found it very fun and relaxing.

We passed some very interesting barns and cabins.

Another highlight of the ride came after a nice long descent on Lick Creek Road, as the road traversed flat creek bottoms for a couple of miles, following Lick Creek for a while.

We passed this huge house with a beautiful pond in front of it, somewhere along State Road 45.

We saw some lovely hills along Indian Hills Road.

Soon w were approaching Lake Lemon.

The sun set as we rode across the causeway on the lake.

Just one last (killer) hill, and we were back at Dave’s house, where we started our ride. A great end to a great ride. Rides have been too few and far between, but I am certainly enjoying them, when the opportunity arises.

It’s worthwhile to check out writeups from Tim and David. From their descriptions, I glean that it was very, VERY difficult, and involved a lot of suffering. I’ve had little time for training lately, so it may be a blessing in disguise that I wasn’t able to ride. Even so, I’m still irked that I didn’t get to go.

Saturday night I came down with a cold or something, just in time to be sick for possibly my busiest week of the entire semester. I’m hoping winter break in a few weeks will allow me to decompress and maybe even do some recreational riding.

Tim and David and I were supposed to head down to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky for a weekend of cycling and camping the weekend before last, but it didn’t happen. I was completely worn down and on on the verge of getting sick and Tim got sick, also. So I’ve been fighting varying degrees of sickness on and off for a couple of weeks now. Finally it blew up into a nasty cold over the weekend, but I’ve still be chugging along on projects and such. I hope to get a little bit of a break tonight, but otherwise my workload looks like it will remain intense for a while.

I haven’t even had much desire to ride, which is a weird feeling. It shouldn’t surprise me, because it happened last semester too, and then I did a lot of riding over the summer. I just can’t do everything at once, I suppose.

Thanksgiving weekend brings the Gravel Grovel, a metric century gravel grinder. I’m planning on riding it with Tim and David and Timothy (all Louisville people). They seem to be training for it more than I am, and treating it more like the race that it is. I am a little nervous about it, given my lack of training, but I am looking forward to a good day on the bike with friends, so I’m trying not to worry.

The upside to the days I take the bus is that I get to walk more, once I get to campus. I love walking, sometimes even more than riding, although it’s not practical when getting from point A to point B quickly is necessary. But walking allows you to slow down more, make more observations, and brood. Brooding is something I do well, and enjoy. I like to listen to music and just live inside my head. It’s wonderful and therapeutic.

I do have one rather significant bit of news to report, and that is that I’m quitting my job, where I have worked for two years. My course load is picking up to the extent that I just don’t have enough time available to make it worthwhile. I’ll do some small contract projects when I have the time, but that’s it. Actually, I’ve had some projects on hold so now maybe I can pick those back up again.

Despite the stress and workload, school is excellent. I love academia, I’m learning a lot, and every single one of my classes is interesting. I’m spending by far the most time on my photography class, but it is extremely rewarding.

So, we pushed the ride back a week, to this past Sunday. This time, we lucked out. It was chilly in the morning: 38 degrees Fahrenheit according to my car. Later in the day, it would warm up to 66 degrees or so. That’s a pretty wide range of temperatures, but it was a beautiful day all the day without a cloud in the sky, and deep blue skies. A chill in the air is ideal, to me, especially for mountain biking.

Tim had never ridden these trails. For Dave and I, these are our home trails, so we knew Tim was in for a treat. By the way, Tim has an excellent writeup of the ride on his blog, complete with some pictures.

When we rolled out, I was in the lead. I wasn’t sure what kind of pace the guys wanted to ride, and it took a few minutes for me to find a  pace that seemed comfortable to me. What I discovered was, I was feeling really good. This surprised me a bit, since my training has been a bit lacking lately, but no complaints here!

The way we rode the trails, they started out easy and more or less get progressively harder. This allowed us a good warmup before we had to deal with rock gardens and other technical features. Also, the easier trails are extremely fun. Even the easiest trails have challenges, really, but for the most part you can open up and pick up some speed.

Since I was feeling strong, I pushed it a bit, and on these trails, any extra energy you put into your riding is well-rewarded in the form of extra fun. If you can keep your speed up a little, a fun rolling ride through the woods becomes more of a roller-coaster ride. That’s exactly what happened. I hope the pace wasn’t too fast. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep it up, but I was having a blast.

Pine Loop, North Tower, Aynes, and Green Valley were all a ton of fun. Tim said they kind of ran together in his head, and I think for me they did too, even though I’m quite familiar with them.

These shots are from somewhere along the Aynes loop.

Here, Dave and Tim and navigating some rocks toward the top of Aynes.

And there they go!

As I said, I wasn’t sure how long I could keep up the ambitious pace. Up through this point we were still moving quite quickly. Most of the way up Hesitation Point was the same way. I love how it feels when I’m riding strong.

Hesitation Point is a “black diamond” trail, one of the harder ones we would encounter. It’s two miles, mostly climbing in this direction. It has a lot of technical features along the way, including tight switchbacks, rock gardens, etc. I made it up the two rock gardens, amazingly — I almost never clear those on the way up.

I felt great! Then, we approached the “rock waterfall,” which is basically a really big rock garden. It looked absolutely daunting. But I thought, “what the heck, I’m on fire today, I’ll give it a shot!” Unfortunately as I entered, something, probably my pedal, got caught on a rock, pulling me to a stop. I knew I was going to lose my balance, and tried to fall in such a way that I wouldn’t get hurt. Unfortunately, my kneecap landed right on a sharp rock.

I got up and walked it off for a couple of minutes. It looked like it was going to swell a bit, but it really wasn’t bad. It hurt, but I walking on it helped. I hoped that riding would help even more, so we got back on our bikes, and I did find that it felt better as I rode. I guess it helps that I basically came to a complete stop before falling.

As we rode on, I had lost a little bit of my edge. I still did well on most of the rest of the HP features, though I did skip the large boulder. I’ve never really figured out how to muscle my way up that one. Everything else went fine, and soon we were at the top, taking in the view, having a snack, and taking some photos.

Now we continued on and on the next trail, the Walnut Trail, I did OK for a bit but once we hit the technical parts, I lost the flow, and my nerve. There are a number of really difficult technical sections on this trail, sometimes several features one right after another, and I just couldn’t do it. I ended up walking large sections of this trail, and getting quite frustrated in the process.

Eventually we reached the end and got on the Limekiln Trail, which is an easy trail, but with sections of pump track, it’s incredibly fun. Here I found my groove again and we kicked ass the rest of the way to the end of the trail. It felt good to get the flow back.

We took a break and refilled our Camelbaks, ate some unappealing Clif bars and such, and then headed back. I felt pretty good as we rode Limekiln again, but we skipped the hardest part of Walnut, and I was glad we did. That trail just isn’t fun to me, and I was getting tired. Tired and technical aren’t a good combination.

By the time we reached Hesitation Point, I was slowing down considerably. I was nervous about the technical parts on HP, since I had messed up on my way up. I was also finding that while I like to keep a loose grip on the bars to allow bumps to be absorbed by the bars, rather than my body, as I got more and more tired, I couldn’t keep a loose, fluid grip. I was gripping the bars too tightly, which made some things more difficult, but I couldn’t seem to help it.

So, I just went slowly and cautiously down HP. I did clear most of the technical features on the way down, but not as fluidly as I had earlier in the ride. Somewhere around the bottom of HP, Dave’s leg started cramping.

Fortunately we were on the home stretch at this point and made our way back to the parking lot. Tim was on fire now, and showed no sign of slowing down. He was just flying. I was struggling to keep up, but still, the return trip was a lot of fun. It helps that it’s mostly downhill. We hit Pine Loop on our way back which is just such a fun way to end a ride.

By the end of the ride, we had ridden every trail in the park except for Schooner Trace, which is an “Expert”-level trail. Too technical for us.

After the ride, we headed into the small town tourist trap of Nashville, IN, and hit up the Big Woods Brewing Company. I had heard a lot of great things about them. I enjoyed an excellent stout and a good, but not great, burger. It was a great end to a great day of riding.

The ride was Sunday. It’s now Tuesday, and I’m still stiff and sore. I forgot the extent to which mountain biking takes its toll on your body, much more than any other kind of riding. But it’s a good soreness, reminiscent of a fun day on the bike. The knee that I smashed is a little bruised and sore, but it’s not bad at all.

Anyway, last weekend, Dave and I went for a road ride. We ended up doing something we’ve done in the past. I rode the 13+ miles out to his house, we rode a loop together (in this case, around 35 miles), and then I rode home. I ended up with over 60 miles and 3600 feet of climbing for the day.

The day was beautiful — nay, perfect. 70 degrees, breezy, sunny, and literally not a cloud in the deep blue sky. But even more amazing was the humidity — a mere 30%! That kind of low humidity is awfully rare around here, and I sure enjoyed it while it lasted.

Amazingly, this ride didn’t include a single new road. We rode some roads in a different configuration from what I’ve ever done in the past, but every road was familiar.

This kind of ride — with the long out-and-back sections at the beginning and end, and 100% familiar roads, makes it easy to put in some long miles without feeling like I’m doing an epic ride. It’s easier, physically and mentally, than a 60-mile ride in the boonies in new terrain. There’s something to be said for both kinds of riding, but this day was just an excellent day to turn the pedals for a few hours, with great conversation, worry-free.

Fall is starting to arrive. Some trees have started turning already, and some fields are a beautiful golden yellow color. It’s a wonderful time of year.

On my way out to Dave’s, I had a headwind most of the time.

Once Dave and I connected, it was wide open road for a while.

There are a couple of climbs lined with limestone walls like this one.

We rode up to Morgan-Monroe State Forest. There are a few good hills along the way, but once you are in the forest, it’s easy, gently-rolling, perfectly smooth asphalt, with deep shade from dense forest. It’s a wonderful respite from the climbing, at roughly the halfway point in the ride.

Our bikes couldn’t be more different, but you’d be surprised at how well Dave keeps up with my road bike on his full-suspension bike. If he ever gets a proper road bike, I’ll be in trouble.

We enjoyed rolling down Bean Blossom Road. This is more or less a 1.8-mile downhill. If you ride the Hilly Hundred, a popular annual ride, you’ll ride UP this hill. I’ve done it, but when left to my own devices, I always, always opt to ride down it instead of up.

Then it’s a flat valley for a few minutes.

Dave suggested we take North Shore Road to extend our ride and loop around Lake Lemon. It’s been a few years since I rode North Shore from west to east, and I think I have changed my opinion of this road. I used to think it was better going east to west, but now I think west to east may in fact be better. Either way you go, it’s quite hilly.

We only got a brief glimpse or two of Lake Lemon. I had to stop when I saw all these huge lillypads.

Below, you can see a tree that’s changing a little bit. Soon these trees will be ablaze with color.

The area surrounding the creek, below, was flooded badly, but they appear to be making good progress on cleaning up and rebuilding.

We usually take South Shore to ride across the causeway, and see more of the lake, but we decided to take State Road 45 back instead. It was a shockingly quiet day, and even the highway was incredibly empty. I think everyone must have been indoors, watching the IU football game, or actually at the game (there was a home game that day).

Dave went home and I stopped for a minute to get a shot of the little post office in Unionville. A couple of big logging trucks went by, full of logs probably taken from Yellowwood State Forest.

I had an excellent tailwind the whole way home and finished the ride on a strong note, feeling great and enjoying the push after having a headwind so much of the day.

It was a great ride! I was hoping to get to ride some evening after class/work, but I just didn’t have time. Tomorrow, though, I get to go mountain biking with Dave and Tim. The forecast looks iffy, but it should be another great day on the bike.

Now we seem to be in a middle ground — in the upper 80s the next couple days, lows around 60.

This weekend was a total loss though, I spent Saturday throwing up and otherwise feeling miserable due to what must have been a nasty combination of a hangover and food poisoning. It was truly awful. Sunday I was much better, but still dehydrated and weak … I tried to keep it a restful day, spent recuperating, with a little cleaning around the house.

My mountain bike is now fixed again, I ended up having the shop upgrade my rear brake to an Avid BB7, instead of the BB5 I had before. I haven’t had a chance to try it out, but I’m excited.

I had a couple hiccups with the LHT, the first being a flat tire. I lucked out — I walked out after work and found my front tire flat. It was hot that day but I just sat in the shade and calmly changed the tube, rather than fighting with it by the side of the road. The hole was right by the valve stem, so there was no patching it.

The shifting is getting fidgety on the LHT, as well. I’ve made some adjustments, but the problem seems to be getting worse. So, I just threw my barend shifter in friction mode, and it has been a lot better. In fact, I’m rather liking the improved control I get with friction shifting.

Unfortunately, I think my cassette may be wearing out. The brakes are also not quite right, and my front shifter is stiff. The bike needs work, and it may need a professional’s touch at this point. I’ve done a good job of keeping it tuned up for a while, but it’s getting to a point where it just needs more than I can confidently do. At this rate, I’d say it definitely needs a good solid tuneup before winter strikes, if not sooner. That’s probably a good idea, anyway, I suppose.

But it needed some work. My brake cable was rusty, and my brake pads weren’t grabbing well, both on the rear brake. I’ve been getting better at working on my bikes, and I stopped and got some parts the other day. Tonight, I went to work and I was making great progress. I was following a particular method for adjusting my Avid BB5s (first article, second article).

Long story short, the first article tells you to “tighten down as tight as you can with out breaking it,” speaking about the adjustable brake pad. I did this and went through the rest of the steps, but it turned out to be too loose and it didn’t work right. I tried again and tightened a little more this time. Made some adjustments, everything seemed good. Then I went to back the adjustable pad back out and I stripped the head of the screw! I couldn’t get it out. It’s still stuck there. I also busted the red hand knob that goes around the head of the screw.

Naturally this means I won’t be going mountain biking tomorrow. I’ll probably do a road ride instead, so all is not lost, but I’ll miss out on mountain biking with friends. And now I’ll have to pay my LBS to bail me out. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to buy a whole new brake at this point. Damn.

Dave called this our “bizzaro ride” because we did several trails in the opposite direction from the way we usually ride them.

We rode down North Tower Loop, then rode Green Valley, Aynes, North Tower Loop, and finally, Pine Loop, all “backwards.” Here’s a map of our route. I’m not sure if the map is quite right, as I was having GPS issues.

Even though it was a short ride in terms of mileage, this was the best mountain bike ride of the year for both of us. We were in the zone and pushed the pace more than usual during much of the ride. These trails are always a blast but at a faster pace, they’re even more fun. You really appreciate the flow of the trails better when you’re carving turns, bombing down hills and pedaling up more vigorously.

Green Valley was, in this direction, incredibly fun. The first half or more was downhill and with a few great switchbacks, minor ups and downs along the way, flow, and views of ravines, creeks, and even a lake in the distance were stellar.

In the photo below, you can see the trail coming down the hill on the other side of the ravine. As you can see, the trail is rather narrow. What you can’t see are a bunch of rocks in the trail surface as well. The trail comes around a bend, goes down into the ravine, switches back and then climbs back out again. It’s beautiful and exhilarating.

However, we would pay for all that sweet descending. There were a couple of tough climbs toward the end of the trail and it also got more technical maybe 2/3 of the way through. The climbing and more-technical trail interrupted the flow a bit, but it was still a lot of fun. And the technical parts are tricky enough to be exciting and push the limits of what I’m comfortable with at times, but never over the line.

After Green Valley, we took a break and I got some shots of my bike. It’s so great to have the 29er rolling again!

I had Dave take my picture with the bike. You can tell we were both thrilled to be out in the woods.

We got moving again, debating which way to go. We decided to ride Aynes “backwards,” which we had only ever done a couple of times, a long time ago. It was more fun than I remembered, and I made it up a tough rock garden that’s tricky when going downhill (the way we usually ride it), and even harder going up. Dave and I both walked over one large root, but I think I may attempt it next time. It’s in a tough spot, but I think I can do it.

Most of the rest of the trail was just wonderfully flowing.

We also did the North Tower Loop backwards on our way back and once again, pushed the pace more than usual … and had a blast.

As we were rolling downhill back toward the parking lot, the flow even better than before, neither of us wanted to stop. Dave suggested we ride Pine Loop and it was just the right thing. Some more flowing, swoopy trail, and a few opportunities to catch air, and we reached the bottom of the hill. Then we had a bit of climbing to get back to where we had parked, but we had really let loose the rest of the ride and soft-pedaled back to our cars.

What a great afternoon in the woods!

I didn’t feel ready for school to start, but I’m getting back in the swing of things pretty quickly. My classes are all interesting, and once again, as a General Studies major, I get to take a variety of classes:

• Social Informatics
• Roman Culture
• Production
• Photography

In addition to being interesting topics, my production course is actually hands-on this semester, which is exciting. We got to see the TV studio where we’ll be doing some of our work, and it’s very impressive. I can’t wait to learn how to use some of the crazy equipment they have there.

Photography is in the darkroom this semester. I’ve done darkroom work before, but it’s been a long time, and I’m very excited.

The Social Informatics class is a prerequisite for another class I want to take, but it looks interesting in itself. It looks at how technology shapes society, and vice versa.

Roman Culture fulfills a cultural studies requirement. I chose it because when I was growing up, we always studied the Greeks, with promises that we’d cover the Romans later. But, we never did. The topic isn’t as fascinating to me as some of the others, but it is interesting, and it’s cool to have such a different kind of class. It’s going to involve a lot of reading, and I’m actually looking forward to some of it. Also, the professor seems engaging, which could make a huge difference in a class like this.

I’m trying a different approach to carrying my junk to campus this semester. Last semester I used a milk crate, and it worked OK, but it was a little cumbersome having the weight so high on the bike, and it took a good 10-15 minutes to get the crate on and off.

I looked into some messenger bags that could attach like panniers, but they were all expensive and I wanted something more flexible. So, I bought a grocery pannier. I ended up with an Axiom Hunter model, I didn’t put a lot of thought into it, just picked up the best one the shop I visited had. They had a Blackburn model that seemed sturdier, but it was smaller and less flexible, and I’m pretty sure my backpack wouldn’t have fit. Here’s my new setup:

It’s not perfect. Sometimes my foot hits the bag (though I think I can adjust that problem away). And it’s still cumbersome sometimes, but it’s a lot easier to get the grocery pannier on/off when needed, and the weight is lower, even if it’s a little unbalanced. We’ll see how well this setup works out.

The problem is, Indiana roads are unpredictable. It’s very difficult to tell which will be paved, and which will be gravel. Usually, we’re seeking out gravel, and we try to plan as many gravel roads as possible. This time we had the opposite idea in mind, but we still didn’t know if all the roads would be paved or not. Tim put together a route that looked very interesting, and we scheduled the ride. Here is the route.

In the days leading up to the ride, we inspected the route more closely, and it started to look like some of the roads would be gravel. With rain in the forecast, we ultimately decided that the fast, skinny-tired road bikes were out. They wouldn’t fare well in wet gravel, which is something we had to be prepared to deal with.

The other riders in our group (David, Patrick, and Timothy) had all already chosen beefier bikes, so Sunday morning we set out, prepared for … well, we didn’t know what to expect, so, anything.

We rolled out of Orleans at 9:00 am. Here is Timothy, who was joining us for his first RCCS ride, or at least the first one that I have been on as well. He was riding a rigid, steel Trek mountain bike. He’s training for the Heck of the North ride in Duluth, MN in October. We crossed paths at the Louisville 100k populaire, but only spoke for a few minutes on that ride.

Here is Patrick, on his Rivendell Bombadil. This was my first time riding with him, though he rides with RCCS sometimes, but usually in Louisville. It was also my first time seeing a Bombadil in person, and it seemed like a fine rig, extra badass, with its second top tube.

Here are the two Tims. The day got off to a brisk start, with the two of them setting a strong pace.

We saw a lot of dogs this day, many of which gave chase. I find this photo amusing because the dogs are smiling, but David isn’t …

We made a brief stop in Campbellsburg, where Tim had to make a few fender adjustments. His front fender actually snapped off, and he had to chuck it.

Campbellsburg seemed like a scrappy little town, with lots of run-down homes. Many were worse than this — some had holes in their crumbling walls.

But, that didn’t last long. We were out in the country again, with a mild climb and some stellar views.

We went into a wonderful, mile-long decent into a valley bottom with flat fields surrounded by hills. We were less than 20 miles into the ride, and already we had some excellent highlights.

David picked up a hitchhiker in the form of a grasshopper under his front rack.

After a few flat miles, we had to pay for that stellar descent, with a long climb. It was tough, and the weather was warming up. Soon thereafter, and much to our surprise, we hit our first gravel for the day. Then there was another crazy downhill, this time on loose gravel. I wimped out and went really slowly. I’ve had a few too many crashes on these rides. Fortunately none have been serious, but I’m a little spooked when it comes to gravel downhills.

The pavement soon came back and we had another big climb. I can’t remember if this one was on pavement or gravel. Timothy sure was enjoying the ride.

After a brief section on State Road 135, we turned onto Old SR 135 for what would be a highlight of the day for many of us. A long descent, nearly two miles, with quite a few switchbacks which meant the ride was never too steep but we could build up some speed and carve through the sharp turns. This was bliss!

We stopped about halfway down to check out the views. Here comes Timothy down the hill.

We had a great view out into the distance, with the road curving well below us.

Toward the bottom, after the road straightened out, we saw several kittens alongside the road. I didn’t stop to photograph them. Soon we reached the Muscatatuck River, and another surprise. Our route had us turning here.

Naturally, we were able to crawl through and lift our bikes over the fence.We took a few photos from the bridge.

Then, we rolled on, and enjoyed a few flat paved miles, surrounded by farmland.

At this point we reached a couple miles of rough gravel.

We found a covered bridge to explore.

The small town of Medora appeared in the distance. This would be our only store stop, roughly halfway through the ride.

I kept seeing these white wildflowers, but I’m not sure what they were.

Soon we reached Medora.

A stop there was much needed. Some of us were out of water, or nearly out. We all stocked up on water, and ate some lunch. The place where we stopped served food, in addition to being a convenience store. I had brought a sandwich but some other folks bought some sandwiches there.

After refueling, we rolled out again. Everyone was moving slowly after lunch, with the heat kicking in and lunches not yet settled. We thought the return trip would be easier, but there were some more surprises in store for us.

First was the wind. We knew we had a tailwind much of the way out, but we hadn’t realized how strong it was. The wind was quite strong at times, though in some areas, we were shielded by hills, trees, etc. But when we were out in the open, we were pushing against the wind.

The reflection in this pond looked absolutely perfect. An idyllic spot, an image captured in a fraction of a second, but I could have lingered here for hours. Staring at the photo takes me right back to that spot. It’s funny, we didn’t even stop here, but I keep looking at this image and thinking how perfect that spot was.

Soon we reached the East Fork of the White River, which we would see at several points along the route.

We saw another closed bridge, but this one was not on our route.

And a lot of run-down barns and the like. For a while, the road had the river on one side, train tracks on the other, and shacks on the other side of the tracks.

Then, another surprise: more gravel. This time, in the form of an 8.5-mile stretch, with a few hills thrown into the mix. None of the hills were too extreme, but the hot conditions, dusty gravel road and some hills, made for a very challenging section of road.

It started off well enough, with some fun gravel, and even some shade.

Part of the challenge was mental. Somewhere along here, Tim and Patrick rode on ahead. I was having problems with my GPS crapping out on me (I think due to the vibration on the rough gravel), and at one point, I tried to push my sunglasses up and the lens popped out. I managed to catch it in my hand. I tossed it in my handlebar bag until I could find a good time to stop.

Every time I’d see a bit of shade, I thought maybe Tim and Patrick would be stopped there so we could regroup. My GPS kept beeping at me every time I hit a bump. I wanted to put my sunglasses back on. I just kept on riding and still, no Tim or Patrick. Eventually I just stopped and fixed my glasses, and tried to fix the GPS. Then Timothy caught up with me, and I rode with him for a while. This was a nice stretch of road, but it was too hot and I didn’t know how far ahead Tim and Patrick were, and my stomach was starting not to feel very well. I was ready to get past this road.

After what seemed like forever (and in reality was probably not more than 45 minutes), I reached the end of the road and there were Tim and Patrick. Timothy was close behind me, and David a bit behind him. We got stretched out a little bit on this road, but not by more than a few minutes.

We crossed the river, which felt like an important benchmark on the return trip. Maybe we were on the home stretch now.

Not long after that, it started raining. It never rained very hard, but it did cool us down for a few minutes — except in sunny spots, where you could feel the steam coming off the road as the rain fell. Wow. Naturally this was happening during a climb. This house was not in the greatest shape, but they did have a nice river view.

Then the road got hillier. My stomach started feeling better. I wasn’t climbing too vigorously, but I felt decent most of the time.

After a few ups and downs, the road got a bit flatter but then we were headed directly into the wind. The hot air blasting in my face made it difficult to breathe at times. I ran out of water a few blocks from the end … much further and I would’ve been in trouble in terms of water. But given that it was a 70-mile ride with only one refueling stop, it worked out perfectly.

This was just a wonderful ride all around. The scenery was great, the terrain challenging, and most importantly, I had a blast riding with these guys. RCCS rides are always fun, but having Patrick and Timothy join us made it that much better. We had a great group of riders with varying gear and philosophies. Never a dull moment with this group.

School starts back up for me in a week, so my riding will probably be more limited after that. I’m hoping to get a ride or two in this weekend, but if not, this was a great way to end the summer.