Great ride today! Beautiful weather and good friends is always a good start to a ride, but when it's tough and there is some gravel involved, it qualifies as spectacular. Mitch, Brad, and Erich were along, and the route was set. Our constant companion for the day was wind, which definitely added to the difficulty. I did, however, make the comment at one point that it makes for a more fun/less brutal ride when there are others to share the workload. I think that it may be time to consider doing another LT test, my HR zones may have changed. My average for just over two hours was 170, and basically anytime I was on the front I was in the good ol' 5a and even into 5b some. I'm not all exercise sciency, but I'm thinking that being able to be in those zones for 3 or more minutes may mean that they are no longer accurate? Perhaps?





Erich and I split off at the tail end of the ride to incorporate some gravel/dirt. They must have just scraped or worked on the grading of Aquila Creek/Butner Mill.



The road was a total slopfest and the descent to the creek was totally on the edge of control. Riding on that netted us with bikes that looked like this: