Night Ride!

Brad and I were able to get together to do one last ride in Indiana before my return to the Old North State. We rode from his place to Wapehani and got in some good, super hot miles.

Hills O' Brown County

With heat indicies here in southern Indiana approaching 115-120 degrees today, I knew that it would be in my best interest to get out as early as possible. On vacation who wants to get up at 5:30 to go bury themselves climbing every hill possible? Me, absolutely me! I loaded up the supplies and some extra cash for stops and headed to Nashville. Through the state park, and up one of the bigger climbs of the day, and I was awarded with this great view to the East:


Back down the other side, and I scoffed at this sign and dropped like a rock:


I had an alterior motive to heading in this direction, I wanted to get as much of the climbing in on gravel as possible. I was awarded with a few that nearly had me dismounting at 22 percent.

Tracks left in the dust:


I stopped in at the sleepy little hamlet of Story, and decided that someday I would have to stay/eat at the inn.



I found some great roads, and had an ill conceived idea. I followed what looked like a very promising gravel road:


This road tapered to this point, then essentially disappeared onto what felt like private property.


I made a side trip to a little cemetary and became pensive about my own imminent demise. Will the cemetary I am buried in end up like this place? All but forgotten.


I found some other great roads, probably the favorite of which, Christiansburg Road brought me to Pike's Peak

How this area got its name makes little sense to me since it was in a valley 400-500 feet below the ridgelines above it.

By this point in the ride I was ready for a quick stop and needed to replenish the fluids. I stopped in at Trail's End General and Tack and bought some dr. pepper and a slim jim. Yes, a slim jim.



I headed back up and into the park and got a bit of a crazy idea of riding one of the mountain bike trails on the road bike. I did a little five-ish mile loop and got a good laugh out of another rider on the trail. Riding 25c's in a rooty forest makes for some less than agile moves.



So, after all the fun, I had to get down to the work and did some repeats on two of the 450' climbs in the park to accumulate the necessary altitude gain. After much suffering I was back out of the park through the covered bridge circa 1838, and back into Nashville.


When I got back I had to take a photo of my shins. On one of the gravel descents my bike became unruly and I nearly had an unscheduled dismount. All of the on the bike acrobatics kicked up a bunch of gravel dust. It's always a great road ride when you've ridden gravel, dirt, and accumulated a bunch of climbing


Ride totals: 110k, 1800m of climbing.

Indeeeeyana

Very little progress towards the Rapha Rising challenge has been made since my foray into the midwest. I'm looking at somewhere around 8ooo meters left to climb, and will likely have to concede defeat. It's been a fun attempt, with way more climbing than I would normally do, and has required a number of repeats on smaller hills to accumulate the climbing. Idid get out for a thoroughly enjoyable ride yesterday at Brown County State Park. Incredibly humid, like it only gets in the midwest, made for a pretty wet ride.

Enjoying the view at Hesitation Point...I still don't know why it was named this.


One of the old foundations and chimneys in the park.



One section of the new Green Valley trail.

Spy Vid

I received this video from former CLM member Scotty. The note contained within the envelope simply stated, "my friends in Spain helped me launch my music career."

Quick Way to End a Ride

In my efforts to continue towards completion of the Rapha Rising Challenge, Sidney Portier and I headed to Traphill to do the HP&A Route. With storms threatening, we decided on doing the 32 mile option which still includes about 3500 feet of climbing.

We made relatively quick work on the climb up Oklahoma Road, and were up running parallel to the Parkway.



There were threats of storm throughout the ride, but we stayed dry aside from a little bit of spray coming up from the road. After riding along the Blue Ridge Parkway for a bit, we started the plunge back into Traphill. We parted ways at the bottom of Oklahoma so I could go get more climbing in. A new addition to this year's route includes a descent down into Stone Mountain State Park as an out and back. I've driven this a number of times to either go hiking, camping, or fly fishing but had never ridden it. It's a pretty stout stair-stepping climb out with flat sections punctuated with short bursts of 14-16 percent grades. I made my way back up and out and climbed Frank Parkway a second time and headed back into the park for a second go. At about the furthest point out, I heard a loud snap and was quickly halted. A spoke in the rear Ksyrium was snapped where it meets the nipple. With such high tension on these spokes, when one breaks, the wheel is exceedingly out of true.


I loosened the brakes in the hopes that this would resolve the issue, but to no avail, the tire was rubbing the frame to the point of stopping each revolution. I let all the air out, and still no rolling. So...I sucked it up and shouldered the bike for a long walk out. With no cell reception, I knew I had no other option. After three miles of climbing with my bike on the shoulder, and 40-50 cars passing me with nary an offer of help, I declared Southern Hospitality as dead. I finally made it to the visitor's center to try to hitch a ride with a ranger, but not before the skies opened up on me. Thankfully, one of the rangers volunteered to drop me off at the X.

At the end of it all, I ended up with around 40 miles with about 5200' of climbing. A grape fanta was in order at the campground:


Garden Creek Baptist Church, in the valley between the Blue Ridge and Stone Mountain:

Quad Hump.

So, I've decided to accept the Rapha Rising Challenge. It calls for a lion's share of climbing to be done during the days of the Tour de France.



After the poseur prologue the other day, I headed into the West End to do about 15 hill repeats to net me 2500 feet of climbing. Knowing that I will be heading to Indiana in about a week, I feel as though I'm going to have to get about 90 percent of the vertical before I leave. Indiana isn't exactly conducive to racking up tons of climbing, even in the hilly southern portion I am headed to. Today, my goal was to get in about seven thousand feet, but I ended up eclipsing that number by a good margin. I tagged the local summits of Sauratown Mountain and Hanging Rock two times apiece, and logged another 45 or so miles in their shadows. All told, the mileage was around 55, with right about 8000 feet of climbing. On the way back from Hanging Rock the second time, I ran into a dog I had never seen before on Moore's Springs. He gave chase, and my legs protested heartily in my sprint away from him. No joke, he looked just like Eddy from American Flyers!



Honestly, 70,000 feet in three weeks seems a bit lofty, but I am going to give it a shot...it should put me in good form for the Hurt, Pain and Agony at the tail end of this mission. Today was a good day, tagging two category two climbs and two category threes.

Hanging Rock, and Moore's Wall as viewed from my descent of Sauratown Mountain.

Poseur Prologue 2.0

2011 Poseur Prologue went over well, though not in attendance this year was Jill's dad. Too bad, he's a nice addition on the ride, epecially with the straight block gears!!! Kristin, Erich and I had a fun time of it, getting out early this morning before the beginning of the Tour. It's great as always to ride with E, but in addition, this is usually the ONE (sadly) ride I get to do with Kristin a year. I love riding with him, and I love his mentality...pure love for cycling!


When I got home, I had to partake of some espresso and pound cake with blackberries...fantastic!