An Odiferous Ride for Covered Bridge Ride

Geez, this remodeling project is cutting too far into my free time so I am forced to only hit the highlights of Saturday's ride.  Last night I pulled drywall from a wall and sanded and applied poly to 15 shelves.  Without a doubt, the highlight for our group of Kevin H, Jeremy, Mitch, Flyin Tuna, Peggster, Butch, Tri-Andrew, Dennis, Jeff S, was......

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.....Larry P dropping in to join us.  To put this in proper perspective, this is like Mickey Mantle dropping in to play with your sandlot baseball team, Arnold Palmer joining your Sunday morning group or Dick Butkus asking to play with your touch football team.  It gave tremendous cache to our group as we exited the parking lot.  Of course, having someone of Larry's stature join your group is a magnet for others and so John Sada, Rich Lewis, Billy C and Marty also slotted in.  

The beginning of the route was, in a word, confusing.  Any route that attempts to hit covered bridges is going to be contrived and that's ok but the start through Canal Winchester was too much for what otherwise is a great route with some good climbing.  Sada and gang hit the pace kind of hard from Canal to Lithopolis so not everyone was with us when we missed a turn and ended up torching down Cedar Hill toward Amanda, off route but no one cared since we knew the route would be reacquired in Amanda.  Rich and Marty turned the screws and Larry, Dennis, Andrew and I grimly hung on.  We reached Amanda Northern road just a couple of miles north of Amanda and we dropped off to hit the corn fields, if you know what I mean. Andrew stayed with the group and we never saw them again, other than Rich and Billy who, upon reaching Amanda, turned around and headed back, with other things to do.  

Well, that's about it, Dennis, Larry and I departed Amanda and rode together until I pulled a very sneaky short cut move that reduced my miles to 60, while they did the official 70 mile route.  Not sure who did the full 100.  As I said, good route.  Maybe the road markings should be placed prior to the turns rather than in the turns and maybe the "B" road marking symbol should have a more prominent directional line extending from it but it's nice to have a marked route.

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The glamorous Kenda Janet, gliding through the parking lot, of course very fashionably late, dressed again in an unusual combination of avant-garde clothing.  We missed Janet and Paul at the start as we rolled out and they were still tirelessly working on mechanical issues and getting dressed. 

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Good heavens!  That Kevin Hollingshead, the strongest cyclist of Polish descent, dropped into the Covered Bridge ride reeking of Hai Karate colonge.  Well, we all like him a lot despite the pungent odor of his favorite colonge.

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