Checking Out the Canal Winchester Ride

6/2/2015

A cloudy, gloomy, kind of cold evening for a ride with light winds out of the NE. A good evening to skip a ride if ever there was one but I needed to check out the Canal ride and also examine Corvair's bike for evidence of brake locking. As she left to sign up, I sauntered over and gave the brakes a quick check. Seemed to work ok.

Jr. Muscle Dude on the left arrived and then left after discovering his shoes did not match his pedals. Hate when that happens. I was saddened too by my buddy Steve O having so few eager beavers desiring of a relationship in this parking lot although he did look snappy in that red jersey and white sun sleeves.

There were approximately 31 at tonight's ride. The A group had only four, Brent Jenkins, Paul Stock, Scott Young & one other guy. Ric Noland split the B group so there were 8-9 in the B about that many in the B+ and then Steve Hewitt led out the C group.

Closing on 6:00pm there was the usual rush for the final sign-ins with Brent on the left in red and The Donald...errrrr I mean Mark Clingan on the right with the Rwanda jersey.

Ric gave the usual pre-ride instructions and sent us out on our respective routes ranging from 37 to 52 miles. I rolled out with the B group having Ric, Mark V, Corvair, Bruce and others alongside. It was a nice relaxed pace on a fairly flat route to the east and back. Finished with a 19mph avg. As I drove east toward Granville, I came upon the A group, dismounted from their bikes. Scott had a cut in his front tire and it being tubeless, there was no fixing it so I was happy to offer him a ride back to the parking lot where he was able to retrieve his car and drive to his bike, safely stashed in a bush. At least I think that is how it turned out.

6 Comments

Mitch

6/3/2015 12:54:13 am

Did John Day get a new bike, or is that some kind of funky weird camera angle where his red frame looks black?

Mark

6/3/2015 03:39:36 am

Funky weird camera angle coupled with gloomy conditions that make everything look morose.

Mitch

6/3/2015 04:16:53 am

"Morose" ... "Titular"

Great stuff!

Andrew C

6/3/2015 01:11:35 am

The super B group rolled out at a relaxed pace. After I dropped back from leading, a newer guy took over and accelerated the group to attack speed into the wind. That was the end of a nice easy pace and soon to be the end of me as I discovered a flat rear tire 2 miles into the ride. The Bs and Cs rolled by, making sure I had everything I needed. I changed the tube, checking to make sure my tire was clean and rode back to the start. I grabbed another tube, pumped up my tire to full pressure with a floor pump and took off backwards on the course to meet the Super B group. First came the Bs, as their route was only 40+ miles, then the B-/C+s, then the Cs. Finally the 4 As went by. After 19 miles, I met up with the Super Bs, and very happy to turn around and enjoy the little tailwind. Gone were the guy who took over after me and Ric's young shop apprentice Brett, who was enjoying his relatively new Trek speedster. But it was not to be relaxing, as Dirty Dan and Stinker Steve took turns keeping the pace at attack speed, dropping Tom N after letting him regroup at stop signs. In an interesting twist, we actually got to see the sun come down and set as there was a break in the cloud cover over Columbus to the west. On the last stretch, I hung back with Tom N so he didn't have to finish by himself, as the group smelled the barn and burned the rubber.

dropped in the parking lot

6/3/2015 05:29:07 am

wrong shoes for a new bike. I'll be back.

Scott Young

6/7/2015 11:28:39 am

Thanks again for the ride, that would have been a long ride back on a squishy tire.

Checking Out the Canal Winchester Ride

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