Saturday's Roving Ride, The Eighth Climb

Good turnout of 40-45 for the Logan to Lake Hope Roving Ride, put on by Tim F.  Good weather too with great maps and probably the most immaculate roads I can recall riding.  Seemed like all had been repaved in the last month.  Here, Marty S on the left, observing the parking lot prior to the ride start.  

Andrew, ride leader (front, 3rd from left) for next Saturday's brutal Sugar Grove Roving Ride, announced in honor of Nathan's (2nd from left) September departure, he would host a post-ride going away party next Saturday.  Sounded like clothing was optional.

What a great route with seven named climbs, Starr Route, 374/Conkles Hollow, Chapel Ridge, Airport Road, Mine Hollow, Lime Bank and Union Furnace/Moore Road.  Of course, those were not the only climbs, just the ones on which suffering was rampant.  Seems like the climb out of Zaleski should have made the list too.  After Thursday's effort, I spent most of the ride dropping back in the ranks trying to find someone with whom the pace would be agreeable.  I had to go a long way.  

I rode with Marty long enough for him to point out a group of turkeys to the side, then dropped back to a group headed by Nathan, but not for long, then back to Mitch and Flyin Tuna but still too intense, back to other groups, some riding motorized wheel chairs and scooters and finally latched on to Poobah and soon Amanda, Mike M, Franz and others.  Poobah had ridden 4 straight days or something like that so he wasn't in much better shape then me.   

We rolled into this food stop and while each of us carefully passed out a single milk crate on which to sit, Poobah took two, claiming he deserved a throne.  He is so suave and smooth, he even managed to convince Amanda to pose on his lap.  Around mile 70 of this 74 mile route, my legs stopped feeling so bad and as we reached the parking lot, I decided to keep going and found a legit 8th climb on Vooris Road before running into a mail carrier, discovering I was not where I thought I was and turned around, finishing with 85 miles and 5500' of climbing.