Thursday New Albany Ride Report

Don't you hate it when you arrive for a ride, take your bike out and discover a flat tire?  Although skies to the west were darkening, the rain never arrived but clearly the ominous looking sky impacted the turn-out.

Andrew Hall, back from a 10 day vacation and no time on the bike has decided to ride "The Frank" this Saturday.  Frank Seebode is promoting it as the most difficult ride in Ohio and with 100 miles and 10,000' of climbing, ugh.  Of course, there is also the COP Roving Ride out of Heath High School hosted by none other than Flyin Tuna but my journalistic obligations requires that I ride the "Frank", a route that will no doubt have me swearing at myself 100 times, once for each mile.  Sounds like a large contingent of Marty & the Jets will be there, along with Ricky G, Dirty Dan, Rex, etc... 

The blind leading the blind.  George asks Poobah where tonight's route is going.  What is the purpose of those glasses if not to enlarge the print for George?  Garth P on he left.

Marty on the left with Meredith and not sure of the woman on the right but she was there at the end of the route with the front B group.

Samllish turnout and above pretty much captured everyone who came out.  Shannon thanked me in a pejorative manner for all the help I have given him and have yet to do as he will once again abandon us next week.  The usual strong A group rolled out but with the suffering I'm expecting on Saturday, I elected to roll out with the B group, as did Gus and Peggy and a couple others who usually roll with the A group.

The B group rolls out on what I expected to be the A route but strangely, they stayed on the short, 30 mile B route.  What the heck?

As usual, we got held up at the light and then eventually got on to Jug, rolling in to Alexandria.  After verbally passing out the route to those who asked, some of us prepared to turn left on Mounts but instead, we streamed straight through Alexandria.  As we approached the turn on to Morse, Poobah warned everyone of the "S" curve at the bottom of the hill and for the most part, people eased around the corner and then hit the hill fairly hard, splitting the group.  We emerged at the Outville stop sign with around 8 people, including Gus and Brian.  From that point it was fairly straightforward out Morse, right on Harrison and then a left on old 161, arriving back at the parking lot with a 22mph avg, 38 miles and at 7:45 so lots of daylight left. 

I imagine the A group, which I passed on the way home and shelled down to about 8 including Shannon, Marty, Jon M, Garth, etc... probably finished with 24mph+.  Well, have a good weekend everyone and be nice as you pass me on "The Frank".

Here is tonight's New Albany route and I am happy to announce that our Dear Leader, Shannon, will be making an appearance.  Here is a link to the routes: http://hfpracingnews.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/new-albany-cop-august-22-2013.pdf