Thursday Ride Report--The Smudged Lens

The effervescent personality of Peggy Cook rolls in and immediately the group is happier, although they do not look it but they are. John B survived the 54 mile rainy "Dry Run" ride on Sunday without contracting pneumonia. Nor did the others.  Steve on the left, bordering on cocky now that he has 7 forecasts correct in a row but who is counting.

The Tuesday crowd is the latest arriving crowd in cycling history.  Five minutes until 6pm and you'd think you will be riding solo and them a happy swarm of bees descends.  Will Paskett, in the middle of the camera smudge, came out for his first ride post crash.  A heavy bandage protects some serious road rash.

So late is the arriving crowd, some actually arrive late but we were glad to wait for Mike M as he hurriedly pumped air into a tire.  Lot of discussion about modifying the route as we doubted we would arrive back prior to a sure to be, early onset of darkness.  John B came up with the solution and it cut our route from the usual 38 to 34 miles. 

We regroup at the top of the Battee Road climb. Good heavens, my fitness level is deteriorating so rapidly I think I was the last to arrive.  Oh well.  Rather than make the usual turn right, we turn left and then a right on Corner and a left on Raccoon Run and then.... 

….a left on Stone Quarry where we regroup for a 2nd and final time.  Kristie in a colorful outfit held the key, literally, to our post ride enjoyment.  A trunk full of delicious cookies.  Doug McConaha on the left worked at Veloscience all day as Geoff is out of town.  I asked if he made any big sales and he said he did but could not find the items in the system so had to give the stuff to the customer for free (Kristie so probably she will pay eventually).

It was kinda dark when we started and now getting darker as we head back to the barn.  Arriving at the corner of old 161 and Kitzmiller we were greeted by a spectacular view that the combination of the smudge and road bouncing produced....

….a really poor quality image but use your imagination.  We finished with a 20.3 average.  Next week, a new start time of 5:30pm.