When Bike and legs are bored with commuting

When you have a dog and during the week you just let it out when you come home from work then feed it, the dog is not happy.  When you take the dog out on a weekend walk the dog is so excited it may pull your leash arm out.

Today I rode the 25th Anniversary Up the Creek Without a Pedal 109 mile ride in Rome, GA.  At the start of the ride I told my friends that I was going to have a relaxing ride and take some pictures.  Once I had started the ride my bike and legs had another plan, ride like crazy.


I ate 2 and a half bananas, two home made cookies and had my 4 scoops of Spiz for food on the ride. I mixed my own electrolytes using tablets.

This was the first ride on my Seven Cycles 622 SLX where I had to use my lowest gear to make a climb.  It was the first time that I had the bike in some serious rollers.  I really had fun practicing what Michele Moulton and Kent Wheeler taught me in winter training, power up the hills, breath deep, accelerate down the back side and catch your breath.  I had plenty of chances to do this on the ride.  There were so many rollers that my brain gave up complaining about them and my legs just took over and ran off.

One thing that I realized with this bike is that 10 pounds of weight makes a big difference in performance over my old Serotta.  I know this is not rocket science, but for me I am just like the motto for Missouri, "Show Me", then I will believe it.   After the big climb the back side down hill was a real screamer.  I have never feared riding up steep hills, coming down really fast on the back side was always my fear.  Now that I have disc brakes and a bike that handles like a sports car I really have fun going down hills with lots of S-turns.

I did stop to take a few pictures.
Stars and Bars at the Rome, GA Waffle House, pre-ride breakfast
Richard and Sharon Thompson, Lonnie Wormley
Bike on a sign
Country Road that winds up to a roller
One of the nice features of this ride is that it was mostly routed on low traffic county roads.  Major intersections in all of the counties that the ride passed though had local law enforcement stopping traffic to let bicyclist through.  If I am going to pay for a ride this is the type of ride to pay for.  This route did not go through hardly any towns with stores for self supported riding.  the advantage of this is that the back roads were low traffic.

This ride is on my list for next year.
Location: Rome, GA, USA

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