22 Mile Night Ride

Today was a long boring day in the office. If any of my superiors are ready this, I apologize for my public rant. Its not that I dislike my job. Considering the economy, I love my job. Its just everyone wanted to call me today and bitch. So when 5 o'clock finally rolled around, I was fast to hit the door. I brought the bike to work today with plans of heading up to Juliette, GA (set of the movie "Fried Green Tomatos") for a long night ride with some friends

We all met up at the Monroe County Fire Station which is on the same street as the movie set. Around 6pm we geared up and hit the road. As you may have read in some previous posts, these roads are nothing more than a bit of dirt and some gravel here and there. For the first 30-45 minutes, it was just beautiful evening skies with the open road below the rubber.

Once the sun set, our lights turned on and the fun began. I was riding my single speed mountain bike while everyone else is spinning the gears. It can be tough at times to maintain the same pace as the geared guys because I will just spin myself to death. The climbs feel great on the single speed. I just hop out of the saddle and climb. As stated in the past, the Piedmont area is great for climbing.

This was the first time I've rode out here at night. Night riding is pretty stellar because you don't really notice the climbs nearly as much as during the day. We also did a different route than what I've been on before. At around 7pm, the temps really started to drop. It was around 70 degrees when we started and about 50 degrees by 7pm. These temps didn't help very much when we had to cross about four streams. That is another cool aspect of this area. Its pretty much wilderness. It is a true escape from the city.

So all in all, we road pretty hard and kept the heart rate up. Once we got back to the trucks, he had covered 22.24 miles in under two hours. That includes a few stops. I'm really starting to feel the difference in my riding strength. One week from tomorrow, I'll be heading to the Sunshine State for my first race of 2009. I'm so stoked, its hard to contain myself.

Till next time,
Keep the rubber side down!!