Sunday, August 26, 2018

2018 Reston Century

2018 Reston Century


Me!, Dan, Jackie and Dave
Let's start with the OMG weather was AWESOME today!!!!  I hope everyone got outside because these beautiful days don't come around enough (on weekends).

Jackie met up with on the course and asked if she could ride with us.  She like the fast pace.  In the end, I think Dan and I would only slow her down.

It was a fast ride through 50+ miles and then reality kicked in to slow it down a bit.  Still, rolling country side was great workout and plenty to look at.  There are some serious mansions out there, and I'm wondering who cuts that grass?  No way are my kids willing to mow multiple football fields worth every week.

My sister Rita was at the ride.  She and her friends rode the metric.  Let's be honest, she looked better at the finish line than I did.  Maybe even at the start :-)

As always, the post ride meal at the Reston Town Center was well done.  The Mediterranean salad was the bomb and the pasta was quite good.  I wish I could have enjoyed it more but I was dragging ass.

A few ride options coming up this fall include the Backwoods Century, the Pumpkin Ride and the Shenandoah rides (Matt, prepare my bed!).   I'm targeting at least a couple this Fall.

I hope everyone is training hard on their bikes.  Many miles ahead!

Ride Hard or Don't Ride At All.
K-Rider



Thursday, August 16, 2018

2018 Chocolate Tour

2018 CHOCOLATE TOUR


The other weekend (August 3-5) Danimal Clarke and myself heading north to participate in the Penn State Chocolate Tour bike ride.  Not a century this time, our goal was the 75 mile route.  Spoiler alert .. one of us was over that distance and one of us was under ... you guess?

First let me throw many kudo's in Danimal's direction.  One is he's got a sweet F150.  Pretty much like the ride below.  And you know what an F150 can do?  That's right, it tows!

Danimal's F150 Ride
Popup City
What Danimal doesn't do is drive the F150 when towing, so yours truly got that assignment.  The ride up was uneventful (as opposed to the ride back).  We drove up Friday to Harrisburg East Campground.  This was a surprisingly nice campground.  It was your basic pile in the RV's in a small area, but the grounds and facilities were a step up from the rest.

We arrived, popped the pop-up and and played charades.  Well, no charades, but we did hang out at the site until we got sleepy.  The other really nice part about riding with Danimal is that he's an heating/air conditioning guy.  Focus on the air conditioning.  It was a very muggy kind of evening and then turned torrential rain.
This saved us
I haven't seen rain that hard or that substantial in a very long time.  It absolutely poured on us all night until 5AM. And the popup kept us dry and the air conditioning kept us cool.  Dang that is sweet machine.
We got up early, drove over to Hershey for the start of the race and never thought twice about the rain the night before.  However, Hershey tends to be the highlands of the area.  The 75-mile bike route takes us through the lowlands.  It wasn't too far into the ride before we found all that rain.

Here's a picture of the first rest stop.  Remember, this ride is just outside Hershey so what do you think is piled high at every rest stop?  No issues with getting a sugar high on this ride.  Notice the Payday's are gone, I took 5.  No worries, there were huge stores of this stuff under the table.

Plenty sugar for everyone
Now I'd like to show everyone the wrong way and the proper way to cross a flooded road.  Notice the video on the left.  Danimal straight up pedals through the water.  Notice the soaked shoes and the monkey butt .. well, you can't see his monkey butt but believe me he's got it now.

On the right side is the preferred method to cross flooded roads.  Notice how dry and safe everyone stays.

Danimal did really well on this ride through 37 miles.  To his credit, he made it that far with absolutely no training, no dieting, no preparation, no strategy or forethought.  Way to go Danimal!  You really know how to tackle a course!

That's supposed to be a road
Moo!
So Danimal hopped in the SAG vehicle and road around for a couple hours delivering water to riders and helping the distressed.  So here's a third kudo for Danimal, he definitely is willing to help people in need.  I kept riding, ignored those in need, and found those "3 moderate climbs" the ride definition mentioned.  Overall this course was pretty much flat with very mild rolling hills.

We met up at the finish line for some mac-n-cheese and various non-candy items.  Then headed back to the campground and hit the pool!  Yep, that campground had a very nice pool.  It was quite relaxing to sit in the a floaty chair, feet on the coping, and closing my eyes.

Like a seasoned pair of campers we are: Danimal forgot the steaks and I forgot the grill.  So we headed out for a tremendous steak dinner.  Again, an awesome night of sleep in a cold pop-up.  I did make omelette's in the AM.  I had to cook at least one meal.

As I mentioned the ride home was a little more exciting as I almost wrecked into a car.  I'm pretty sure that car would have taken the brunt of it.  Overall, a peaceful weekend away and a good time to boot!

Danimal is targeting the Great Pumpkin Ride in Fauquier County on Oct 27.  It's a 67 mile ride.  Let's see how Danimal prepares :-)

Strava Statistics Here



 
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