Shenandoah Fall Foliage 2015

Oh no I didn't, it's true, I didn't.  The original plan was to travel south to the Shenandoah and ride back to back Sat/Sun centuries.  It was a good plan, a hopeful plan, a failed plan.  Turns out the Shenandoah is a lot more hilly and windy than I had envisioned.  It turned out to be enough spending 6.5 hours riding through the countryside of 98 miles on Saturday.

Fortunately I've got my fraternity little brother living in Staunton, VA. Seems I get down there a couple times and year and he is certainly the host with the most.  The ride weekend overlapped homecoming weekend for the mighty Buffalo Gap Buffalos.  We attended the Friday night football game and saw the king and queen get their caps.  So many memories of WT Woodson came through my mind, but I can't remember any of the homecoming people.  The Buffs won a lot to a little with a competent running game.

I got an early Sat start to make the police escort at 8am.  At registration it looked like a bunch of people had spent the night at Shelburne Middle School, where the ride starts today.  The beginning of the ride was cool, fingertips were a little cold.  The sun was shining and it was pretty good weather.

12 miles in we hit our first rest stop.  The lady in charge had obviously spent some time planning for our visit.  I can only describe the scene as something Hansel and Gretal would love, a complete Candy Land buffet.  There were so many sweets, cakes, cupcakes and cookies.  For us century riders, this ain't the kind of food I'm looking for, especially only 12 miles in.  I grabbed an oatmeal bar and got on my way.

There were ~1200 riders registered for the festival.  That's a good number of riders spread out among several different ride lengths.  You know what else there are a lot of in the Shenandoah, yep, Cows!

Cows are everywhere and below are some shots of a few friends I made.  Lots of farms are very pretty, rolling grass, many cows spread out in the field.  Some other cow plants you can smell coming.  OMG, the vileness that is a group of messy cows is outrageous!  The air is thick with the unbelievable scent.  Guess what the road looks like next to these big cow plants?  Yea, packed with cow crap.  As I rode along the crap was flung around by my wheels, hitting my face, the air was filthy ... AGGGHH!

This century had a different feel than so many others.  It was definitely "locally" run.  For example, no one serves lunch mid-way through a century ride.  The food comes at the end.  However, here there was a huge potluck at a town hall with all kind of people eating.  Riders, kids, old people ... looked more like a church congregation lunch than a biker event.

Here's a sample of the local entertainment.

Quick clip from around mile 78.  Totally underestimating the climbing and the wind on this ride.  There are very few flat areas and even the ones that are flat have a headwind.  It's great when you have to climb into a headwind, bonus!

Similar recap with just a little more fatigue, more miles behind me, and more climbing.  I'm not saying this is Mountains of Misery climbing, but it definitely took a toll.  Ride was around 5,000' of climbing.  The wind and bumpy roads definitely added to the physical toll.

Lots of up and down

In the end, I think opting for a single century was the right call.  I went out to eat with Matt's family and friends and enjoyed the steak salad with a tall one (2x).  We stayed up 'til midnight waiting for the homecomers to get back from their night of bonfires, cow tipping, line dancing and all the other things "country people" do :-)

Logans Steakhouse

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