August - September

Yea, go ahead, call me a slacker...haven't written anything here since the Covered Bridge Metric. But, really, there's not been much to write about. The bronchitis I got in the middle of July pretty much wiped out my riding for that month (8 rides for only 290mi). August had a little more mileage but still a slack month (7 rides, 387mi).

Here we are in September and it looks like I might get something like 450mi for this month. Yay!!! I had a ride planned for today up in WNC (Tour de Tuck), but since I've not ridden there since May and have some kind of allergic bronchitis, I opted to not ride. It was also forecast to be a cool wet day - had no desire to suffer through all that climbing and be wet too. I wish that I could have ridden more in WNC, but circumstances just didn't allow for that.

I've usually just been riding with some of the Hammer guys (Dallas, Cliff, Randall, Russell) on Tuesday/Thursday and Saturday. We usually get in anywhere from 27-35mi during the week and longer rides on the weekend. Today, Dallas and I rode with another friend, Ken, and a friend of Ken's, Amanda. Was to be a 67mi ride and Ken advertised as 20+ pace!! Initially, I wasn't going to ride because of the pace, but talked with Dallas and decided to ride since he was too. Met at Dallas's house and he & I rode from there to the Grocery Bag where the ride started. Very good route and in general, the pace wasn't too bad - 19.7 by the time we rode into Pine Level at 40mi.

Dallas and I ended up with 73.5mi/3:57hr. Not a bad pace - Dallas and I slowed it down a bit with about 8-10mi left and let Ken & Amanda dial it up. Neither of us have ridden that far in a while and when one member of the group attacks EVERY friggin hill, it just makes it hard for the rest of the group. A nice easy spin up the hills works better and keeps everyone together instead of splitting us up.....so - very tired legs and sore ass. I think I'll probably get out for an easy 25-30mi tomorrow morning.....

Oh yea - Dallas, Cliff and I rode our fixed gear bikes last Saturday - Archers Lodge/Wendell/Zebulon/Middlesex/Archers Lodge for only 45mi. That dang 45mi kicked my butt! Pretty hilly. I also had a couple other fg solo rides, a 70mi ride down to the Bentonville area and a 64mi solo ride to Kenly. Good rides.