Big ride weekend

Spent Saturday in the horse country of northern VA. You know you are seeing money when you see that someone has a Lear jet parked in the front yard. Very nice. 67 miles of rolling hills and good company. By the end I was hurting but felt pretty good about what we'd done. Scott G was in town to see Katy and rode with us. He is an aerobic machine lay the smack down on us the entire ride. Of course it helps that he is a grad student and has plenty of time to ride while we all have day jobs. Not much happened on Sunday. Just a light recovery ride of about 20 miles trying to get the lactic acid out of my legs. After 5 miles I was feeling pretty good. Monday, July 4 was a truly manly ride. 70 miles on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. We (Scott, Katy, Jay C, Tim L and myself) rode from the Front Royal entrance out to the Pinnacles overlook and back. Lots of big hills to go up and down. The 6 mile climb back to Hogback Overlook was painful. Scott and Katy dropped me like a hot rock. Fortunately, I was able to drop Tim and Jay and feel somewhat good about myself. Of course, Tim is 50 years old and did eat or drink much and Jay claims he is overweight. I think Jay is just a sprinter who doesn't care for going uphill. After making it up Hogback I was ready to be back at the car and in survival mode. I'd eaten all my rations (2 Clif Bars and a banana) and was almost out of drinks. I just kept pedaling. I knew if I stopped it would be REAL hard to get going again. A nice descent off of Hogback, 1 more killer climb and I was on the last downhill to the valley below. I was very happy to see the car waiting for me at the bottom of the hill. What a good time that was! All the descending was fun, but I'm no Il Falco. Plus I kept spinning out my 53x13. Next time I'm bringing the 12 cog. We also got to see a couple of baby black bears right near the road. Very cool. You don't see that while you're zipping along in your car.