Well,
Friday we went up again to the neat little town of Pilot Mountain to be in place for an 8am start to the next organized event- "3 Mountain Madness" . This is an organized ride of what I had done on my own two weeks ago.....as you may recall the routes is about 76 miles and 9800 feet of climbing. Looking at the website in advance, I came to learn that about 45o riders had signed up. This is good in that "misery loves company" and "the more the merrier." However I had to guard against going out too fast to compensate for how long and how much climbing is involved in this ride. In hindsight, I probably could have shown a bit more restraint, however the weather was a bit better than when I rode this two weeks ago. I was looking forward to meeting a fellow Ride the Rockies rider, Dan Howe, who I had met online through a online web group. I did meet Dan at the top of Sauertown mountain. I also rode with Dan and his friend Jerry who will also be doing this ride and plan to see each other on the Ride the Rockies ride, so it is good to get acquainted now. The heat, as is is known to do in North Carolina, started to really cook in the afternoon hours and I was starting to really feel exhausted by the time it came for the last mountain -Pilot Mountain. By the time I got to the Ranger Station at Pilot Mountain, and with conferring with my faithful SAG aka Marilyn, I took the route of a) Discretion is the better part of valor and b) I had just done the FULL route two weeks before and c)I knew that I would make it up, but my body told me I would never make it back to the finish. So....the 3 mountain metric became, this weekend, the 2 mountain metric, but checking the stats off of my Garmin Edge 305 GPS, I still had 72 miles and 7100 feet of climbing, so all in all not a bad days work. The other thing that I had staring me in the face was I was going to be riding Sunday also and wanted to have a bit of energy left to ride a ride of about 35 to 4o miles with my normal North Raleigh Ride Group (NRRG).
Come Sunday and I showed up at Blue Jay County Park and hoped for a good show of fellow riders, but alas it was just two others besides myself. Joy Dempsey and Kurt Arehart were the only two to show. Maybe the weather scared them off a bit, but I HAD TO go in order to re-create the feeling of a hard effort, like we do on Ride the Rockies, followed by yet another day in the saddle as these events are riding riding riding and little to no time off to fully recover. Joy decided that, for her, the skies looked too threatening and it turned into just a ride for Kurt and myself. For me, this was great as that no matter what the weather, no matter what my body felt like I had to "get it in gear" and ride. It truly was a case of "mind over matter" and I really felt like even though we went a somewhat short distance (about 37 miles) it was great to be able to "break through" and see what can of perseverance I can drag out of this old body. Thanks to Joy for showing up, it was appreciated and I can understand not wanting to get potentially drenched if you have little to gain. Thanks SO MUCH to Kurt for hanging in. It was great spending a bit of quality time in the saddle. I hope that I showed you just a small smidgen of a new part of the "Old Weaver" loop that you may use in the future for variety. And Kurt the pins are FANTASTIC. Thanks for your fine effort.
I plan to start the packing process this week---that should be a real "doozie" however with more than a few days to do it should be OK. I also plan to change out my tires so I have "fresh " one to do the Ride the Rockies with, and have less chances of having a flat tire. I do have about 1360 miles of riding in since the acquisition of E2. I plan to finish the riding and start a serious "taper" this week in anticipation of the event as I leave a week from Wednesday. I may not write until I get back but will publish a lot of material on my return. SO LOOKING forward to Ride the Rockies but ......butterflies...I just have to tell my self "I've done the work, so now let's go out and ENJOY"
