OWLS start June

By Allan Edmonds

On Tuesday we did CE's "Up Victor and Down Rockport Ride."  See the map.

As usual we had at least one new rider and a few others who are back for their second or third ride with us. All together we had 21 riders. We prevailed on Shelley and Kathy to do their joint leading. So Shelley went over the map and talked about how we were getting out of town and where the main stops would be. This is a HILLY route with lots of climbing in just over 20 miles. According to Garmin we climbed around 2400 feet over those 20+ miles. I ended up with a 12.6 mph average for the ride.

The weather report called for rain later, but we thought we had plenty of time to do this hilly ride SW of town. At the meeting time there was plenty of blue sky, as you can see in the picture at the start, where club members Dave Lawler and Jerry Arveson greeted each other like long-lost friends who hadn't seen each other on a ride this year.

Old Friends

As we went out of town we did feel a few sprinkles, and the sky did seem a little more threatening. Still at our regrouping spot where Victor runs into Rockport we were all still dry. It was agreed, however, that we would drop the last regroup at May Road and let everyone head home at his or her own pace. Meanwhile Shelley and one other went back to search for a couple of people who hadn't yet caught up to us.

Victor at Rockport

But on Rockport we could see that there had been heavy rain. The road was wet and water was running in the drainage ditches. Soon enough the heavens opened on us too. We were all pretty soaked as we straggled home by twos and threes.

On Thursday, we did our version of the club Triple Creek Ride. CE led a group of about 17 riders out 46 to Kerr Creek, Getty's Creek, Mt. Gilead, Fleer, and Brummett's Creek. There we several good climbs, some wonderful smooth pavement on Kerr Creek, and some really bad pavement on some of the other roads. See the map.

According to Garmin we climbed about 1800 feet over 26 miles. This time I averaged around 14.4 for the whole ride.

Regroup on Kerr Creek: