Nashville and Bear Wallow

Saturday was a cool--maybe even cold--day for a long bike ride. But we still had about 15 riders up to doing it. The plan was the traditional Ye Olde Hilly Route to Nashville for 55 miles. We quickly split up into two or three groups. My trailing group decided to take the slightly shorter Owl Creek option down to Helmsburg Road rather than the mapped Lanam Ridge. Pretty quickly we hit the climb on Helmsburg Road into Nashville. Once there we met up with most of the leading group at the convenience store in Nashville. Many of them left pretty promptly while a few held back to join our "owlish" group. Probably for the last time the year several people opted for hot chocolate over cold soda or GatorAde. Soon we headed out for our next big climb up Bear Wallow. Along the way Mike just couldn't help stopping to photograph a couple of election road signs:

Mike tried hard to get us to stop at the Port Hole Restaurant at Lake Lemon for some of the real thing. But he couldn't find any takers. So we headed up our third climb of the day on South Shore instead. We enjoyed the fast ride down Robinson Road, dealt with our fourth and last climb on Fire House Hill in workmanlike fashion, and finished up taking the B-Line Trail through town as far as Grimes Lane. Home to home my GPS recorded 56 miles at 13.7 mph, with 2255 feet of climb. We all agreed it was a good day.