Road Riding Frenzy

Having only two functioning bikes out of ten presents some limitations.  Since those two bikes are a time trial rig and a road bike - I've been logging some pavement miles recently.  A couple hundred a week for the past few weeks.  With road riding, the miles come fast; if not easy; and in Frederick County the road riding is beautiful.

This morning was the 8am Sunday morning Wheelbase ride from Market St. in Frederick.  I spent Saturday night building up a mtb for Thomas' 8th birthday (tomorrow), but laid out all my riding gear and prepped my bike so it would be ready.  I roused at the crack of 7:50 and barely had time to slap some chamois creme on my ass as the front screen door caught the rim of my back wheel on the way out.  Rode down Market St. the wrong way and met up with the group at third (halfway). 

It was a big group.  I sensed some regulars, saw some new faces, and chatted with Danielle as Tom turned towards the regular (and safest) exit route from Frederick, Motter/Oppussumtown Pike to TJ.  We were riding right past Starbucks and the temptation proved too great.  I checked the route with Tom and took a side trip to grab some espresso.  The sensation of caffeine pulsing through my veins was well worth the effort required to chase back onto the back of the group afterwards.  The catch was made on TJ drive near Hayward Rd.

We split up somewhere after crossing 15.  There was talk of a group going up into the hills climbing for 50 or so and another group hitting some nice roads down in the valley.  Fresh off all of the climbing in the Catoctin Challenge - ten of us headed for the hills.  The pace was how do you say in English? wicked? diablo?  In the approach to Catoctin Hollow we lost four of our damn strong ten.  So six of us headed up Catoctin Hollow Rd towards Mink Farm, et al.   For some reason, I always want to listen to AC-DC on this particular climb. Knowing we were doing more climbing and that I like to pull the flats, I rode tempo up the 6'ish mile hill climb with 1200 feet of elevation gain.  We slid down Catoctin Hollow to 77 and then up Park Central Rd to Camp David - a STEEP CLIMB.  Felt better on this one and spent some time in and out of the saddle to make pretty quick work of what I recall as a fierce climb.  Excellent roads, beautiful scenery, little traffic, shade, what more could you ask for?

We rolled down the other side at ridiculous speeds and found that we had lost Kyle on the descent.  Jay went back for him.  Jay was gone for a long time.  We all went back for him.  No sight of either as we climbed all the way back up and descended back down the other side to 77.

Took some nice roads back to Frederick from Thurmont - sharing pulls with Jim, John, Kevin.

Really nice ride.  If you check the details, you will notice that the ride was on 8/8 beginning at 8 and was 54.66 miles and my top speed was 54.9 - should I play the lotto?