What a beautiful sunny spring day! Breezy (very breezy at times) with temperatures in the low 50s when I started riding down from Bryans Road to the ride start, rising to around 60 when the group left Lackey HS and up to 65 when we finished. (See, John, there are advantages to starting at a reasonable hour besides not having to wake up before sunrise to make the ride.)
In the group were Linda and Paul Bankerd, Holly Carr, Jan Tucker, Richard Harrington, Bill Perry, Sharon Miller, Miche Sidwell, Mike Bivens, Sarah Clement, Loretta Troen and guests Laura Malnati, Rita Zeidner and Harold Datz. Many thanks to the group for responding on such short notice.
The route was a last minute affair, put together on Thursday after Holly (wearing her B-ride coordinator hat) suggested we needed a ride for Saturday. It was to be a longer Bryans Road ride that would include Gilroy (I've been trying to do Gilroy for months, but it's just a little too far away for a Tuesday ride) but then Sam mentioned Riverside. I love Riverside but haven't been there since the Indian Head 100, and once mentioned, the route was definitely going to include Riverside. And so the ride start had to move to Lackey High School to keep it to 50 (or 62 riding to Lackey from Bryans Road).
But this wasn't going to be yet another iteration of "Around Maryland Point." I didn't feel like doing that long stretch on Chicamuxen, and besides, if anyone's going to have a flat tire on a ride it's going to be on that long boring stretch on Chicamuxen and I didn't want any flats today. (Ironically, I discovered this morning that the bike I planned to use today had a flat tire, necessitating a quick bike change before setting out!)
Instead, the route would use Mason Spring and Baptist Church to get to Nanjemoy. I realized last night that although that hill on Mason Spring just off Chicamuxen is fine if you've ridden from Bryans Road and have had a chance to warm up, it's probably not so fine if you just came from Lackey High School and have only ridden half a mile; so the revised version went up Bicknell and Pisgah Marbury to get to Mason Spring.
From the stop at the Nanjemoy store, now under new management and still as accommodating as ever, thank goodness, we took a glorious roller coaster ride down Riverside with hardly a house or car to be seen for miles -- we could have been in the George Washington National Forest -- and then up Holly Spring in the opposite direction from the Indian Head 100, back to Nanjemoy on 6, Hancock Run and Adams Willett, where the group gathered at the store once again. The route to Pisgah was a bit unusual as well: Jacksontown to Greenleek Hill to 6, but instead of following 6 straight back to Ironside, we went right on Gilroy (at last!) and left on Bowie back to 6, then Mason Spring to the Pisgah store, and after the last rest stop, Bicknell etc. back to the school, the trailing group finishing with a 14.1 mph average.
