So I decided to head west with friends anyway, brought my Giant since my cervelo is out of commission for a while. The Giant is a decent bike, it even has a triple chainring. But I decided epic climbing was not how I wanted to reaquaint myself with it. So Giant and I rode the Blue Ridge Parkway. That turned out to be an absolutely wonderful choice. I got up there at 7 a.m. and had the entire place to myself, just me and the butterflies, for two hours! The BRE century folks started showing up going in the opposite direction at around 9:30a.m. or so.
As a cyclist, I really like acknowledging other cyclists on the road; a wave of the hand, nod of the head, something that shows some solidarity in the face of what seems like constant harassment from non cyclists. But Sunday's crowd on the Blue Ridge took the 'cyclists' wave' to the extreme! Every single one of the approximately 100 cyclists heading south as I was heading north waved, nodded, some even hollered 'hello'! Which was great, except they were descending a particularly long climb, I was ascending that same particularly long climb. I felt obliged to return the acknowledgment because its one of my pet peeves when cyclists don't return that wave!! I was pretty damn happy when I finally turned around and was heading in the same direction as all my new cycling friends!
The Kevlinator had managed to score a beautiful condo at the top of Wintergreen and when I returned at noon I had the whole place to myself for about two hours. I'm sure the place is beautiful during ski season but I have to think it was even better when it's not cold. Great workout, a deck with beautiful sunshine.....an absolutely perfect Sunday!
No comments:
Post a Comment