Hills of Sunday Mornings

Okay - so I'm trying to learn the sonnet form so I thought I'd write a description of our ride as a poem. So here goes, just for a laugh!

Sunday Riders

We parked and locked cars off highway 95
A morning so blue only a cloud could pity
The cyclists flew like bees freed from the hive
Flat ground giving way to Ellicott city

The usual threesome and Laurie a rider
Who only comes out for the long and the hilly
Soon arrived at a rise that would test carbon fiber
Empty your lungs and spin your legs silly

Up switchbacks where turns take a turn for the worse
Where you pray "one more gear" and find none
And just when it feels time to call for a hearse
The summit is reached - the climbing is done

Even one foreign to queue sheets knows when to stop
For a Sunday morning bagel at a small coffee shop

Here's our friend and hill compatriot, Laurie L:

Top of the Morning

What can I say. If you've never hoisted a bike up a seemingly endless stream of switchbacks to get to the top of a mountain ridge, you don't know what your missing. Here's the ridge itself. Dosen't look so bad from the ground!

Return of the Rest Stop

So many stores with no names on the rural roads we ride. Sometimes selling nightcrawlers. Some with bathrooms and some without. Gatorade - Red Bull. Maybe a power bar and we're out of there.

A lot of these stores struggle and eventually go out of business and off the queue sheet. This one was long ago given up for dead. It sits in the tiny town at the foot of the climb up the Blue Ridge. So it was with great joy that we found it reopened and ready for Sunday morning business. I don't think anyone bought any laying hens, but a cup of hot coffee and friendly conversation were definitely on the menu. Good luck and welcome back.

If God was a Cyclist...

All roads would have the smoothest asphalt. Every switchback would bring to you the top of the hill. Rain would be confined to night. The Devil would have a special place for hotheaded drivers where they would be eternally stuck behind an infinite column of cars just like their own. In the end, your carbon fiber soul would be taken up to heaven drafting a team of angels consisting of the greatest Tour winners. And of course, there would be no flat tires!

This is Not a Rest Stop

Don't be fooled by this sign. This is not a rest stop. Table service only. We saw one young couple looking to "kick start their day" sent packing because the line for a table was too long. Meanwhile, the only thing brewing was a storm outside. And when Sander uttered the word "storm," our fate was sealed!

Try to imagine a rain so hard that water flowed down the hills faster than the bikes. A rain so difficult that a rescue team had to be sent out to ride up Route 2 battling piercing rain, pellets of hail and enormous lightening bolts exploding in the sky. Could we make it to the coffee shop? See the next blog post to find out...

This is a Rest Stop

Well...we made it. A couple of lattes later and only the drops of water on the bikes were left to remind us of our deluge. Jose, in generous fashion said, "your money is no good here!" Warm coffee after a cold rainy ride felt very good.

Here's the Yellow Jersey himself leading the pack with Sander, Beth and Teresa following close by.

The Bull Dog

Back at the cars under the ever watchful eyes of the Southern Bulldog, our calamitous but memorable ride came to a happy end as always.

A Peach of a Ride!

Lucky for us we live near a good working star. The kind that is able to convert matter into energy in the cataclysmic process described by Einstein's famous law. The same Sun that rained down its glorious light on us all day during our ride, also gives us peaches. Be a star. Eat a peach. Have a taste of our galaxy.

Favorite song about peaches? Check out Peaches by the 90's alternative band - the Presidents of the United States of America, and stay to the end to see the dramatic Kung Fu finish.

Carbon Based Life

Formed in the heart of stars and then scattered throughout space in the dust of supernova explosions, carbon forms the basis of all living things. It's also pretty good for bike frames. Here's Alex rolling down the road in his new Felt carbon bike.

Here's Daniel, new to our group, also sporting a carbon based bike.

A whole lot of carbon! The bikes take a rest while their riders get fuel and cool off. Note the water jug used by Alex to perform a little water boarding - on his head!

A Monadnock

Sugarloaf Mountain is a Monadnock: a hill or knob that rises up abruptly from an almost level surrounding plain, that plain sometimes being described as "flat as a pancake."

The mountain is always there, peeking out between trees, coming up suddenly behind a barn or appearing all at once at the crest of a hill as we ride familiar roads around Poolesville, Maryland. Today, Jose and I had to agree, the mountain has lost some of its mystique as our climbing skills have increased and the weight of our bikes has decreased (the latter thanks to our good friend carbon).

People are mountains, with families stretching gracefully across the broad plains of ordinary life. We are children of parents and then parents of children and yet always children ourselves, pulling each other up and over the summit into tomorrow.

Here are the peach pickers, friends are mountains.

Riders of the Endless Road

Today's group:

Kevin
Beth, Henry and Jose

Looking good

Rolling along

What Can You Learn From a Water Bottle Found on the Road?

Okay. The guy is cheap. He goes to Performance. But he also thinks he's fast since the bottle does not contain mere water but a performance enhancing power drink. The fact that it was found on the road indicates that he was riding with a pack when it fell, but he was too worried about being dropped to stop and pick it up, so his buddies must be hard-driving hammer heads. His weight is estimated at between 230 and 235 lbs. This we know because only a rider that heavy could bounce a bike in just the right way to cause the bottle to fly off. And, of course, his height must be over 6 feet, since any other strength-weight ratio would result in a ride too slow to drop the bottle.

So there it is. Elementary my dear Watson!

The Endless Road

The endless road rides right into the heart of June, having stood up to the cold wrath of winter and emerged once again with all its possibilities. This road could take you anywhere. And that's where we'll go. It is the endless road of our adventures, our foolishness, our reverance for the moment. It is the endless road of our friendship.