Holiday Road

Wasn't that the name of the song in "Christmas Vacation"? Anyway, it was 3 days before Christmas, and Jon was in town from Utah. The morning broke on a beautiful sunny day. The weather channel app on my iPhone said it would be 61 before the day was over, so I happily tossed my tights back into the drawer and finished putting things together for the ride.

On my way out the door, downstairs heading into the garage, I smelled a funny odor...I asked by two oldest boys to make sure they cleaned their bathroom. But then decided to go see why it smelled so badly. The floor, and the tub were filled with backed up...you know what. After putting the two teenagers in charge of clean-up and taking on "get a plumber here pronto" duties for myself, I finally headed out to pick up Jon about 30 minutes late. I wasn't too worried about it, I knew we had plenty of daylight to ride with, and a little later start meant warmer temps as well.

We finally hooked up with Doug and the Beast at our predetermined meeting spot, out at 280 and 119. Got Jon's loaner adjusted to fit, and headed out.

Because the Beast was in town, and we were only a short ride from his favorite hill, I was resigned to the fact that we would indeed be climbing Hugh Daniel drive, from the Greystone side. Words cannot express how much I loathe that hill. The pitch constantly changes, and the easiest parts are 8-9%. I just can't ever get a good rythym going on it. After that climb and down the other side, we headed southwest and down through the Narrows, which is a particularly scenic road that has no traffic and a nice little river running along next to it. Heading down 43 toward Vandiver, I found that I was having a really tough time keeping up. Months of no riding were paying off for me in exactly the way I expected. My superior Mass/Strength ratio helped me close the gap on the downhills of the rollers, only to lose it again when the road turned up.

Finally pulling into the BP station at Vandiver, I pulled out my phone and started checking to see what was happening with the plumbing disaster. I also grabbed a plastic bag, put ice in it, and iced down my nagging elbow for 15 minutes while Jon, Doug, and the Beast all did a little loop that added some mileage to their ride. I met them at the top of Coosa Mountain, where they had already descended and climbed back up the north side from Dunavant.

We headed down and I think Jon was a bit surprised with the short but steep climb after the descent back up to the "town" of Dunavant. We turned west again and after riding 41 past Shoal Creek, headed back up Hugh Daniel (the side we had descended earlier), then down the other side and back to the cars.

A good ride, that motivated me tremendously to do something about getting back in shape. Jon was strong and didn't appear to have much trouble keeping up, so I'm told he had a good time and learned a little bit about what it's like to ride in the south.

All in all, you couldn't have asked for better weather, or friends to ride with.