Took my son riding this afternoon after I put in the obligatory effort to mulch some leaves in the yard. With the temp in the 70's in November it's almost sinful to not go out riding. Seems like we have had excellent weather for riding this fall every weekend since Labor Day, w/ the exception of last weekend when it barely got into the 50's. Even still we managed a couple hours in the woods riding some single track and cruising the campus afterwords until the sun began dropping with the thermometer. Some of our friends from up here in Cumberland Gap went to Knoxville for a really cool metric complete with significant climbing and a few exciting dog sprints for good measure.
Anyway we took out our Masi singlespeeds this afternoon for a couple of leisurely hours of spinning. We have a really nice loop from Cumberland Gap into a quaint little village named Tiprell. It is really just a cluster of houses grouped around 2 churches and some sort of rail road freight transfer facility that never seems very active. Its a 4 mile loop w/ rollers so we usually do a couple laps to make it worth the effort. Foolowing the loops we took the greenway over to the Lincoln Memorial Univ campus and rode around there for awhile. The SSs are setup w/ an ~ 2.0 gear ratio primarly because of my creaky knees, and my desire to preserve the health of my son's knees. Earlier in the season I was riding somewhere around 2.5 and found that the rolling terrain here in East Tn was just too hard on my joints and I needed to find something that would let me spin a little higher cadence. We have really enjoyed the simplicity of the SS ride and w/ the forced coasting down the hills it seems like we have found that balance between riding hard and then taking it easy just to experience the ride. This came out on the second lap when I told my son to "just take it easy and not make everything a training ride for the Tour". Being a 13yr old competitive rider it must be hard to dial it down a notch and not go 53x11 all the time. Fortunately for him (and me) he has Jr gearing so the hardest he can go is 52x14.
So we (the whole family: me, son, wife) are off to Knoxville tomorrow for a short 7-8 mile ride and pizza party at a local joint to celebrate Knoxville's "Bicycle friendly city" award by the League of American Bicyclists w/ a couple hundred other enthusiasts. If this indeed is the last good weekend of cycle weather it is certainly the way to see it out w/ a ride, 100+ friends, pizza, and some really awesome beers on tap.
Ride hard and have fun!
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2 comments:
It was a fantastic fall in all over the midwest as well, until yesterday when we received 6" of the white stuff.
I agree with the single speed mentality.
What a way to end the year.
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