a good night

It's a good night when you got 2 empty growlers in the panniers and your bike is on autopilot towards Yazoo brewery.

I was surprised to note that my bike seemed to ride better with the extra weight, even with it all in the back. It took some muscle to pick it up and move it but while the wheels where moving I couldn't tell a big difference. Good to know for future beer supply runs.

Today is a full day of fatherly duties but tomorrow should contain a morning of mountain biking with the (in)famous Gracie and then an afternoon of recording music in the hills of Bellevue.

Tennessee Country Roads

Country Road
Originally uploaded by s3ll0ut

I've been sitting here at the computer waiting for my daughter to awaken from her much-longer-than-usual nap and thinking, I should really update this here blog. And luck would have it, that I have some thing to update it with... even with some photos poached from others.

(If you're not the text reading type, click the image to the left and flip through Parker's photos of the ride)

Thad, Parker, Eric and I all met up in the usual Natchez Trace parking lot for a morning full of hot, muggy gravel mixed with some hotter and muggy pavement. I've missed quite a few of these gravel rides recently so I was excited to get back out.

We quickly were on our way down the Trace to highway 7. Thad's gotten much better at routing us to gravel much quicker than some of the 60+ miles rides we rode last year near Fly, TN. 6 miles in and we were on some sweet gravel like in the pictures. The entire course was new to me this trip which made it fun. I always enjoy a fair bit of mystery in these longer rides. It's generally best I don't know what I'm in for. I tried my best to hold back my "how many more miles til...." questions. Though I'm sure at some point I let out a whine or two. But hey, coming off the couch, having not ridden more than 20 miles in a single month in over 3-4 months makes a 45 mile ride a bit tough. :)

Of course... it's time to tend to the baby.....

...to be continued...
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Ok, back to it 7 hours later and Raleigh is back asleep again for the night. Where was I?

oh yea gravel

So the ride was great in all the right ways. Good company, great roads (or lack of), great creeks, great pain and the constant thought of "How will I make it back to the car?" Overall I was impressed with how my body held up. We seemed to miss some of the huge grueling climbs but we still had some painfully slow & long ones. Then there was the deep, loose gravel....though that was actually fun mainly because the sections weren't so long we were cursing.

We are so fortunate that we can drive 40 minutes south of town and be transported into such another world. It was the ultimate head clearing ride. We all also were fortunate to avoid any major mechanical issues. A couple flat tires were all the trouble we had and surprisingly non of them were Thad's tire.

I'll poach a few more photos and call it a night... til the next ride....


Photo cred: Parker

One of many creeks on the ride, probably the shallowest


Photo cred: Parker

This was the 1st store we found, which was closed, not just on Sunday, but closed everyday. We all had our hopes high for some liquid but we were saved a few miles later when we happened upon someone's spring and poached some crisp water. (as we tried our best to convince ourselves it was clean enough to drink....no issues yet!)



Photo cred: Parker

Thad showing us the newest in mid-ride recover drink technology

Photo cred: Eric

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Another creek crossing with some equestrian friends.