To Bike is to gain

We had 6 rowdy riders show up wanting to bike through Hanover County this morning. The humidity was heavy and the summer gloom rose from the asphalt of the road as the early light increased it’s presence to our gathering place.

THANG

We started out at the Ashcreek clubhouse and traveled out to Ashland Road and headed up and took a left on Cedar Lane.  From there we headed down Elmont Road and then we weaseled our way back over to Ashland Road via Center Street Road.  We stopped at the Milestone clubhouse and circled up.  We had a good strong pace of 17 mph for the ride.  To see our route, here is my Strava file: https://www.strava.com/activities/1079661230

COT, Numberama, Namearama – YHC took us out.  Then we showed a cut-through to King Charter to be used at another time and then went our ways as a good start to the day was had.

NMM

Last summer the YHC dreamed of 20 A/Os in Da’Ville, and had plenty of thought of a Bike A/O.  Biking has been a gift to the YHC over the years and there is a strong desire to share it with others with the YHC.  This week, YHC’s neighbor (FNG – Chainsaw) let him know that he planned on going out with one of his friends early Wednesday and wanted to know if the YHC wanted to join.  This was seen as an opportunity – 1) Get Chainsaw into the F3 fold 2) Start an F3 biking A/O and 3) start up a new riding group. So the seed was laid and planted.  Now we need to see if the seed sprouts.

There was three namings that happened this fine morning. Chris (Hugger) was first to be named. He heard about us as the YHC posted on the Ashcreek FB page about the ride.  Hugger quickly answered the customary questions and when describing what he did he explained that he was tree hugger.  Well that was easy…  Brent was next to be named.  After tree hugger and knowing Brent’s fascination with landscaping and removing unwanted trees, chainsaw came to mind quickly.  Last to be named was Dennis. As he described the joys of being a new, relatively unwanted puppy owner, his name also came quickly.  This name was not embraced as the others were, but oh well, Puppy it is.

One interesting fact came to light during this round up.  Not only did we have 1 Birthday boy (Hugger), but we also had Wheelie celebrating a birthday and Chainsaw seeing his birth minute come early tomorrow morning.  So we had 3 PAX members of the 6 have their birth minutes within 24 hours of each other. One might wonder the probability of that occurring??? In this case it is 100%, however, in a random group 6 individuals, it would 0.00025% chance to have 3 birth minutes within 24 hours like this.

On the contested sprint of the day (“Sprint in to town”), Sugar Baby won with a time of 2 minutes and clocking 26.4 mph for 0.8 miles. Abacus was second with Wheelie, Chainsaw, Puppy and Hugger all finishing in short order.  This is a very contested sprint section with 949 different riders attacking this sprint section 5,227 times.  The KOM for this segment is 1:35, which clocks in at 33.3 mph – – that is fast.

Till next time, keep your wheels down and feet pedaling…

Abacus