Happily Water-logged after Covered Bridge Century

Well, the Covered Bridge Century was wonderful, and wet. I cycled it with my friend, Kevin Custalow, who you may have read about in my “about” page. He was a major influence for me in cycling about 28 years ago. We hadn’t seen each other for 26 years or so, and after a year of Facebook friendship, Kevin decided to ride this century with me. It’s been an awesome re-union. Why do we let the years creep by, without staying in touch with valuable people in our lives?

We got a later start than we planned, due to a 1 am 3-mile walk through Lancaster, looking for an open Pizza Hut. We finally settled on a Waffle House, one block from the Inn. Breakfast was yummy, and shared, which always makes food better. Finally got to sleep around 2, and wake-up was at 6:30!!!! What????? 6:30!  Despite that, we groggily wandered around, getting bikes ready for the ride, and showed up at the ride start at 8:30.  At 11:00, the bottom fell out of the bucket, and we had to stop under the awning of a “What-not” shoppe. Every minute of that break, I could feel my muscles tightening, but loved our chat, and time to catch-up.

Yesterday’s metric, seemed to be interferring with todays, or perhaps it’s the 50 year old body, with 4.5 hours sleep the night before a metric.  Either way, the 50+ little climbs must have added up to at least one major climb, right? My legs are saying, “yes”. Many riders seem to have taken the sag wagon back when the rain got heavy, but we stuck it out, and loved every minute of it. We laughed and chatted, and ate nuts and chocolate, gulping Gatorade all the while. The landscapes in general were far more beautiful than the lovely covered bridges. There was a constant flow of beautiful creek or river, along the roads, the homes were gorgeous, and the barns. Many of the buildings were stone. The Amish families were going to and returning from church, as we cycled, so their horses were constantly covering the wet roads with more recycled hay to get thrown up into our faces and mouths as the water rooster-tailed off the roads.  If we could manage to keep the manure tea out of our mouths, our water bottles were coated with it anyway, so we might just as well ENJOY it;0)

Loved every minute of the ride. Throw the sore bum comments from a previous post right out the window. 65 miles of …… uh…… discomfort. Gotta get the saddle thing, figured out. The folks from the Lancaster cycling club, have done a great job with this ride, and I hope to do it again next year.

For now, go make your own breeze and remember, if you’re not having fun, you’re in the wrong gear.

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