The Great Peanut Ride

It's Peanut Time Again! For me this is official start of fall. The weather this year could not have been more beautiful. I took Friday off so I could do the Lake Gaston ride, a circumnavigation of the lake. I decided to try and shoot some pictures from the saddle. Here is my self portrait. The Gaston ride is one of my favorites. All rides start and finish at the Cattail Creek Campground in Skippers, VA. For reference, Skippers is the last exit on I-95 before the NC line. This particular ride is 81 miles long, but I cheat because it goes right past our place at the lake. So I get Lisa to drop me off and simply ride home. Even so, there are several crossings of the lake, so it is very scenic and for me, very familiar. I hadn't been riding much preceding this ride and I felt it. My quads were screaming when I pulled into Whippoorwill Hills. Nothing a few ibuprofens and a couple of beers and a nice long nap couldn't fix.

Saturday morning I loaded up after a pancake breakfast and headed for the campground again. I have found through the years that I ride my very best on a foundation of banana pancakes. Today's ride is all in Greensville County VA and has the best rest stops of any organized ride I have ever done. I think I like them so much because the locals put out what ever they have the most of. Therefore, you get tomato sandwiches ( known locally as "mater sammiches"), water melon rind pickles (delicious, kind of like bread and butter pickles), watermelon, cucumbers and peanut products of all kinds (brittle, fudge, muffins and cookies).


Now let's have a look at my "dashboard" and "widgets". This what gives me feedback in the saddle. To the left is my bike computer which gives me speed, average, distance travelled, heart rate, elapsed time and time of day. To the right is my GPS which gives me position on the map, elevation and most important-distance to the next rest stop!


I love this ride and been doing it since 1989. This was the 27th anniversary. It never rains on the Peanut Ride but sometimes there is a very heavy dew. Like about 4" one year. I'll be back next year, hopefully in a little better shape. I'd like to do the C&O Canal Trail from Cumberland MD to DC later this fall. Any takers? More pictures will be posted on Flickr when I get back to the land of broadband. I only have dial-up down here at the lake and am grateful to have that.

"Every time that wheel turns round, bound to cover just a little more ground" -The Wheel-Grateful Dead