Audrey, Kevin and I rolled out of Autaugaville Baptist Church a few minutes before 8am. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect, starting at about 62 degrees and ending in the mid-80s with very low humidity. There was some cloud cover, but the wind wasn’t bad and the scenery on this route was gorgeous.

For the first 10 miles the roads are pretty sandy and chunky due to being next to the Alabama river. After that the next 10 miles was wide open flat scenery with very little wind, and all of the rest of the roads were in great shape. About 5% of the roads were washboards, but the rest were concrete hard packed red clay, with the sides turning to sand by afternoon.

We stopped at Evergreen Church, refilled bottles and held a conclave to determine the remaining distance. It was unsuccessful as there was 3 more miles to go to get to the split between the 70 and 57 mile routes. On that 3 mile strech, we got moving for a minute and a mother deer and her two babies ran across the road about 20 feet in front of me, and I was just ahead of Audrey and Kevin. I told both of them those babies were surprised when they saw us and put the hustle on.

We saw about 6 or 7 horses, a lot of cows and a goat colony. The gravel was great, and the return route from the store is just super long stretches of great dirt with lots of flats and descents. The hills are punchy but short and few and far between. When we were on paved roads, it’s all back country, and we might have seen 10 cars the whole time.

Another great adventure on bikes with friends. Here’s some pics for proof: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/cna3qq8s1sj2pwg9tmozt/AK395fFZawP8W_Vruz235g4?rlkey=2an2abz7y2ng2myklgoo4nnr1&dl=0