Merrill and I both finish another spin around the sun this Wednesday, so we got our bday miles in today on the Peach West Route ending up with 63mi of great gravel. We attempted this route two weeks ago, and missed the big loop at mile 18, but made up for it with some exploring. I haven’t ridden since then, two weeks ago. I wasn’t in perfect shape, but I was going to ride that loop we missed, and that meant getting the whole route in. That loop was the best part of the course. It is the most remote and primitive. We had a great time riding it.

Me, Merrill, Rox, Rick and Greg found a good spot to park. The forecast was no rain, heavy cloud cover, with a 60 degree start and 70 at the end. What we did not anticipate was 99% relative humidity. We were in the top of the cloud above the rain. At 400’ from the big peach, and you could barely see it. I was afraid we were going to end up soaked, but it ended up being a great misty start to an excellent ride. It burned off about an hour in. We still had heavy cloud cover, but 40mi in that started to burn off as well and we ended up with another summer day in winter, thank you God.

We rode through peach orchards, which of course were bare, but I can’t wait to go back when the peaches are ripe. The roads were perfect, a lot of hard pack clay with some sand. Most Chilton Co gravel handles rain extremely well. There are a lot of great fast zones on this route. 3,000’ feet of elevation for 63mi seems like a lie. There are a couple of steep spots that do some soul sucking, but nothing anyone couldn’t suffer through.

We had a great time today. Anyone is welcome to ride with us anytime and we would love to have you. Next weekend we are going back to Clanton to explore some new roads South of where we rode today. I will post an event for it to Alabama Cycling Calendar in the next day or two.

Update route, compare strava to rwgps and correct where we went wrong at the end.

Would be nice to have a more gravelly end. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/bqm35w1lg1j4qusyrg60z/AN-FfFVSPr1NWhTiYIuIdVA?rlkey=2p03m8hwbvd2kdyw6ct76zgdy&dl=0