I got out a little early to plant a cooler with 5 gallons of water and 21lbs of ice in the shade of the alcove at Isabella HS at 8am. I pulled into Bell Lane Baptist parking lot at 8:20 and met Danny from Tuscaloosa, who now lives near Oak Mtn, and Steve, who Greg brought with him. Greg has ridden out this way with us a few times. Rick showed up next and we blessed the adventure before us and set out on our way.
We had perfect spring weather, clear skies and 60 at the start with very low humidity. The roads were surprisingly hard packed, as some of this stuff turns to sand in the heat when it hasn’t rained for a while, which it hasn’t. Later in the day there were a few long climbs that if there was any sand at all, you noticed it.
Danny, Greg and Steve did the 46mi route, which was the same as the 62mi route the Rick and I did. We rode the first 18mi together to Isabella HS and refilled bottles, then they headed back North while Rick and I did the first Southern loop below Isabella. The 95mi route adds a second loop below that, but it didn’t get ridden this time around.
My gravel bike is in the shop, so I brought Cravel, my dropbar mtb. It’s slow, so I let everyone know they were good to drop me if they needed to, but that I was going to have about a 13mph pace, which was pretty well stuck to. No one had a problem with a group pace and I got in a pretty good workout. Thanks everybody!
Here’s my pics and a couple vids from Rick: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/hd6kg3ijqq34eeghgerdw/AMgC8alccBBrSrUoThImyTw?rlkey=r2kx4iertn8rp6a79p8n4f9ne&dl=0