Enough with the mnemonics and acronyms, already. What is mean is Bike Ride Across Georgia – Spring Tune Up, which amounts to 2 or 3 days of organized bicycle rides out of Madison, Georgia. After STU you’ll know if your mind and body are ready for the 7-day, 349 mile (or 449) Bike Ride Across Georgia in June. Of course most people, like us, just ride it for fun with no intention of promising participation in the longer event. Madison is a quaint little city with many beautiful antebellum homes that somehow Sherman missed burning on his infamous March to the Sea.
Late last Friday afternoon Susan and I met Naomi and Louie at their house and loaded up bikes and luggage for the 1-1/2 hour drive to Madison. On the way we stopped at Piccolo’s Italian restaurant in Watkinsville for a delicious dinner, so we didn’t arrive in Madison around 10 pm.
Some participants camp at Heritage Park where the bike ride begins, but we reserved comfy beds at a local hotel. It was especially smart to be indoors this year since high winds, rain, possible hail, and tornado watches were forecasted for the overnight hours. Fortunately only the rain and wind caused a bit of havoc at the park.
On Saturday it rained until about 9 AM so we were late starting. Louie opted for the 69-mile Hard Labor (State Park) Hammerhead route, a ride notorious for poor road markings so it surprised no one that Louie missed a turn along the way - an easy thing to do when you are stretched out on the aerobars cranking out mile after mile into the wind. What’s a few extra miles when you are young and tough. The rest of us rode the more modest 57-mile Blue Willow ride, so named for the excellent rest stop at the historic Blue Willow Inn in Social Circle.
Saturday’s ride was certainly not for wimps since we dealt with 15-25 mile winds all day. It was nice though when the clouds gave way to bright sunny skies in the afternoon and we finished with a 14.1 mph average. Naomi could have easily ridden away from Susan and I and finished much sooner, but she stuck with the old folks and helped us through the wind. When Louie left it took about two minutes for him to be out of sight and he finished with a nice 20+ mph average. That just meant he had to wait a long time for us to show up. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so you will just have to believe me that we had the wind to our faces on the way out but flew coming back to Madison.
No day of riding would be complete without eating another nourishing meal, especially important when planning back-to-back rides. Like last year, we ate again at the The Chop House just off the square in downtown Madison, but it wasn't as good as we remembered. This eating desire seems to be a passion Louie and I share, along with ice cream. After dinner we met some of Louie and Naomi’s friends and took a long stroll to the local Dairy Queen for a mouthwatering, smacking good, high anticipated Blizzard…… only to find out the place went out of business. Darn! Back we strolled and settled for a more traditional ice cream parlor near the square. After working up a craving for ice cream no one complained that we missed our Blizzards.
Day two of riding started out at 46-degrees and then warmed nicely to near 70. Not a cloud in sight and barely a breeze. Perfect riding weather. We all traveled the 57-mile Oreo Cow ride and Naomi again stuck with us and set the pace. At one point during the ride we thought Susan had "bonked" because she kept falling behind, especially on the hills. Luckily she quickly realized her back brake was dragging. That was a relief and an easy fix.
I better explain the Oreo Cow. The ride passes a farm that raises a breed of cows called Belted Galloways. Since they are black on the front and rear, and white in the middle, they are called Oreo’s. On the day of the ride the owner is always in front of his farm in his golf card serving Oreo cookies and milk, or beer, or even Bloody Mary’s. Bloody darn nice of him if I do say so. This year all the cows were out of sight in the pasture so we just settled for a picture of the farm’s sign.
Saturday’s ride was anticlimactic and back at the park we met up with Louie who not only had a another fast ride, but also ran six-miles afterwards. In no time we had Louie’s “Turbo Toaster” loaded were on our way home.
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