SATURDAY - "A Century in PA"
On Saturday I rode my 1998 BikeE "RoadE" recumbent bicycle with fairing. My reasoning was that I'd be using a different set of muscles, and its comfy seat wouldn't wear out my tucas quite as much as a very long ride on my road bike.
On the downside, there are fewer pictures for Saturday because I had to store my camera in the rack trunk behind the seat. On my road bike, it goes in my handlebar bag where I can reach it without stopping.
This shot of morning mist shows a bit of the bike. A fellow and I took eachother's pictures here, but he didn't get my camera to take a picture. Maybe next year!
The white stalk that reaches to the top of this photo is the fiberglass pole for my bike's orange flag. It waves in the breeze and gets drivers' attention.
The ride goes north across the PA border, and into the battlefields at Gettysburg.
There are plenty of historic scenes and memorials here. I took a cameral full of them on last year's ride.
The century ride splits away and heads towards the mountains. I wonder how far this is?
Through the mountains, I was more focused on the ride itself than taking pictures. Sorry!
We went up to Pine Grove Furnace State Park, where the longer-than-one-mile climbs (and downhills) awaited. There was a great rest stop at Ironmasters Hostel.
After coming down from the mountains, the day got very warm. I almost missed this rest stop at Distellfink Restaurant at Shriver's Corner, and had to backtrack. I really needed it!
I was feeling much better when I got to the next rest stop back at Gettysburg. The terrain grew flatter, and the breeze was comfortable.
With our new, small digital camera, I frequently bump the thumbwheel that changes its picture mode. At this rest stop, I managed to switch it to "movie" mode by accident. The result was kind of humorous.
My rest stop movie.
At the end of my first century ride in about twenty years. There were people waiting at the start/finish to cheer us home. I made one of them take a celebratory photo.
The route profile for Saturday shows over 6900 feet of climbing (Note - this is an update; I recalculated the route using DeLorme Topo USA and got a much more accurate number). As you can see, the big stuff was all concentrated in the middle.
This was a long ride. I averaged about 13.5 MPH, and spent seven hours and 47 minutes in the saddle. Thanks to the recumbent seat, I was still able to walk around and sit down at the end of the day. My legs were tired though!
