Sawyer East
I'm sort of giddy. Must have created a good endorphin buzz on the ride this morning. Big One had cross country practice at Sawyer, so I planned a ride during practice and invited Dave for some Saturday morning miles. I've only done a few rides in that area so I charted a course that, for me, had several new roads, really mostly new roads. I knew that we would face some suburban traffic, but all-in-all it was a very pleasant route with very few critical traffic issues.
The entirety of the route was bucolic and still riding that "country/'burb" fence, but Johnson Rd./1531 was particularly nice as it skirted the steep hillsides above the creek. We enjoyed a thrilling dive down to the creek before climbing to US60. The short segment of Poplar Ln., with a sign for No Trucks, was also a nice, empty diversion. In the course of our ride we saw cyclists on almost all the roads we encountered, although never en mass. I had an original route going through Middletown, but using the "bike route" button on ridewithgps I found that Avoca Rd. was dashed with green, meaning a bike route, lane or something. The first part of that stretch was lined with quarries and heavy industry, hardly a bike route. Once it crossed Old Henry signs pointed to a local route with no through-traffic. At the train crossing guardrails had been positioned to allow bikes and walkers but no cars. Honestly it was all a bit odd, but for that short mile stretch we found cool shade devoid of cars. Nice.
Once back in Anchorage I mentioned to Dave that I wanted to maintain a total pace above 14, as we had been above 15mph for most of the ride and then slowed. He pushed it a bit and I pushed it some more, finished with 14.8mph for the day. Dave did great too, first riding the 12m there and then the 29m with me. A great day and a great precursor for tomorrow(RCCS message here), our 70m out of Orleans, IN. If you're interested, see you in Orleans at 9.00EST.
The entirety of the route was bucolic and still riding that "country/'burb" fence, but Johnson Rd./1531 was particularly nice as it skirted the steep hillsides above the creek. We enjoyed a thrilling dive down to the creek before climbing to US60. The short segment of Poplar Ln., with a sign for No Trucks, was also a nice, empty diversion. In the course of our ride we saw cyclists on almost all the roads we encountered, although never en mass. I had an original route going through Middletown, but using the "bike route" button on ridewithgps I found that Avoca Rd. was dashed with green, meaning a bike route, lane or something. The first part of that stretch was lined with quarries and heavy industry, hardly a bike route. Once it crossed Old Henry signs pointed to a local route with no through-traffic. At the train crossing guardrails had been positioned to allow bikes and walkers but no cars. Honestly it was all a bit odd, but for that short mile stretch we found cool shade devoid of cars. Nice.
Once back in Anchorage I mentioned to Dave that I wanted to maintain a total pace above 14, as we had been above 15mph for most of the ride and then slowed. He pushed it a bit and I pushed it some more, finished with 14.8mph for the day. Dave did great too, first riding the 12m there and then the 29m with me. A great day and a great precursor for tomorrow(RCCS message here), our 70m out of Orleans, IN. If you're interested, see you in Orleans at 9.00EST.
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