Holland-Patoka RiverNWR MT

It's Tuesday morning and I'm still tired from this ride. I have a niggling cold that is taking the edge off of my sleep efforts, but fundamentally it was 45 tough miles of gravel, rollers, or a combo of the two. This course was very similar to the RCCS ride out of Holland in early '11, but the again, that ride was in 5" of snow and began in single digit temps. Sunday Bartutle, Asher and I had clement, clue Fall skies with temps eventually nearing 60F.

The pre-stage, though JoeCreason on the way to meet my ride at Sunergos.

Early rollers

First gravel

"Road". We don't get many dirt roads around here.

Lake Helmerich, which has a gated, security-carded community surrounding it. A wrong turn led us to a discussion with a nice jogger lady about how to get through, but we eventually turned around.

Tree tunnel along IN64

Patoka River running a little frisky

We entered the PRNWR at the eastern end, which is smartly almost cut off in this finely framed pic.

My fav, "not-roads"

puente cerrada, an excuse for a water stop

We entered the Pike State Forest/PRNWR area again and found a long stretch of gravel, abruptly interrupted by Asher's flat tire.

Our "coffeeneuring coffee without walls" stop, where Asher and I had some coffee I had carted all the way from Sunergos. It was still warm-to-slightly-above-warm. Yeah Kleen Kanteen!

Back down towards the bridge across the Patoka. We had a short, nice convo with a hunter there as he and his buddy took their small boat out. They had been bow hunting deer from the small boat. I can't even imagine a deer fitting in it with the two of them.

Dave won't remember, but this roller-y stretch in the snow convinced him to turn south and towards the car back in '11. He was on 700x42s on the LHT, probably a good decision.

Somewhere in the general return I began to legitimately trail. I was pretty cooked. I had done a burst of speed coming due east on CR250S in some gravel and that was a really dumb decision. I tailed along this open stretch for a while before their slackened pace allowed me to catch up.

Vista

Our last gravel run. I walked at the top of that little kicker there, and was mostly out of gas at this point. Better food/drink management would have helped, but the rollers had taken their toll.

Really dumb property entrance at that gravel turn.

Not far from the end of our last gravel turn I again got tailed off on IN64. When we made our turn south I eventually caught up and informed the motley crew that I was cutting things a couple miles short and they complied. We eventually a couple mile turn along the slightly busy 161, but traffic was courteous and gave us space. Asher took both the town sprints and we celebrated by taking chowing at Waffle House in Corydon down the road a bit (after the old man feel asleep for a short turn). I love that area and have thoroughly enjoyed myself the 3 or 4 times I've visited. At more than an hour, the transpo leg is a little long to go more than once or twice a year, but it's well worth it, especially in Fall.