Last week I rode the Baltimore Bicycling Club Civil War Century ride 65 mile route, along with about 1600 other riders. This past weekend I tried the Potomac Pedalers Back Roads Century ride 63 mile route, from Sheperds University in Sherperdswotn WV with about 1200 others riders. I'd never done this ride before and never bicycled in that area at all. Carole and I had spent a Sunday morning in Sheperdstown a few years ago on the way back from a weekend somewhere, and the downtown area was cute, cute, cute - and had several great coffee shops.
The ride was 64 miles with about 2800' of climbing. Sheperdstown is just south of the Potomac River and the ride was a big counterclockwise loop. There were a few short steep climbs, especially going through a big apple/peach orchard out West near Arden where the route hit its highest point. That and one other spot had short stretches of 12% grade, but in general the ride was rolling hills.
It was very foggy at the start of the ride at about 0715 - like many others, I had my blinky red tail light going. The fog itself, and how it clouded up my glasses, made it hard to see the various hickory, acorns, paw paw and Osage orange shells and nuts littering the roads. In the first five miles there was a continuing string of riders stopped on the side fixing flat tires, so I slowed down quite a bit, activated my manual windshield wiper fingers and managed to avoid everything.
There were three rest stops, at 19, 33 and 56 miles - all with fantastic food, nice people and convenient facilities. The fog finally burned off when I reached the 2nd rest stop, so the last 30 miles was under a bright sun and temperatures in the high 70s - perfect biking weather. MyWindSock claimed I was in a headwind 63% of the time, but there really wasn't any wind.
I was back to the start by just after noon and was able to go take a shower at the Shepard University "Wellness Facility," which if you are over the age of 50 you probably call a "gym." Very nice to be able to do that, since I had to hop in the car and drive 75 miles east to join Carole, Jim and Jacqui at a party in Crownsville MD.
Great route, well managed ride - at several intersections where we had to make left turns across larger roads (not very large, though) there was even police support guiding what little traffic there was. It is a 90 minute drive from my house (compared to about an hour for the Civil War ride) but was definitely worth it. Next week I'm going to try a brand new Metric Century ride, the Ride for the Rivers to raise money for the West River/Rhode River Riverkeeper conservation organization - will probably be much more bare bones than the BBC and PPTC rides, but for a good cause - and a lot closer to home!
