Today I took Brenda on her first "long" ride. Up to today she had only been on the bike for about 30 miles at a single stretch on our weekly runs to the dinner gatherings at Kings Cafe in Montgomery at 105 / 149. We put almost 170 miles on the bike today with 4 hours on the move and a total time of 5 1/2 hours. We typically did the speed limit or a little under. We started out with some twisties early in the ride and then slabbed it for a while on the way home. She's a good passenger and leans when she should and in the right direction. This makes a big difference if you have a passenger that doesn't know how/when to lean. Aside from a severe case of runny nose and watery eyes from all the pollen in the air she did great. I'm usually the one with the hay fever symptoms and I wasn't affected at all.
Starting from home we hit 242W > 1488W > Honea Egypt N > 2854W/N > 105W > 149N/W (cruised through Kings Cafe and they were packed at 9:45 am with lots of bikes in the parking lot) > 149W out of Anderson > 3090S (good twisty road) > Hwy 6 W to the Millican exit > 159S (very interesting ride - LOTS of farmland and BIG sweepers) > 105E > 90N/E back to Anderson > 1774S > 105E > Lunch at Kings Cafe in Montgomery about 1 pm - still lots of bikes in the parking lot and more coming and going on 105 and 149 - they were everywhere today > 105E > 2854S/E > Honea Egypt S > 1488E > 242E > home.
Here's a thumbnailed map of the route:
WARNING - All of the following photos are approx 1 mb in size which provides for great detail but if you're on dial-up it will take a while to download.
We barely made the right hand turn coming into Richards. It is not marked for a low speed turn although the one prior to it is. This was the only time I busted the double yellow on the ride. I only overrode it by about a foot, but that's a foot too much. Then I saw all these flowers and thought it would be a good shot with the bike.
This was the underpass after the exit off of Hwy 6 to Millican. There are hundreds of bird's nests under the overpass. The birds were swarming everywhere gathering food and then they would fly back to the nest and drop off the tidbits to their youngsters inside. There was also a fresh dog kill on the other side of the road from us. He had probably died within the last couple of hours. No obvious blood loss and he was laying down on his side as if he had gone to sleep in the shade so I assume he ate something that poisoned him or he had a minor car strike that caused internal injuries. Still, it was sad to see and know that someone's pet was gone. We all drive past carnage every day, but to see him laying there just a few feet away pulls on your emotions a different way.
The nickname of the Concours is "Connie", so when I saw this street sign I couldn't resist.
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