Sunday rides

Sunday mornings are a wonderful time to ride bikes. There is very little traffic and what traffic there is is usually "nice" traffic. Take yesterday for example. Mary and I went on an almost Girls Only Ride (almost, that is, except for Barry who rode with us to Rapidan). We left from the top of Moonshine Mountain in almost chilly temperatures, under a clear blue sky with no wind. It was a perfect day to be on the bikes! Barry met us about halfway down to the Robinson River and joined us until we got to Rapidan. In Rapidan we crossed the Rapidan River and took the obligatory loop in Orange so we could say we rode in three counties. After re-crossing the river, Mary and I headed out toward Mitchells and Barry headed back to Oak Park.

There was so little traffic on the roads that I would be surprised if we encountered a total of ten vehicles. We pedaled out past the old Rapidan Berry Gardens, past the quarries and even past the....ahem.....detention center (beware of hitchhikers!). While there were few cars, what we did see were lots of cyclists. At least twenty, maybe more. They were all going in the opposite direction (did we miss the memo?) and looked to be having just as much fun as we were. My knee, after tweaking it at work on Friday, was cooperating but I did not want to push my luck so we headed back to Moonshine Mountain after reaching Mitchells. A total of 29 beautiful miles.

Compare that to last Sunday when Barry, Aden, Mary and I rode the 31 mile Original Kelly's Ford Flyer (some people didn't get enough of it the first time and did it again...). Like yesterday, it was a mostly sunny, warm day but with more humidity. Still, any day is a good day if we are on the bikes! We had considerably more traffic and several of the drivers would pull up behind us and honk their horns before they passed. I don't get it. We weren't blocking the road at all, yet they seemed impatient. The KFF route is a very popular one so there are cyclists on it frequently. Maybe some of those other cyclists DO block traffic... Come to think of it, we met several other cyclists on that ride too, and they, too were going in the opposite direction. hmmmm...