I had a busy Saturday and didn’t even get out for a ride. Sunday (10/26) was my day to get in a Coffeeneuring Challenge ride. I had planned to make a dedicated hot chocolate ride in the afternoon since I had another ride planned in the morning. One of our club members invited me to join a group for a recovery ride since they rode a metric century on the 25th. I had to laugh because I don’t think I’ve ever been on one of their “recovery rides” without needing significant effort to keep up. It’s good, though. I won’t get faster if I don’t ride harder. We left Newport News Park for a planned 40-ish miles. Unfortunately, one of the riders had a flat just two miles into the ride. The repair did not go well. The tire itself failed during re-inflation. Four of us rode a short “out-n-back” to kill some time while another rider went back to the park for his truck. We returned to the park, heckled the rider while he replaced his tire and tube, then got back on the road. We chose a different route to save time. “Let’s just go to Wawa and back,” someone said. It was in the opposite direction of our plan. But it was a fast, mindless out-n-back that would give us a 30-mile ride with a few mild rolling hills.

Once on the road, the ride leader asked me if I wanted make Wawa my coffeeneuring stop for the weekend. “Yeah! Thanks for remembering. That’ll save me a trip this afternoon.” We usually stop at the Wawa on 143 to regroup with slower riders (this is why we had never stopped at Emily’s just 100 yards down the road). Regrouping was not a concern today. I consider this Wawa to be bicycle-friendly because there’s a variety of food and drink, restrooms, plenty of room to park bicycles and a picnic table out front. I grabbed a cup of hot chocolate instead of the usual Gatorade. We then opted to add another out-n-back before returning to the park. The last ten miles rewarded us with good tail winds. We cruised at ~23 mph the for the majority of the ride back. It was sweet! The total ride was 37 miles.

I’m past the challenge’s halfway mark now. I should easily finish before the November 16th deadline, especially with the Veteran’s Day bonus I can use in two weeks (Rule #18 for veterans). We’ll see if the weather makes this task easy or difficult.

Over the Hump,

Scott