Bloggin from the Road

Well...I'm in Winston-Salem, NC...and, I'm blogging.

Since this will annoy MC...here are the details. I'm am sitting in a Barnes & Noble, laptop in front of me, getting my WiFi on...sipping on English tea and munching a cinnamon scone. Ha...high brow dorktitude!

Anyway...work sucks. But, things appear to be improving. So, I'll leave subject alone for now.

My bike arrived here in relatively good shape. No major issues that I can find...I got it assembled without too much trouble. The only potential issue I found was that there was a small creaking noise coming from the front end while riding...couldn't pin down whether it was from the fork or the handlebars...so, I probably just need to tighten something a little.

I've only had the chance for one ride so far...but, what a ride!

Holy crap is this place gorgeous...I did a little search on http://www.mapmyride.com/ and found a 28 mile loop that is reasonably close to where I'm located. Mind you...this wasn't the "best loop in the area", or some mythic ride that a local pointed me toward. This was just a random loop I found on the website that roughly matched the distance I wanted to do. But, the result was astonishing...what a loop!!

In West Michigan, this would have been the best loop for a hundred miles in any direction. People would drive for hours to go do this ride...yet, it is just another boring ride for this area. Astonishing!

Good hills...nothing huge...about 5-600 feet of elevation change for the whole ride. But, all the roads around here are winding. So, that makes it cool. I was cutting through little passes and hills, through woods, glens, across desolate bridges over beautiful rivers, near huge horse farms and small wheat fields, I passed a huge number of vineyards and small orchards. Old churches, and farm houses...little, tiny villages. It was astonishingly beautiful. It made me never want to leave...at least, for a short period of time. Then I had to go back to work.

I'm hoping to get back out this afternoon...maybe I'll try another loop. Maybe not. What are the odds I'm going to find something prettier?

I might have the time to do a longer ride tomorrow. So, I'm making some tentative plans to drive a little north and west and see if I can park at one of the State Parks or National Forests. I'm going to try to find a suitable chunk of the Blue Ride Parkway to ride...I'd love to go ride some mountain tops if I can. We'll see.