Mostly recaps of two wheeled rambles through the countryside, but sometimes thoughts on other things.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Pintlala By Request

A relatively recent addition to our regular rider line up asked for a ride of 100K today down south of here in the little town of Pintlala. "Famous" as the home of the founder of the BassMaster fishing tournaments (Ray Scott), but not much else, Pintlala is a farming community which means generally quiet roads. The terrain is rolling and roads range from freshly repaved to rather coarse pave.

I showed Walter a link of my Pintlala metric course file, and he said it looked okay, but could we ride it backwards. The riders all agreed and so we headed out at 7:00 AM. It really was a nice change up to run the course in reverse. The early hours were extraordinarily humd. So much so that my glasses fogged to the point of being useless. I remembered this from past August outings and now, as then, I pulled off the glasses and tucked them in a pocket. I could see plenty well enough without them.

Generally speaking, we rode in 2 groups today. To my great surprise, I was in the lead group most of the day.  Here we are still all close together.
English: Wood Stork at Everglades National Par...
English: Wood Stork at Everglades National Park in Florida (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
You can see that it's a lovely day.  At times different ones were in front or behind and that's pretty typical. we regrouped at stops and turns.

The cows were grazing or laying down, and we passed a wading wood stork in a small roadside pond. Looking up, I saw a flock of them circling
high above and their black wing tips were instantly noticeable.

Max pointed ahead and  to the road shoulder and there was a coyote who saw us, paused and turned back around. Fox Squirrels were plentiful and easy to pick out due to their size.

Our first store stop was in Ramer and they had SVR (Pride & Joy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU0MF8pwktg)  on the store stereo. I asked the middle aged cashier who the fan was and she said, "We all are." Cedric the proprietor was out hauling trash but he returned before we departed. He looks much trimmer to me. Has he been biking with the Canadians? (http://www.alabamacyclingcamp.com/)

From Ramer we went to the store in Sellers on the new US 331. By now it was hot and we were taking in fluids faster. 28 miles +/- to the 1st store, less than half that to the second. Our 3rd stop was Mt Carmel UMC church. A location for a rest stop on the Glassner Century (http://www.mgmbikeclub.org/autumnchallenge.html) the church has a hose spigot behind a hedge that we know about. Pam decided it would be great to run the hose over her head! Others washed salt off and refilled bottles before we headed in the last leg. I foolishly forgot to whip out my camera for the head soak.

It was a really nice outing and a good ride. No mechanicals, no accidents. The kind of ride that makes you want to go back for more.


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