Southern Ohio Tour 9/24/09

I was up today at 3:30 and was out the door at 5 as Ann was going to drop me off below Columbus and I would head east. She dropped me off and I hung around until it got light enough to safely ride and still be seen. At 7:05 I deemed it safe to ride so I turned on the rear flasher and I was off. It was cloudy and they were calling for rain, but it never materialized until towards the end of the ride. I had a few sprinkles, but nothing that got me soaked as it was more of a damp ending.

I marked a route on the map and didn't really scour it like I normally do thinking I'll leave room to wing it. Later as I was looking at the name of a couple roads I noticed I was going on Chicken Koop Road! Then I saw Savage and Revenge Roads and I knew I was in trouble! These roads are three of the toughest three climbs on CFC, which is the hardest organized ride that I've ridden. So I hit Revenge and it was really hard as I pulled BOB weighing in at 52 pounds, but I'm feeling pretty strong as I always try and peak at this time of year for the CFC ride. I rode CFC for 18 years straight and then missed the last three years. One for my XC trip and then apathy the other two years. This year I felt like I rode it as I covered a lot of their route plus was dragging a 52 pound BOB up them and suffered like a dog! I was on Savage and missed the turn over to Chicken Koop, I swear it was accidental, and continued on Savage and I'll admit I had to walk a short portion of the steepest pitch! I actually had to push the bent twice today.

I finally got to Burr Oak and was really looking forward to a shower. I saw the sign for Burr Oak campground and turned up yet another hill to the campground and pulled in just happy that I was there and that I could really rest. So as I rode through the campground I saw outhouses, but no showers. I decided a sponge bath was better than nothing and I had the campground to myself, and it was lightly raining so I threw my tent up on a secluded site, took my sponge bath and felt a little better. Then cooked some dinner and wrote in my journal and listened to my MP3 player for a short while and fell asleep between 8 and 9 and slept until 6:30. I slept pretty good and it rained all night, but not too hard. I packed up the wet tent as it had quit raining before I got up. Cooked a little breakfast and headed out to Athens.

I had a couple setbacks right from the start as I found out I had stayed at Wayne National Forest Campground, Burr Oak and not the Burr Oak State Campground which was just a little distance on down the road, oh well. I had a nice camp site so I'm not complaining. Then the road I had planned to take out of there was gravel so I headed back out to Rt 13 and headed south. I asked one woman where a certain road turned off Rt 13 and she said, "go down by the Kroger's, now you can't see the Kroger's, but........", you just have to love it. So I soon got on a less busy road and started east towards Marietta. I lost my sunglasses along the way so I need to get a pair of those today. I got to Marietta and caused a traffic jam on the way to Ann's folks house, which they were caught in until they passed me. So today is a rest day as I decide what to do with more rain coming. I ended up with 94 miles Thursday and I know I had about 6000 feet of climbing. Then yesterday I didn't have my bike computer as I packed it up in my tent and was not going to unpack everything to get it. So I'm estimating yesterdays mileage at 65 to 70 with another epic climbing day.