Next adventure!

Greetings from south western Ohio. I don't know if anyone is still looking here, but in September Kent & Sloaner, Bruce, and myself are headed to Asheville, NC to ride for 9 out of 11 days and should be a great trip.

Kent planned this trip and then he and Bruce tweaked the route a little. Me, I'm just along for the ride. And quite a ride it will be as it looks like there is going to be a ton of hard climbing every day! The final day will be an assault on Mount Mitchell which should be interesting. Bruce has been doing a lot of serious climbs in preparation as he says it's not the miles on this trip, but the climbing. He is ready for it more so than I. I've started doing some serious climbing and will be ready.....or at least able to do the ride. I'm changing the gearing on the bent to a mountain bike crank to get the lower gearing that I think I'll need.

So it should be a beautiful and hard ride and hope maybe someone is still out there looking. We start riding September 6, 2008. Peace Paul God Bless

Rain

Howdy, well the bent is on the road again! Woohoo! We've had 2.3 inches of rain in the last 15 hours so it's pretty wet out there so no riding today......unless the sun comes out strong and dries everything. I'm headed to Athens this weekend for the Tour of the Hocking.

TotH is a two day ride over Memorial Day that has an overnight on the Ohio River where we camp and enjoy the scenery and a gourmet dinner. A very good time had by all! The Athens Bicycle Club does a nice job on their rides. I'll be staying at Tom's house on Saturday night and cousin John's house on Monday night returning home on Tuesday so it will be a good weekend. The weather even seems to be cooperating as the long range forecast looks promising, but then reality will set in about Saturday, so here's hoping.

As I get older I think, why should I ride in the rain, but after my XC trip, riding in the rain doesn't really bother me. But I have to admit that it's hard to start out in the rain. Back in the old days when I was riding with the Peckerheads it didn't matter what the weather was, we rode every Sunday morning unless the snow was too deep! Later.

Bents back!

After much procrastination I have finally got the bent built back up and have taken three rides on it and it's working great. I did have to break down and take it to Jim's Bike Shop where Patrick did the final touches on the chain and rear derailleur.

By not building it right away it forced me to ride the Merlin, which made my arm tire rapidly and then I got out the mountain bike and put smooth tires on and it went pretty darn well. Makes me wonder which to take to North Carolina, the MB or the bent, as there is going to be a lot of climbing.

I have determined that I might do a little suffering on The Tour of the Hocking on Memorial Day weekend, which by the way is next weekend! I need more hill miles! It will be a great ride regardless, but I will suffer slightly. Wish me fun!

Paul

Wow, here it is April 24 and I haven't put anything on the blog for quite awhile. So thought I'd drop a blog. I found a new bike comic at http://www.yehudamoon.com and it's pretty decent and has a new one daily. Tim Creamer sent it to me so thought I'd share.

Tom Wolf came over from Athens and he and I rode pretty much every direction from home to about Caesar Creek and then Tom continued on to Xenia where he spent the night and I headed south to home. Tom got 108 miles and I got 70. The trillium were just getting a start, but today they were a lot better and in a week they will be glorious.

I took off north to meet Tom and we met up and we rode south and I turned off for home and Tom continued on south to do another century. He's completed 60 consecutive months of centuries and over 120 total centuries in that time frame. Pretty impressive.

I've been riding the MB lately, but the bent will be back on the road shortly, but I'm putting mountain bike gearing on it if I end up taking it on the Blue Ridge Prkwy ride. The bent is just plain more comfortable. It's slower, but I'm slower, and I still enjoy it. I just can't ride as fast as I used to and that's the bottom line. But with close to 1000 miles so far this year I'm not too concerned. That's all for now. Possum

Part 2

Hi, I'm experimenting on transporting the pictures to my blog with the new Picasa2 program I downloaded and it's pretty nice. Now I have to learn to use it.

I'm settling back in to the groove of being home. Man, is there a lot to do! The temperature has cooled off and it's good riding weather. All I have to do is now is put the bent back together, so I guess I'll be riding the Merlin, my road bike, until I get the bent built.

I'm glad I did the second part. It had the steepest hills and the most back roads that weren't marked and that made for some very interesting scenarios as I tried to figure the best route and decision. I asked people where the heck I was, but I always knew approximately where I was and wasn't worried about getting lost.

I was going to go to Chesapeak Bay, but with the traffic I was experiencing I felt it was too dangerous to go there, so when I hit the bike trail I went south.

Two months is a long time to be gone from your wife and your home, but this trip was definitely worth it once. I'll still be going on trips, but they just won't be as long. I never lost anything until I got home and then I lost several things, which after I found where Ann had hidden them, I retrieved them. ;>) I swear I don't remember putting them where I found them.

People have asked me my favorite moment and worst moment. I don't think I can pick a favorite moment, but when Bill Nix stopped and offered me his bunk house for the night and I ended up spending two nights there because of weather and the owner of Thienmans Sports Bar gave me a bandanna and bought me lunch, it makes you feel good about people's generosity and good hearts. Seeing Dave and Pat, whom I haven't seen in quite a few years was really nice, and the Spiral Highway to get to Moscow was fun, as was the downhill later.

The low point would have to be the traffic from West Virginia to Virginia. The bike routes would have been better to take as they choose the less busy highways and I didn't know squat about the route I picked from Marietta on. It worked out well and I'm so glad I did the trip and that Ann was so encouraging, even though she worked really hard to hold down the fort and keep all the plants alive.

I ended up with 4140 miles and averaged 68.66 miles a day at an average of 11.2 mph. I never weighed the BOB, but when I got to Marietta I weighed it at Dick and Mona's house and it weighted 52 pounds, with 40 pounds of that being my gear, which kind of surprised me as it felt heavier than that on the hills! I even had a few more clothes on the second part. I thought that was pretty good for as long as I was gone and being solo. So I had 7 rest days and that seemed to be enough. My greatest concern going in to the trip was lightning on the prairies, but storms weren't an issue as it was fairly dry to very dry through that area.

The Skyland Fire caused some concern as I really didn't want to ride in smoke so when that cleared overnight in Cut Bank that concern drifted away as well. I got to ride Going to the Sun Road in Glacier Park again and that is so beautiful a ride I'd ride it a few more times with no complaints. The ride from Corbett, Oregon down to Multnomah Falls was beautiful.

The scenery was superb and every part of the country had it's own beauty, but Idaho and western Montana were the prettiest with Oregon right up there. That's all for now. Hope you enjoyed the blog. Paul Possum, but not an angry one.

Falls Church, VA

Howdy! Well the trip is over and I just finished a couple shots of tequila in celebration! Bill Cook came out and met me on the Old Dominion Bike Trail and escorted me in to his house as I never would have found him had I tried to find it on my own.

I left Winchester, Virginia this morning and the traffic was heavy and they don't want road hogging bikes on their roads which might impede them a few seconds of precious commuting time. One truck forced me off the road and this was done intentionally as I was on the shoulder and he just eased on over onto the shoulder and then after I was off the road he nonchalantly pulled back over. What an $*@#(%@), but hey, I'm still alive and the trip was a complete success as far as I'm concerned. It was a great ride and the best way to see the country. You just have to watch Bruce around drunken Indians who want him to punch me in the face!

I rode sixty some miles today and will give the final stats when I get home Monday or Tuesday. It's going to seem strange to be back in the car going fast! When I got home the first time I told Ann after the first time that I drove the truck that I thought 35 mph was pretty fast! It didn't take long to adjust. ;>)

So hope you all enjoyed the blog and I'll be finishing it up with the final stats and then some final thoughts as well. And when is the party up north? Later dudes and dudettes! Peace and love Paul

Winchester, VA

After camping in a churchyard last night, Paul started this morning about 7 am on his last day in the mountains - 75 miles of climb and descent with a total 3,479 ft. of climbing. Although it was a beautiful ride, he was not happy with the WV drivers - they have not been bike friendly. But he continues to find that the staff at the Dairy Queens along the way give him good information (where the library is, which local restaurant has the best meals, location of motels/campsites, etc.) once he has his ice cream fix! At a much lower altitude now, he will just contend with rolling hills tomorrow. Actually he will only have about 20 more miles of road before he hits the Old Dominion Bike Trail which will take him to his final destination in Falls Church, VA. If there is time and the weather holds, he's hoping to tour Washington, DC by bike before I pick him up Friday evening. Ann