I was supposed to leave the house at 05:00 to meet up with Ken and then the rest of the group. After I filled my water bladder I discovered it had a pin-hole leak in it about 1/3 way up from the bottom. It took me a while to find a way to stop it. I was probably 10 minutes or so late leaving. Perhaps more as I was 15 minutes late getting to the meeting point.
Luckily, Ken was able to see by my post on Facebook that I was on my way and running late - though, at the time, I thought it was only 5 minutes late.
I met up with Ken at Speedway and the LOOP and we rode to Columbus where we met Greg and Geo.
We were enjoying our ride when the chain fell off Ken's new trike. It took a while to fix it as it involved loosening some bolts to tighten the chain so it wouldn't fall off again. No such luck. It fall off again a little later. Those repairs took us probably 15 minutes or so, I would guess. Not a big deal.
We were making good time as it is all downhill until we got to the Santa Cruz trail. Then we started our uphill slog.
As we passed the LOOP Bike shop we ran into Chuck. He decided to ride with us for a while. There were a couple of potential turn around spots for him, but he passed each one and ended up committing to the whole LOOP-- only starting much farther in than the rest of us. I hope it doesn't get too hot for him as he will still be riding past 12:00.
Ken turned out to be the strongest rider of all of us.
As we turned up the Julian Wash Greenway, we were hit with a head wind. I think the forecast said it would be 9 mph. We climbed the 582 ft of elevation gain with this head wind.
It is always fun riding North down the Harrison Greenway as it trends downhill. Greg had been counting down the miles until we peaked in our elevation and it was nice to crest the max elevation at Nexus.
Ken peeled off when we passed his home near Michael Perry park. A few of us refilled our water bottles there.
I peeled off at Speedway since I had completed the LOOP and didn't feel like adding an extra two miles by going up to Tanque Verde.
I rode east on Speedway up the roughly 2% grade until I reach Eegee's. My feet were starting to hurt with hot foot and I was tired so I was glad to stop, eat, and rest at Eegee's. I was there about 45 minutes.
When I got back on the trike, my muscles hadn't tightened up as much as I had expected. They had tightened up a little, but the rest they had more than compensated.
I continued home. I wasn't looking forward to that last climb that averaged close to 5% and had portions that we quite a bit steeper, but I was able to average 4.2 mph up it.
I enjoyed this ride and the company. I even enjoyed drafting off Ken as he did some intervals up the Julian.