I left on a bright morning looking for the placitude of a long ride. Warm up, roll down past the High School, then put it in cruise. Of course, like every other plan that one went to shit the moment I realized my legs were ready to go. I kept winding it up until I found myself at my lunch spot at Haggity Lake 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Then after a brief interlude with lunch, I kept it going hard to the bottom of Fern Hill, when the legs started coming off. I had about 3 hours in me, but it was a 4 hour ride with three steep, but short, climbs in the last hour. I made it over the first one, way over geared, struggled with the second one, still over geared. The third one is best left undiscussed. I did make it home, but man that last half hour hurt. On hindsight, I think it was in part the brightness of the day that was also f-ing with my old-man eyes and that while I kept up a good aerobic/muscular spirit, my brain started not handling a lot of the visuals well. And so it goes. Still a good ride, memorable for how I was able to keep the pressure on for over 2 and a half hours.