laura olph's idea of short and simple

Disclaimer: Honesty demands that I begin this post by letting you know that a woman came along on her first Hill Slug ride today. I think she was a bit trepidatious at the start, but by the time we were about 70-75% through, she said, "I'm hooked." And she said it again, through the tiredness, at the end of the ride.

That said...

Laura OLPH's blog post announcing this ride read, in part:

Sunday is the 7th annual Ride for McBride, and I will be there for the 50-mile route... To save my legs for Sunday, Saturday's route will be short and simple. 

Well, since I also intend to do that ride tomorrow, I thought this sounded like a good idea. I showed up at Laura's for the usual extra miles... to be surprised when Sean rolled up, in his wool Campagnolo getup, riding a lovely repainted Masi frame kitted out with all his gorgeous Campy stuff from the 1970's.

Yummy. Sean's had reasons not to ride and wasn't planning to come out with us, but he rode along for a while. He'd had all that stuff on a purple frame that just didn't fit right. This seems to suit him better.

We went to the Twin Pines to find seven others waiting.

That was Ken G; and a couple of others who looked like fast boys to me; and Nevada, who's been looking for ascents; and Blake who doesn't need to look for 'em, he's just that good on hills; and another woman whom I thought I recognized but couldn't place; and Ricky, who's become a Slug regular.

Laura didn't have a route planned. But there was a discussion of avoiding new chipseal road surfaces, and the plan became to head up to Sergeantsville.

I needn't have worried about the lookin'-like-fast-boys: one was Ed, and we got to talking about being good at math and science vs. being good at writing, and the other was Jose, who stopped with us for pictures.

The woman I couldn't place turned out to be Sue, with whom I'd ridden about a month ago. She'd been talking about wanting to do hills, and I talked up the Hill Slug rides, with the easy attitude and the waiting for the folks in the back. She was sufferin' in too high of a gear. She got advice from, well, probably too many of us, and she ground her way to the top of some hill or other... and then she apparently found another lung or something, and did pretty well for her first ride. She was the one who wound up being hooked.

But we were rolling up to Sergeantsville, and I was beginning to think the come-on of "short and simple" in the ride description was false advertising if it wasn't actual fraud.

When I began to breathe again I got a look at Jose's bike.

Yes, that is two-color bar tape that picks both up the accent colors on the frame. What you may not notice right away is that the end caps are different colors, each matching one of the accent colors. And yes, there is a light-green cast to the hub. Jose wins the day on style.

We restored ourselves in Sergeantsville, along with a couple on a tandem.

From there, we rolled around to show off the Sergeantsville covered bridge to Sue... and then we started to head back.

Ken G told me about this sign at the top or another hill:

Here's a better one Ken sent me as I was typing this up:

He's a chiropractor. If he'd had a table out when we were going by, he'd have taken all we had.

By the time we got back, they had about 47 miles; Laura and I had over 54, with just south of 3000' of climb. Short and simple. Hrmph.

Two things, though:

1. Yes, I'm still doing that Ride for McBride tomorrow, and
2. Yes, I'll still ride with her again, probably at the next opportunity. After all, I got Sue hooked. I feel a certain culpability now.