Morrow Mountain – Recap #4

So today’s ride wasn’t my fastest, but it was more evenly paced than previous Morrow Mountain rides. Jeff V. Put on another good event. The Tarheel Cyclists and The Bee Team did a great job at the rest stops. It was well organized and a lot of fun.

This time I brought one of my neighbors with me, Randall and I ride several times a week during our lunch. Usually 12-18 miles depending on how we feel at the time. I figured this would be a little bit of a challenge for him as well.

The group of riders headed out of the school at about five past eight. I managed to stay with the leading group just past the first rest stop. Just over 12 miles into the ride was a little too soon to stop so most of us flew past. Then we had a little rain. Now so much that we were all soaking wet, but it was enough to be bothered and when the sun reappeared the water just made it that much more humid.

As is evident from the splits I managed to average 19.5 mph to Morrow Mountain Road. A quick stop to refuel and then up the Mountain. Again, I skipped the trip down to the bottom and concentrated my effort on riding just to the top. The 7.6 miles from the rest stop, up the mountain and back to the rest stop was obviously much slower. The steepest observed grade was about 10% within the park.

The wind picks up ever so slightly on the return trip and does make the last part of the ride truly much harder than the beginning. Total time this trip was 3:39 with 11 minutes of stopped time included. Averaging 17.3 for a ride with this much climbing, especially short steep climbs on the back end is pretty good.

Randall finished his ride about 20 minutes behind me.