The Fightin' Irish Ride

BRAG Day 3-Milledgeville to Dublin

Distance: 59.58 miles
Ride Time: 4hrs, 56mins, 10secs
Average Speed: 12.07 MPH

A short ride today.  YEA!!  Now I know some of you are saying 59 miles is not short.  And you'd be correct.  Let me explain.  The ride was scheduled for 48 miles which we did complete.  But I got additional miles because I rode from my hotel in Milledgeville to the start of today's ride and because I had to ride from the finish in to the hotel in Dublin.  Which I didn't quite make it.  Here's the story:

When I started out this morning, there were two ladies outside the hotel with their bikes looking at their maps.  When the saw me preparing to take off, they asked me if I was going to the start at the school.  When I said yes, they asked if they could join me.  I said "sure!"  So the three of us took off for the school.  And we started chatting about various things.  I wore my El Tour De Tucson jersey today and one of the ladies as asked me about that event and why is was doing BRAG and things of that nature.  We reached the school and I wished them a good ride day and I went to meet up with the Arlington Heights crew.

Fast forward to the finish in Dublin.  I arrived, rested in the shade for fifteen minutes and then went to the hospitality tent to find out the bike route of how to get to the hotel from Dublin High School.  I got the directions and off I went.  Now as some of you already know, I can be directionally challenged.  And so it was in this case.  I turned left out of the school parking lot when I should have turned right.  So that added and extra three miles to my trip.  Once I got on the right course, it became very long and very hot.  I was going very slow because I was tired when all of a sudden, a white truck rolls by and a woman screams out of the passenger side window "Gary!".  It was the two ladies I rode with to the start this morning!  The pulled over ahead of me and said "Do you want a ride to your hotel?"  OMG!!  It was like an angel appeared from heaven.  Then they had the nerve to thank ME for letting them ride with me this morning!  LOL!!  Karma is certainly alive and well on this ride! :)

Here's a photo of the AH crew posing with a old fashioned gas pump in Toombsboro, GA.  The town was named in honor of Robert Toombs, U.S. Congressman and senator from Georgia who as a general had fought at the second battle of Bull Run and at Antietam, after having resigned his appointment as the Confederate secretary of state.  And that's your history lesson for today! :)

I was listening to the local news as I wrote this and the weatherman said this area of the state has had 19 straight days of 90 degree or above temperatures.  He also said they will add at least seven more days to that total.  To quote Buster Poindexter, "HOT, HOT, HOT!" :)

Tomorrow is an optional as ride as we stay in Dublin for a second day.  I was all gung-ho about doing the century option, but with the heat, I am rethinking that position.  I'll let you know what I decide in tomorrow's post.

Stopping!
Gary