Today Casey Cooper and I spent our lunch hour riding
Casey meets me on "Holiday Inn Hill".
up to The Great Smoky Mountains National Park and back. We rode up to Smokemont Campground and back- a total of more than 16 miles! It wasn’t that cold and it wasn’t raining for once! We’ve done this ride literally dozens of times, and it’s easy to do in an hour if you keep a good pace.
The rain of the past few weeks has gone (for today at least) and it was a perfect blue sky. At 50 degrees fahrenheit, it wasn’t even too cold! Besides, I had the arm warmers and thermal tights my wife gave me and I was nice and warm inspite of the chilly wind. I don’t know what the weather will be like the rest of the week, but tomorrow we have RTR Rider interviews, so I was grateful
Road signs on 441 point the way to "The Park".
for a chance to ride.
It was nice to take a break in a pretty tense work day and just ride. There’s no substitue for “seat time”. It’s nice to have the training stand… that is to say it’s better than nothing! Still, it can’t compare with an actual ride. I’ve even tried watching cycling videos while “spinning”, and it’s not bad. It beats not being able to ride at all.
Still, out on the road you never know what may come and your senses are more alert. The wind is blowing and there are bird sounds, plus you’re aware of your surroundings (like oncoming traffic I hope!). It’s just great to be
Road rage with this guy would be bad news.... and that's no bull! Wait, that IS a bull!
able to ride, especially in one of the most beautiful places on the planet. The traffic was good, even in the park…. well, there was one guy who didn’t seem to want to give Casey the “right of way”, but he was in no mood for an argument- you can see from the pictures! I think the fellow did not know what to make of people on bikes!