Quarry Ride - 01/08/2012

This was my first significant ride on my new bike, a super dark green 2012 Surly Long Haul Trucker (LHT) for short. I sold my first car, a 1971 light blue Volkwagen Beetle, to get the money to buy a new bike, and my purchase was dictated by lots of things, but as is usually the case when money is an object, it boiled down to getting the most for the money, and I think I did spectacularly. I'll write another post about the specifics of the bike purchase. Suffice it to say for now, the LHT is way better than I expected. It fits great, is comfortable for long distances; the components are all nice, and I'm all around really happy with the purchase.

Andy decided to go for a Sunday ride on Thursday and then on Friday Hannah asked to come along. I don't remember what held me up, but I was doing something during the morning, so we didn't get to leave until the afternoon. I started calling folks around 1 to set it up for 2pm and ended up pushing is back to 2:30, because I needed some extra time to make a route. It started raining about 2:15, but no one complained, and I wasn't about to call it off. Getting wet is not big deal as long as I don't have to spend an entire day with soggy shoes sitting at a desk.

We took off from Andy's apartment and headed west through midtown and Ga. Tech to get to Marietta, that we followed out to the quarry. We lifted our bikes over one fence and squeezed them through another to get to the edge. I slipped in the mud and got pretty dirty, but it's all in a day's adventuring. When we got there, it was way more impressive than I had expected, and the slight rain and muddy road made it all the better. There was nobody out there, and it really felt like we had done something despite it maybe not being the obvious/correct/best thing to do, and it was even better for that.





Andy jumped in. His skin didn't boil off. At the bottom I realized that my jacket had fallen off my rack on the way down, but we found it on the way back up, which is good. We also talked about how we wished Brian could have come with us. He would have loved the quarry. Maybe we'll go again next time the gentlemen explorers meet.



This is road on the way back up. It's a decently long hill, but isn't actually very steep. The low gears on the LHT are really nice to have, and the 37mm tires handle the hard packed gravel and some of the loose gravel really well, but I'd want something over 40 I think if I was gonna ride roads like this more often.



Then we took Marietta Blvd to the Crestlawn Cemetery. I hadn't been there before either, but Sean told me about it many times, and I'm really glad to have made it over, and am looking forward to going and watching a sunset from the highest point in the city limits soon.



The ride back was up Chattahoochee Ave. then south on Howell Mill, which isn't a pleasant ride, but it was Sunday evening and wasn't too bad at that point, and we cut through Piedmont Park to get to Va. Highlands, which I always enjoy. I miss living close enough to walk to it.

All in all it was a 20-something mile ride, about 3/4 in the rain, and probably my favorite ride I've done.