last ride of the season

When you live in the northeast, it has to happen every year. The last ride. It's funny how many of them I can remember from years past. One was memorable because it happened in December, another because it was just me and my longest-time riding buddy, freezing our butts off to get in one last ride. Another because I crashed... but we'll move past that sad state of affairs.

This year we got yet another reprieve and a Sunday forecasted to warm above 50 by mid-day, so a bunch of the regulars met up a couple hours later into the day than we usually would for a group ride.

We went out on a route I was not familiar with, which had a lot of steep downgrades and sharp corners lurking at the bottom, so a few of us hung back a little. With temps cooling our reflexes and the road being even colder, today was not the day to set lap times, so the group settled into 2 packs and everyone ran the pace they wanted.

We stopped off at C&K's house for awhile and hung around and BS'd, then people started to head out. On the way home I took my time and ran down a few backroads for no reason other than to ride a little longer. Just a leisurely pace, enjoying being on the bike.

As it turned out, 3 days later...