Sweet Corn Challenge Ride

I rode 50 miles this morning in the Sweet Corn Challenge.

Three cars convened at the lake and joined their three mutually-friendly passengers.

We talked of routes. I chose one friend and 50 easy miles over the other friend and 100 fast miles (just back in the saddle, upcoming movement classes/rehearsals this week...)

Two of the cars travelled south: one carrying one person and bike; one carrying two persons and bikes. The other car stayed by the lake and was heard muttering about seagulls.

The former two cars convened, again, twenty minutes later, having southerned sufficiently their passengers.

This is not a race, reminded the instructions. Novel for us both. We dismounted at every water stop to quench and chew and chat (and grimace about thousands of plastic sportdrink bottles and no plan for their reclamation or decomposition.) We stopped at Metropark::Hinkley for a swim somewhere in the middle.

Meadowland and forestland smiling summer but eyeing nervously all of the new neighbors: sad castles, suburbanly sprawled.

Eddy's put on a very nice ride, but it was a bit bizarre and scary that in such heat the water was all you could drink at the waystations, and $2.50/bottle at the finish.