Fun with base miles

...well, maybe fun is not the right word. we waited until i finished work (about 1pm) to ride today, assuming we were going to get in a 3 hour base ride on the 6-flags route. well, about 45 min into the ride a major road was closed so we chose to try the detour. um..bad idea. the detour basically took us on roads with heavy construction, truck traffic, and no shoulder. after that we decided to find a different route back instead of back-tracking through that mess. eddie used his trusty iphone to get us further south but even those roads sucked...no shoulder and tons of traffic. it's amazing how the roads that used to be quiet are now speedways for scary bus drivers, truck drivers, and general a-holes that don't feel the need to share the road. so 4 hours later we finally found ourselves on familiar, quieter roads in East Point but the sun was setting quickly. that, and we had a 6pm training appointment at the gym! we ended up with 4.5 hours and the last few miles were in the dark on downtown atlanta streets...in rush hour. dumb. all in all, we ended up doing parts of the following local ride routes: Buckhead Bellyache, Six Flags, One Love Century, Silk Sheets, and Airport. it's amazing we lived through this day...seriously, i am thankful. i think i will make sure to keep a blinkie on the back of my road bike at the very least. we were late to our appointment at the gym but we still went. that brings the total hours for today to 5.25 hours, not bad. for that, i get a can of Dale's Pale Ale :)

we are already at 42 people for Southern Cross and there is big competition! we talked to mulberry gap today and think we can squeeze some more cars in if the out of towners carpool so we will be increasing the number of entries slightly beyond 50.