Mietzke's Holden Adventure

Today I went on my first big ride. I went 20.4 miles round trip, out and back I lost and gained 2300 feet of elevation. My plan was to ride from the village to the top of the switchbacks (about eight and a half miles each way), and then turn around and come back. When I got to the top of the switchbacks I was having so much fun screaming down the road I decided I’d go on down to the lake. I figured I could ride the bus back if I was too pooped to make it on the bike. Well I got down to the Lake and found out that that bus wasn’t coming back to the village until next Saturday with the first May Youth Weekend. Okay… so now I have to pedal my fat butt back to the village whether I like it or not.
It took me twenty five minutes to get down to the lake and three hours to get back up to the village. The switchbacks were the last five minutes of the ride down and an hour and ten minutes of the ride back. You gain nearly a thousand feet of elevation in just under two miles and then the other 1300 feet or so in the last eight and a half miles. The final killer was that the road had some really muddy patches just outside of the village. I’m still on road tires and these spots nearly drug me to a stop on the downhill run, I had to get off and walk through a couple of them on the way up. It was just too much work that late in the ride.
I saw two deer on the ride up just about half way to the village. They were a little surprised to see me. Oh and I bit it going down the switchbacks, the road tires don’t hold the corners on dirt quite as well as they do on pavement. The bike just slid out from under me and I hit the dirt.
All in all it was a great ride, but I’m going to plan a little better next time, take more water, and maybe wait for the road to dry a little more.