Steve, Peggy, Nelson, Ray, Greg, Paul, and I left Bolivar this morning at 6:30 am to ride Ray’s new St. Jo 125k permanent. This route an out and back that goes through Forestburg, then on to the turnaround control at St. Jo. It’s plenty dark at 6:30 am these days. Lights were definitely needed for the first miles.

It’s pretty steady elevation gain from Bolivar to Forestburg. I pushed pretty hard to keep from falling too far back, but lagged behind anyway. We made an unofficial stop at Forestburg, then rode on to St. Jo. There are some pretty tall hills between Forestburg and St. Jo, made even more scary by wildly driven trucks hauling some kind of wide load monstrosities. They looked poised to tip over at any second going down these hills. I didn’t see it, but heard that Ray got a closer look at one of them than he wanted.

Nelson had some bike issues starting in St. Jo. I struggled coming back on the hills to Forestburg, but there’s lots of downhill on the rest of the route, and I finally started to feel like I was moving decently. This was a truly beautiful day, mostly cloudy with a low in the upper 60’s and a high in the lower 80’s and not much wind, just great riding weather.

I was a tired camper by the finish, and a cheeseburger from the Valero that’s the start and finish control was very good. I finished in 5:35, ended up with 78.6 miles, and had an on the bike average of 16.8 mph. It was great company as usual with this bunch, thanks everyone. To rest and recover from this hard ride, I went home and hung a ceiling fan. Nothing like relaxing on a Saturday afternoon…