Originally Posted by JimF22003

I was in Lexington VA scouting out possible future retirement locations (and I may have found "the one"!) and did an incredibly gorgeous century ride:

Garmin Connect

It included the climb up to, and on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Also a descent on a stretch off of the parkway down into Vesuvius, where I crashed and separated my shoulder a few years ago. Took it pretty cautiously this time!

The time was pretty slow partially because of the amount of climbing, and because towards the end I was mainly just exploring a little bit. I also hit a 10-mile or so stretch of gravel that I wasn't expecting, and it was on some quite steep mountain roads, so I took those pretty slowly needless to say Can't wait to ride them again on a gravel grinder bike.

I was kind of sad that I missed Mountains of Misery this year, which is going on this weekend. Actually I didn't "miss" it. I didn't sign up for it. I knew I was too out of shape, and just a little bit over-the-hill for this kind of effort, given the amount of weight I gained over the winter. Today's ride made me feel a lot better