Started my long bike ride, very early this morning.  I was riding with a friend and we left the local park, just as the sun was rising.  

The roads were quiet and we were just getting into a rhythm, when disaster struck. My friend laid down some power to get up a hill and his derailleur hanger snapped.  I bring tools and some parts with me on most rides.  I do this so I am able to hopefully fix any mechanical issues that might happen, but this one was well beyond any kind of roadside repair.  Fortunately, my buddy had a friend who lived quite close by, and was able to get a ride back to his car.

As this was our first ride together, I had planned a very familiar route for us.  Now that I was on my own, I decided to go off plan, and went exploring some new roads.  Lately, it seems that every new road I try has hills, and today was no different.  I found a couple of really long hills, that were quite steep to climb.  I ended up climbing over 5,800 feet on my four hour ride.

The main thing I learned today, was that a super early start really helps with fatigue.  I felt fresh for almost all of my ride, and only really started to get hot and sweat a lot, during the last hour.  I’m definitely going to leave home earlier on long rides in the future. 

The early morning sun, also makes for nice photographs.  I stopped for a quick snack by the Connoquenessing Creek this morning, and it was really peaceful.  You can’t really see it in the photo above, but mist was rising off of the water and fish were eating bugs from it’s surface.  It was a great spot for a short break on my ride…