Beginner Friendly Bike Trip

Trip Report - "Beginner-friendly" ride turns out a bit more epic than expected. LOL

Eight folks showed up at Japes today and met Matt who brought a key so we could get in. (Matt, Rob has the key and says he'll give it back to you at the meeting on Tuesday.)

John, Ben, Steph, Rob, Ross, Jay, Tyler, Jose, and Anja set off on the ride. We took an alternate route to 366 and missed our turn onto Game Farm. By the time we realized this, we had already ridden 4.5 miles and were at the base of Baker Hill. John was at a big disadvantage on a mountain bike and so he and Ben turned around and went on a ride around Campus together. The rest of us looked at the map on Rob's iPhone and decided rather than going all the way back to Game Farm, we'd head straight up Baker Hill which was looming over us, then go up some more on Mt. Pleasant and meet up with our original route on Mineah Rd.

This is where our ride became a bit more epic than expected. Because Baker Hill is really steep. I mean, it's REALLY steep. Somehow the elevation profile on our ride log does not do it justice http://ridewithgps.com/trips/396481 Maybe it's because we started from a complete stop. Maybe it was just psychological, but that thing is big. Many of us ended up walking up the last part of it. Those who made it up that monster without dismounting are themselves now officially Monster Hill Killers, because wow. Just wow.

Anyway, we got to Mt. Pleasant, turned left, and faced some more hills, which some of us had to walk up. The view up there was fantastic. I kicked myself for not bringing the camera. When the leaves change I think we need to go back up there, hills or no hills.

Steph made it all the way to the top (we stopped by the Observatory up there) and was still feeling the effects of her Epic 90-Mile Ride last weekend, and opted to head back. The rest of us then rode down Mt. Pleasant and turned right on Mineah. The rest of the route was gorgeous. Rolling hills, almost no cars, really pretty scenery. We made it back to Japes about 2.5 hours later (1.42 minutes of actual moving time). We spent a little time looking at the bike gear there and chatting about ideas before dispersing.

Great job, guys, it was a pleasure riding with you!

Here's the link for the ride profile and some photos of us at the end: http://ridewithgps.com/trips/396481 (2876 ft of climbing, max elevation 1809 ft) For comparison, here was the the proposed route: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/677420 (1364 ft of climbing, max elevation 1525 ft)

Report by Anja Baldo