Saturday morning gravel

It feels great to finally have nice weather and having some of life's stresses subside. It's allowing me to get into a nice routine of commuting to work and doing some fun weekend rides. This past Saturday a few of us (Ben, Jeff, Pat, Sarah, and myself), all of whom have committed to participating in the 2009 running of the PCL GLGA, rode the 2008 GLGA route to Cortland. We planned on leaving at 8 AM, but as you can tell from the picture below some people struggled with this 'early' start time. :)

A photo of us just as we started. It's interesting to see the different bikes and riding positions people enjoy while riding a bike. In our group we had two great candidates for most spacers on a steerer tube in Lincoln.

About half way to Cortland we decided to stop and enjoy a nice breakfast beverage in a can (Guinness and Boddingtons). We spotted a really nice area of planted trees on 110th and enjoyed a quick break. The weather was great and the gravel was even better. It rained the previous day and it kept the dust down to a minimum. I only recall a few damp areas and they were easy to avoid. I rode my Salsa Fargo and was very happy with the comfort and handling. It did feel heavy on the climbs though, compared to my Salsa La Cruz. I like the 6 water bottle capacity and the geometry on the Fargo. It is by far the most comfortable bike I have in the drops.

We arrived in Cortland and most of us ate lunch at the newly re-opened Cortland Bar&Grill. I think everyone was sufficiently impressed with the food that we'll definitely go back. The ride back to Lincoln was on the Jamaica trail into a nice headwind. It was great to have a longer weekend ride with a group. I definitely need to work on doing more of these as time permits.