Prettiest ride ever...

My brother-in-law and I took our bikes and drove out to meet up with my Twitter friend, Sam, this afternoon. We arrived at Sam's place a little after 4:00, changed our shoes, strapped on our helmets and headed out for what turned out to be one of the prettiest rides I've ever been on.

The first half of the ride was mostly downhill with little rollers here and there to keep things interesting. We dropped down into a valley and rode beside a babbling stream for miles. We took a little side trip to ride across a covered bridge and then came back to the main route.

About eight or nine miles into the ride, the real hills started. There were several long uphills as we headed up to the high point of the ride somewhere around Pennsylvania's Route 896.

Shortly after we crossed 896, we turned left onto Bell Road. We launched down the hill there and kept a high rate of speed up and over the little roller below. It was awesome!

We made a number to twists and turns that brought us to an intersection next to one of the premier cabinet makers in the area. We turned left and began the climb up the nastiest hill of the whole journey. It climbed up to where you could see and then when you turned the corner it climbed some more. It did that twice before we reached the summit. My chain decided to skip once on the steepest part and I lost my brother-in-law's wheel.

From there, we made another turn and followed the road back to Sam's house. Somewhere along the way we stopped to see if we could spot a bald eagle that nests nearby. It wasn't out and about, so we continued on. There was a bunch of downhill and then a steep little incline in the last half mile or so before Sam's driveway.

We pulled in just as Sam's son was leaving. We talked for awhile with Sam as we were loading our bikes up for the trip back to Delaware. Sam encouraged us to come back, offering his driveway as a parking place if we wanted to ride that loop again. We might just do that sometime. Thanks, Sam, for a great afternoon's trek through the countryside! (garmin data)