20 September 2008

Quick solo ride

The previous weekend, I was visiting relatives and got sick from playing with disease-ridden kids. I was still feeling a bit sick, so I went for a short ride, up Hwy 9, Hwy 236, Jamison Creek, then Empire Grade back.

It was warm and sunny. There was lots of gravel on the roads, due to lots of roads being resurfaced. Bay St was pretty much finished after being worked on the last 2 weeks. There was lots of traffic on Hwy 9. The James Dean mural at the Brookdale Lodge had been pretty much restored, though the little man holding the puzzle pieces to the right hadn't been restored.

It was 2:33 when I started on Jamison. Even though I was coughing a bunch, I felt relatively strong on the climb. The 1.33 sign still had a bunch of junk on it: the US flag, the investigate 9/11 sticker, the remnant of skunk tail. There was spiderwebs attached to the right side. The clock just turned 2:58 when I got to the top, so the climb took under 25 minutes.

After easing up, my cough got worse. Parts of Empire Grade had also been resurfaced, and there was lots of loose gravel, so I had to take those parts more cautiously than usual. The resurfacing started at Pine Flat and ended just before the sharp curves leading to Smith Grade, then restarted after the climb out of Smith Grade and ended just before the curves after the 8-14% grade sign.