Monday, December 7, 2020

Aug-19: Test Ride on the Neuse River Trail (NRT)

Retired randonneur Mick contacted me about joining him on a short ride on the NRT. 
He hadn't ridden in months but wanted to get back into cycling. 
We agreed to meet at 9 am at Anderson Point to ride to Clayton and back. 
I would ride from the Falls Dam and Mick would drive to Anderson Point. 
 
I was loading up a bit after 7 am when Mick called to cancel meeting me that day. 
He had a new bike and there was some issue discovered when he was preparing the night before. 
 
I decided that I would do the first (and last) part of my proposed ride 
So that I would know precisely where to meet and how far Anderson Point is from the Dam. 
 
I pushed off from the Dam parking lot at 0747. 
I arrived at Anderson Point after 17.3-miles and 64 minutes of riding. 
I did push the pace, but as I was essentially riding downslope most of the way, it wasn't hard to do. 
 
I tooled about the Anderson Pt Park area, totaling 0.5-miles and roughly 3 minutes, then 
Headed back upstream. 
 
Outbound, I had noticed some logs / flood debris piled up against the US-401 bridge, so 
I paused beneath the bridge to snap some photos. 
 
I also stopped on the return to snap a photo of a somewhat derelict shed along the trail. 
 
It had rained the night before and, early on, the trail was quite damp or even wet with puddles. 
There was also a lot of fallen leaf litter on the trail. 
The result of those two things was that my bike was filthier than it had been for a long time. 
  
I covered the 17.3-miles back to the Falls Dam in roughly 69-minutes. 
  
Total ride stats:  35.1-miles.  2:18 in-motion.  avg pace 15.2 mph. 
Fastest ride so far this year [and I mean as of December 7th when I'm typing this]
 

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