I held off on publicly committing to attempting a RUSA R-12 until I made it through the worst months in Ohio (ok, typically the worst month.  With the winter we’ve been having, we may be dealing with snow in April)

After yesterday, I’ve completed an official 200k ride in 4 consecutive months.  Only 8 more to go but, in theory, I should have the easiest weather months ahead of me.

My original plan was to do one of Toshi’s rides on Saturday but, as the week went on the weather forecast continued to degrade.  Saturday ended up being a wet, cold, gray, windy day and I don’t feel bad at all about pulling the plug and donating my $5 registration fee to Toshi’s pocket.  Problem was, it was late in the week when I made the decision to bail and making other arrangements for Sunday would not necessarily be easy.  But, Mike Griffith was more than accommodating and was willing to allow me to bring my registration form to the start of the ride.  He even pointed out that his wife would be meeting the group at the lunch stop so it would be possible to have a drop bag.

Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day.  It was sunny and dry with temperatures in the mid to upper 40s. There were 8-10 riders signed up, including my usual pain inducing friend Joe..  I rode all day with Joe an we weren’t more than a few miles from the start when we were on our own, off the front of the group.  We saw the other riders at the lunch control but, other than, that we didn’t see any of the rest of the group all day.

We had a wonderful tailwind for the first 40 miles but the day got tough after that.  There was crosswind on the bike path, a lot of headwind between Washington Courthouse and London and then a mix of everything for the last 43 miles.  Both Joe and I ended the day without much left in the tank.  My time was 38 minutes faster than when I did the same route back in November, but almost all of that was from a reduction in off-bike time.

So, now that I’ve made it through February, I really don’t have any excuse to not work on an R-12.  It seems to be the thing to do in the Columbus rando community.  Roy just finished one, Larry is working on one and Amanda is working on her second.  I guess it’s time for me to jump is as well.

Filed under: Ride Notes