Midweek Century to Madison and Mt. Eden

We had a great drive-and-ride midweek century this week. No one showed up for the advertised Wednesday event, so it was rescheduled for Thursday, which attracted a group of six riders.

We drove in three cars to Brownstown, where we parked at the local CVS (naturally).

Click this link for the route map. The map doesn’t do the route complete justice. Here’s the elevation chart:

That hole in the hill at mile 45 or so shows the drop going south through Clifty Falls, followed by the climb along Highway 50 toward Hanover. The tower at Mile 95 or so is Rooster Hill. Except for these two somewhat extreme situations the terrain was actually more moderate than much of what we’re used to around Bloomington.
Here’s a photo by Klaus of the rest of our little group taking in the view of the Ohio River and the Clifty Creek coal-fired power plant on the river. There’s Dana, Allan, Mark, Jim, and John.

Overall one could not have asked for a more perfect day. The skies were clear. The temperature maxed out in the upper 60s. We were all happy to have a second layer of one sort or another.

We enjoyed a long lunch break at the Inn at Clifty Falls State Park. We took several other shorter stops at country stores and even one coffee shop.

According to my GPS we did just over 107 miles in just under 7 hours of riding, for an average moving speed of 15.5. Including stops we were out just under 9 hours, so an overall average of about 12 mph. For the first 45 miles we averaged close to 17 mph. According to the GPS I had 3173 feet of climbing and burned 6748 calories.

Here we are at the top of the last big climb up Rooster Hill, looking pretty happy in a snapshot by John:

For three of us this was BY FAR our longest ride of the the year.

A special thanks to Jim Schroeder for organizing this ride, and for keeping any rider who fell a bit behind in his sights and helping to get them back to the group.