About 20 riders braved a questionable weather forecast and cool temperatures around 50 degrees to take
part in the club’s annual Tour de Boat Ramps, led per tradition by Joe Walker.
Note the club’s fanciest jersey and the Tortuga booties.
This ride does the standard basic route around Lake Monroe but builds in the prospect of going down, and back up, all the boat ramps along the route. There are ten altogether and it is each rider’s decision how many to do. The basic route is 44 miles roundtrip from Bryan Park, and doing all ten ramps raises the mileage to 78 miles. Naturally this led to many small groups of riders.
I decided early on only to do one ramp. So I picked the flattest one, namely Cutright, just south of the Causeway. Here’s GPS proof:
Cutright actually was fairly deserted, with a few cars and no boats in sight.
Shortly after our turn off on Chapel Road it started to sprinkle. Too late to go back. So we kept plugging along. Gradually the rain increased, but never got beyond light rain. It was only toward the end that hands and feet got really wet and cold.
It was actually a pretty good ride. But I doubt that very many riders did very many ramps this year.