| Welcome
to the Buzzard's Roost home page. Based in the
area of Patrick county in and around Fairystone state park, we are a
family of cyclists. We often get together with our friends to ride
the Local trails, roads and events. Occasionally we get
involved in local events such as: Virginia DeRailer MTb Series race results Wilderness road ride Buzzards Roost photo blog |
 Virginia Derailer mountain bike race series |
| Another
fine outing |
Ray's Pic of the day |
 5-29-04 Wilderness Road Ride (WRR), Radford VA. This hilly 75 mile jaunt tested the mettle of many a cyclist. While not as long as the Mountains of Misery century ride set for the next day, the WRR took us from river side to some fairly decent views of the new river valley, down to the waters edge at Claytor lake and back to the riverside and our waiting cars. Because of the stormy weather, work, school and the new (old) house I'm renovating, Jerry and I hadn't managed to get in many training rides this spring. This lack of training showed when, about 40 miles into the 75 mile ride, we hit the first of two difficult climbs. Having already warned the group that I was hurting from some of the lesser hills before it, I was prepared to go my own pace up this monster. Vaughn and Jerry quickly outpaced Vaughn's wife Melinda and me. As I dropped back into my 30-34 great grandma gear and commenced the grind I watched Melinda climb away from me up the winding switchback road till I was left to suffer alone at what would eventually reveal itself to be the midpoint of the climb. At 4 miles per hour, the climb took a while and the group waited for me at the top. The second climb was shorter and much steeper than the first I had more company, as the effects of everyones previous efforts hit home. A few miles later, I was really hurting so I took some Ibuprofin Melinda had thoughtfully brought along and ate alot at the next rest stop trying to make it go away. I'm not used to seeing Jerry bonk so I was a bit surprised to find him lagging behind the group at about mile 55 and dropped back to break his wind and drag him back into the group. We all got together and fed him snacks and gels and he had some gatorade at the next stop to try to help with the bonk. The traffic picked up later in the morning but never got unmanagable thanks to the efforts of our chaparones at key intersections and one enlightened Police officer who took over traffic direction at one busy at dangerous intersection, giving us the right of way to our own lane onto a 4 lane bridge crossing as we reentered the town of Radford.. We all finished together and had an average speed of 14mph at the end. My odometer showed about 80 miles but who's counting. =P Bananas, PBJ bagels, a cookie ,a t-shirt and good sag support for 2 - 40$ Getting a sunburn riding way too far with your friends - Priceless. |
 This is an example of the
scenery I was forced to endure at the 2003 fall metric century.
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