It was a ride.

Yesterday was a ride. No more. No less.
Started with Kevin's F/D issues. We rolled up to Service Course. I fixed his bike in about 3 minutes, and we were on our way.
MAYBE 15 minutes from Service Course, Dean's F/D cable snapped.
The little ring was en vogue it seems.
We rolled on. Dean in his 34. Kevin in his 36. Me in my 39.
Out on MLK, Dean ran over a chunk of glass. We stopped. He changed his flat while mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds buzzed around. Not wanting to get carried off by said insects, Kevin and I rolled around in circles.
From that point, it became a tour of Lower Richland flood damage. And believe me, there's DAMAGE out there. Just seeing the high water lines in certain places was amazing enough. Then, we rolled up on the hunt club on Old Bluff, near The Swamp.

This used to be a VERY full pond/lake. It seems the 15+ inches of rain created a little added pressure on the dam/road, and as we know, water does what it wants. Bye bye road. Bye bye water.

Further into the ride, we headed down Airbase to see the railroad damage for ourselves. Certain words shouldn't be used as descriptive adjectives, as they may be a little inappropriate. This fact notwithstanding, the washout of the RR and road was impressive.

 That's a 10' culvert pipe, and a standard heavy excavator. The gap in the tracks won't be repaired for a while. There is LITERALLY only one way to get the repair materials out to the site. The RR service company has retro-fitted dumptrucks with train wheels, and is backing the truck down the track ONE AT A TIME to dump stones.

Airbase Rd. YOU SHALL NOT PASS. Don't look for this to be repaired anytime in the next...I don't know...year or so.
The gap? Easily 100'. One can see chunks of the bridge downstream. There are LARGE sections of tarmac 100...200...300+ feet downstream, and in the woods. Crazy.
For here, we turned around, and headed in. Good miles, good conversation.
I will say though, staying in the small ring for 3.5 hours, and keeping cadence high, is tiring. My legs are SHOT today.

Zonhoven was yesterday. No full race video is up yet, but here are the highlights...

Women


Men


And here are 9 things drivers need to stop saying when whinging about cyclists...
WIRED article...

Enjoy your Monday kids! I'm headed down to Service Course to fiddle around a bit.