Tour de Triad

Yup, I played roadie for a day.  Saturday, Little Miss Sunshine headed up the road to Winston Salem so we could have our own grand tour with D-Wayne and Megan.  I wouldn’t normally get all excited about road riding, but some reason I knew this one was gonna be different.

We got to their house late in the morning and got all suited up.  We left outta the neighborhood and wound up on a local greenway.

The first stop was for breakfast at a local joint called the Screaming Rooster.  Cool little place with good food and great service.  Even though I do like to eat, I held back because I knew we had a shitload of riding to do after that.  I didn’t want to have to stop and “take a break” during the ride.  Anyway, after breakfast we rode a little further and hit stop number two:  a bike shop.

Mock Orange Bikes, which was a pretty cool shop.  They had a few vintage bikes in there to look at, and we chatted a bit before we got on our way again.  This time though, it would be a while before we stopped.  We took our asses all the way out to Lewisville to pay a visit to another bike shop, Cycletherapy. 

At one point during the ride, we found a tunnel that went under the road and we decided to check it out.

Photo cred:  Megan

It was all creepy inside, but it was a pretty cool way to avoid the traffic trying to cross the road.

 

Eventually, we headed for a coffee shop in Lewisville, The Coffee Mill.  Since I was pretty hot from riding, I opted for a coffee smoothie.  That was a first for me, and it was pretty damn good.  We sat around a bit shooting the shit and waiting for the caffeine to kick in before we got back out on the road.

The next leg of the trip was rough.  It was a long road with plenty of hills, but it was still fun as shit.  We stopped into another place, Ken’s Bike Shop, and hung out for a while.  I’d been there a few years ago, and it was fun just hanging out.

We also rode through the campus of Wake Forest:

And, rolled through downtown Winston Salem:

We eventually ended up in Old Salem, which was really cool.

I hadn’t been there in a few years, and this was the first time I went through there on a bike.  The view is much better on two wheels for sure.

We eventually made it back to their house, and headed out for some recovery beer and something to eat.  After over six hours in the saddle, I think we went over forty miles.  My phone died while we were riding, and at the time said we had gone thirty one miles.  It didn’t matter what the distance was or how much time we spent out there, because it was a helluva day.  I can’t believe I had so much fun riding a road bike.

I bet you never thought I would say such a thing.

Big thanks to Dwayne and Megan for being our tour guides, and we will definitely do that again.  In the meantime, I think it’s time to plan a similar event down here in Charlotte.  Hopefully they will have as much fun as we did.

Stay tuned for that adventure…coming to a city or town near you.