In May of 2012, I rode the Assaults on Mt Mitchell and Marion. This was harder.

That assault included 10,385 feet of total climbing. This one was 326 feet.

The assault was 104 miles. This one was 50.

The assault took 4 hours to ride the first 76 miles and 4 hours to ride the last 28. This ride took 7 hours to ride 50 miles.

Today's ride was like riding 50 miles on the beach. The soft ground gave way each and every time you pedaled... for 99% of the 50 miles. We started in Wauseon OH and rode to Montpelier where we stopped for lunch at Subway. To make matters worse, I hadn't eaten breakfast, so I bonked with about 7 miles to go. So, the Subway foot-long Tuna sub really hit the spot. On the way back, I bonked with about the same distance remaining. Bonking, for those of you who don't know is when you've run out of readily available energy and you've burned enough stored fat that your body starts attacking the muscles for energy. See, your body won't burn off all the fat because muscles burn energy and attacking the muscles before attacking the fat means that the fat will last longer.

We stopped at a few bridges along the way to take some pictures and we had one flat tire. The flat tire offered everyone an opportunity to get cold again, right after we had warmed up on the ride back. Here are some pictures we took along the way. Below that, my Strava ride log.