The route today is 176 miles. Lon wanted to delay departure until after 10 AM so he could register for the NY Marathon (he got in – congratulations!) and Coop and Rich decided to hang around and ride with him. The rest of us took off around 9 AM. Today’s route took just east of State College, PA, but you would never know it riding in the forest.

There was a light drizzle and low lying fog when we left this morning so we weren’t sure what to expect when we got to the dirt portions of the route, but we decided to give it a try.

It turned out to be a very pleasant day for riding. The temperature was in the mid-50s all day, the drizzle fizzled out within the first hour, and the fresh gravel roadbed gave plenty of traction. And one of the big pluses of riding in the rain is there is no dust!

The roads were nicely graveled most of the ride today, but there were several places where a thin layer of slippery mud covered the road bed making for some “pucker” moments. I didn’t get a video of those places but this gives you an idea of what it was like. No dropped bikes!

This was one of those few times when a view opened up from the mountainside, in this case thanks to the power line right of way.

We had a heavy lunch and wanted to get to our motel in good time, so we bailed out and took the highway the last half of the ride today.