This past Saturday, I went on a 56 mile bike ride that started near Treyburn, which is in northern Durham County, and ended at Kerr Lake, a little north of the NC/VA line. The total distance was 55.6 miles. We left at 9 in the morning and arrived at 3 in the afternoon, so that is 6 hours, minus about an hour for lunch and breaks, so the actual ride time was around or slightly under 5 hours.
Above: Nick riding along one of the 2 lane highways last Saturday.
15 or so people rode with us. We divided into three groups: the fast riders, the medium riders, and the slow riders. My brother and I were both in the first group, which had 7 people. Some people had road bikes, but the majority of them had mountain bikes.
The weather was great: mid-70s with a few clouds later in the day. It was a little cool for the first hour or so, but once we got going the weather was not a problem. I started out the ride wearing a long-sleeve Under Armour shirt, but had to change into my short-sleeve shirt after a few hours.
Above: a zoomed out map of the route generated by Routebuilder. View the interactive map.
There were a few rolling hills when we started out, but as we got farther away from Durham the roads became flatter. We rode on mostly two-lane rural highways and some small country roads. We started out by leaving Treyburn and riding over to Bahama Road, which we took for 6 or 7 miles before getting on Helena-Moriah Road. This became Enon Road, and we took this for about 13 miles until we reached Highway 158. This took us around Oxford, and we stopped for lunch outside of Oxford.
After lunch we continued on Huntsboro Road, which became Stagecoach Road, for about 12 miles. When we reached NC-29, we turned left and took this north for 5 miles. We turned right onto Rock Spring Church Road, and took this for a few miles before crossing the NC/VA state line and reaching our destination, Kerr Lake. We returned by car Saturday afternoon.
The fast group was trucking all morning, going about 10 or 11 miles per hour for the first 35 or so miles. After lunch, we started getting tired, and slowed it down to maybe 8 or 9. The last few miles were tough though, as I had never ridden this distance before and my lower thighs and knees started getting sore. I have to say, however, that the rides we’ve been going on during the past few months helped. Also, I thought that the ride was manageable, mainly because we “took our time”. I don’t mean that we were going slow or anything, but we certainly weren’t racing to finish, as this was the farthest that many people had ever ridden.
We had a car paralleling our route, and we stopped for lunch, as well as 2 planned snack breaks. Overall, I thought that this was a nice ride that turned out well.