The night before was the Super Bowl - the game was OK, but nothing compared to the food consumed during it. Mason Storm and his captivating fiancée, Ms. Katemeyer, hosted an organized culinary competition at their home in South City. The guests of honor for this cook-off were 4 fantastically diverse pots of chili, and 1 pot of seafood gumbo. Diagnosis, delicious. The Shop Minister offered up some quick directions on how to do the Hog's Hollow Rd ride which I wrote down on post-it notes and stuck into my wallet.
Lt. Col and I left Dogtown around 12 noon under the direction of the post-it notes. Heading westward, we took Clayton Rd to Conway Rd to White Rd to Fairtrails Rd, and so on...about 20 miles had past when we stopped at the Phillips 66 station at Olive Blvd and Hog Hollow Rd for Red Bull and to take a leak. Austin almost forgot he was carrying the restroom key when we getting ready to depart, the store clerks should probably find something bulky to attach it to.
Descending Hog Hollow Rd is very fast and quite fun, cross the railroad tracks at the bottom and you've entered the Creve Coeur "flats," approx 6 miles of very smooth, velocious, and wide black top leading you into Creve Coeur Park.
We pressed on from Creve Coeur Park, traveling east towards downtown. Twenty-five or so miles later it was time for lunch, Lt. Col and I really needed to consume some calories. Double Cheeseburgers have just about as many calories as anything does so we ordered up a couple of them from the Hardees at 6th and Chestnut. This is the view east from the patio at the brand new Hardee's.
After lunch we traveled north on The Riverfront Trail in hopes of crossing the Chain of Rocks Bridge before dusk set-in. Unfortunately, we were a little late in the day and the gate to the bridge was locked, Illinois was closed.
We turned around from the bridge and rode back to Forest Park. It was past 6:00pm by now, we were at mile 75 and cycling under the cover of night. On accident Lt. Col and I overshot the only restroom facility open in Forest Park, located adjacent to the ball fields just west of the mounted police stables. We had planned to stop there for more water - after passing it we decided to just make a loop in the park and stop there on the flip-side. The loop was speedy and full of adventure so we stayed in Forest Park and repeated it four more times... finally the odometer read 100. It was almost 8:00pm, Lt. Col and I stopped by Mobil at Hampton and 40 for 24oz Busch cans and Snickers bars, a true reward for true champions equipped only with single speed road bikes, a superior attitude and a superior state of mind.
-Nico Toscani
2 comments:
that's sounds more intresting to me, especially the two by fours at the end... glad to see with some criticism you have found the roads leading out of the FP...
Davey B - you might also be interested to know that during this ride I listened to almost the entire Clifford Ball - Phish is good motivation for me too, lets be friends!
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