Another Bike Ride

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Today started early, with my alarm going off at 5:30 a.m.  I rushed to get dressed and hit the road by 6:00 a.m., having to drive up to Hillsboro, the site of the 2024 BikeFest.  This charitable event event is held every year.  I have participated as a SAG (Support and Gear) for several years.  Bikefest offers somthing for riders of all skill levels, from the short 35 mile route, up to 100 miles on a longer route.  I covered the two intermediate routes:  45 miles and 62 miles.  

Let me describe how I have my truck set up.  I have mounted an AT-778UV Anytone VHF/UHF radio.  The radio is suspended from the dash under the glove box, with an external speaker under the driver's seat.  The antenna is mounted on the left fender, just outside the hood.  I use two magnetic mount safety strobes, one on either side, with the cables running through the back doors of the truck, and snaking up to plug into the duel cigarette lighters.  I have a 4 bicycle rack mounted on the class 3 trailer hitch.  There are three magnetic mount signs ("Event Support" on a yellow background) mouned on either rear passenger door and on the tailgate.

I always carry a small cooler with a dozen bottles of water, soda (Diet Dr. Pepper), and Gateraide.  I usually load up various snacks to much on while driving.  This trip, I brought along my old laptop in case I needed to reprogram the radio.  Yes, I also brought along a second radio, a hand held Baofeng UV=5RA with a 16" whip antenna.  I also have a clipboard with all the route sheets for the event.  Finally, I have the app BikeGPX loaded on my cell phone, with the appropriate .gpx routes downloaded from Ride with GPS.  The program is not perfect, but it makes following the cycle routes a lot easier.

As I said, the day started out early.  I arrived at the Start/Finish shortly before 7:00a.m.  The riders hit the road by 7:30a.m.  Initially, all four routes followed the same roads, until after a dozen miles or so they started breaking off to achieve their desired milage.  Five rest areas were on the courses, although not every route hit every reststop.  The 65 mile route had three reststops (#1, #4, and #5).  The 45 mile route disincludes a loop of 20 extra miles, missing restop #4.  After the loop, the 45 and 64 use the same route.

In general, as I cruise along the route, I like to travel between 30 and 40 miles per hour, generally faster the the riders.  With this, it isn't surprising that I was able to backtrack along the route, to give a second (and third) look at the same roads.  Altogether, I put about 170 miles on my truck during the ride.  I drank a monster drink (Loco Mocha), a gateraide, and a diet doctor pepper during the ride. In addition, I had a package of cookies (Nutter Butter Sandwich Cookies) that I was about to munch.  

After driving the course (Start/Finish - Reststop #1 - 5 miles reverse - Reststop #1 - Reststop #4 - 5 miles reverse - Reststop #4 - Reststop #5 - Reststop #4 - Reststop #5 - Start/Finish -Reststop #5 - Reststop #4 - Reststop #5 - Start/Finish)I was finally able to call it a day at around 2:00p.m.

This is the last even I'll be SAGing for this year.  Next year the rides start again.

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