One Love Solidarity Ride

The Metro Atlanta Cycling Club (MACC) One Love Century is one of my favorite charity rides.  It's held the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, but this year it was a virtual ride because of COVID-19: the One Love Solidarity Ride.  Riders could ride any route in any location they chose.  I rode a century from home.

Recommended attire was a One Love jersey/kit, One Love T-shirt, etc.  I have a couple of One Love T-shirts from previous events, but I didn't want to wear one on my ride because I needed jersey pockets.  However, I had the perfect alternative: my MACC/One Love bracelets.

As usual for a Saturday, my ride started with a visit to the Monticello farmers market.  It was a good haul: sweet potatoes, muscadines, and one of Laverne's fried peach pies.

My plan was to drop off the sweet potatoes and muscadines at home and take the peach pie with me for ride fuel.  Because My Yogi Bear picnic basket was full, I carried the sweet potatoes in a reusable bag around my neck; it's only a few miles from the farmers market to my house.  One of the market vendors and I usually chat about cycling things.  Her daughter does Ironman triathlons.  She flagged me down right before I headed out, wanting to check out my cycling setup.  In particular, she wondered if I had anything that might work as a Christmas gift for her daughter.  She said, "I don't know that she would want a neck bag."  I laughed and explained that that wasn't official cycling gear; it was simply my stopgap measure to get my sweet potatoes home.

When I left the house after dropping off my produce, Robert joined me for about 25 miles.  Woo hoo!

I always forget about Robert's GoPro.  He took some video of me.  Here's a clip where I'm climbing, climbing, climbing:

Robert rode with me through the Piedmont Wildlife Refuge.  He turned around at Jarrell Plantation Road, and I continued on my century route.

I love the tomatoes at all the rest stops on the One Love Century!  So, I packed my own for Saturday's One Love Solidarity Ride.  MACC puts out garlic salt with their tomatoes.  I didn't have any garlic salt, and so I brought some Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt, which has garlic salt in it.  I stopped at Liberty Park in Jones County.  A covered pavilion with picnic tables was the perfect spot to have my tomato snack.

At the park I was thrilled to see a Little Free Library that Girl Scout Troop #60438 put up.

Good thing I had my Yogi Bear picnic basket - plenty big enough to add a book!  I'm doing the 2020 Library Challenge, and one of the categories is A Book with a Monster on the Cover.  A ghost is a monster.

I enjoyed riding through Jones County.  Although I don't ride on a lot of these roads very often, they are familiar to me from so many seasons of Peach Peloton.

I stopped for another fuel break in Bradley.  I knew of a vacant house for sale, and its front porch was the perfect shady spot to eat my peach pie.

The rest of my ride was uneventful but pleasant.  Because Robert had ridden with me earlier in my ride, my average speed was higher than it would have been otherwise.  I played a game with myself, setting a goal of finishing my ride with an average speed of 17 mph.  I did it!

I look forward to next year's One Love Century, hopefully in person.