Riding around rural northern Virginia a bit reminded me of a rule of thumb:

If a road has “school”, “church”, or “old” in it’s name, it has a good chance of being an interesting road to ride down.

“church” and “school” roads are presumably built when there isn’t much else in the area, and therefore tend to wind around farms and creeks and hills.

“old” roads tend to be just that. Older roads that are no longer sufficent for modern traffic. They often tend to be two lanes and twisted.

Another rule of thumb might be “Roads named after neighboring towns tend to be interesting”. These roads tend to be old as well, and usually pretty long, and often posted at a higher speed (45 or 55 mph). If they throw in an “old” all the better.

Over the weekend I rode up to northern Virginia to visit family. Then rode with my dad, brother in law, and others to Fort Washington, MD and back. Lots of nice roads up that way. Sunday rode back up to Fort Washington, then into DC as part of the “Rolling Thunder” group. Then home on Monday. A touch over 900 miles in total.

The new taller (up to an 18 tooth from a 17 tooth) front sprocket on the bike doesn’t seem to effect the gas mileage much. It’s geared about 5% taller, but highway mileage seemed to stay around 50mpg. But then, the point wasn’t to improve the mileage, but to get a bit more usable first gear, and a little less buzz at highway speeds. Which seems to be the case. I don’t think I’ll be going for the 19 tooth sprocket. Even for the big trip out west later this summer.

In Fredericksburg, VA visititing my sister over the weekend. Rode up yesterday, hit a bit of a storm. Rode 200 miles today.