By John Richardson, Photos by Lee McCord

I met Paul Szafran at his house at 6:00am. We loaded up in his car and stopped at Whataburger for breakfast. We arrived at Kroger in Marshall at 7:05 and found 6 other riders waiting for us including: Lee and Sharon McCord, Ben Gallagher, Brenda Dietz, Jason Herrington, and Joe Bruner.

The weather was nice and cool in the upper sixties with forecast highs in the low nineties. There were a few clouds but very little wind. In short the weather was perfect for a good ride. We headed east on Highway 80 for a few miles, and then turned left on FM1998 which took us through Scottsville. I had ridden this route many times, but always coming from the other direction and usually at the end of a ride when I was tired. This time the hills did not seem that steep and we were able to stay together with no problem.

We made a left turn on FM134 just north of Jonesville and headed toward Karnack. After a few more hills the road flattened out into Karnack and the road surface was relatively smooth. We stopped at the store just west of Highway 43 at mile 25. Traffic was light and we had a few miles of small hills before we hit flat road into Jefferson. We went straight to the bakery which is two doors down form the Excelsior Hotel and enjoyed pastries, breads, and coffee.

After riding around a few blocks downtown, we set out through town to get on Highway 59 to head south. A few miles out of town we came to FM2208 and headed west to see if we could find some hills. Traffic was still light and the hills were not as bad as we expected. The temperature was starting to rise, but it was still very comfortable. We turned south on FM3001, and then connected with FM1997 after a few miles. We began to find some of the hills we had expected earlier and a couple of our riders began to drop back enough that we had to either slow for them or wait for them to catch up.

We came to the loop then continued into town on the same road we had been on. We crossed 80 and took a left on Houston Street, past the old courthouse, and then back to Kroger’s. Our trip total was 61 miles and we were back to our cars around 12:30. I consider this my best ride of 2006 because of the weather, my riding companions, the route, and how good I felt at the finish.