Saturday Permanent - "We Can See Clearly Now"

Dear Friends,

This Saturday we're riding my "We Can See Clearly Now" 201K RUSA Permanent, starting from Marshall, Virginia.  This is a spectacularly beautiful (and challenging) ride, inspired by an impromptu ride that Bennett Minton rode last winter and traveling down many of the same roads taken on that ride. 

Here's the link to the marvelous photos that Bennett took that day:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikerben58/sets/72157625488386376/show/

Starting from Marshall, we'll head west and cross the "Stan Miller Memorial Low Water Bridge" on our way to Front Royal, then cruise through the lovely Fort Valley before the first major climb over Massanutten Mountain at Edith Gap.  After a thrilling descent we'll have lunch in Luray.  Next we'll tackle the climb over Thornton Gap; this one's a bit laborious but the descent is long, swoopy and delightful.  The last climb of note is on Gid Brown Hollow Road.  It's never very steep, and the scenery is so beautiful that you'll hardly even notice that you're climbing :-)  There is a 1.4-mile stretch of hard-pack on the climb, but the beautiful descent on Harris Hollow Road is paved.  Harris Hollow will take us down into "Little" Washington, and from there we'll return over moderately hilly terrain via Flint Hill and Orlean.  Conservative estimate of elevation gain is 9000 feet.

Now that spring is here in all its glory the views will be slightly different from but every bit as gorgeous as what you see in Bennett's slideshow, and we'd love to have some company.  **In order to join us you'll need to contact me no later than Thursday afternoon, and you must be a RUSA member to participate.**  You should also be familiar with and understand the rules associated with riding RUSA Permanents.  For more information on that, please visit the Permanents page of the RUSA website, http://www.rusa.org/perminfo.html.  Once you advise me of your intention to participate, I'll send you the registration form and waiver by email with further instructions.  If you're interested but not sure yet, please contact me now so that I can send you the paperwork in any case.

Crista
crista.dccentury@gmail.com