An Invitation

Yesterday was our last Audax Tune Up Ride.  It was a good one.  Of course the perfect weather helped.  The mid-Spring foliage is lush, green and remarkable, the air crisp and clean, the clover blooming.  No Spring ride would be complete without some good buffeting headwinds, and we had that as we climbed back up out of the Chattahootchee River Valley. 

We had a great group, if a bit small.  Five of us went the whole way around the loop.  We all stayed pretty much together, and finished as a unit.  Bravo!

I’m seriously looking forward to the Audax 200K, in just two weeks.  We’ll have lots of detailed info about that.  Look for it in upcoming posts, and of course, in the Tuesday Tome.

Having said all that, here’s the reason for the title of today’s post.  We’re issuing an invitation to any and all of the prominent cycling bloggers, in particular, BikeSnobNYC, FatCyclist, and Lovely Bicycle, but others are welcome too.  The invitation is simple.  Contact me, and then come down here and ride with us.

Here’s what we have on offer:

• You will have to arrange your own travel, and pay for it yourself.  I’ll see to it you are met at the airport.  (Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson is quite nice, and it is served by commuter rail.)
• You will have to pay for your own hotel accommodations.  (We can suggest several convenient and nice ones, or a couple of friendly B&Bs here.)
• I’ll do my level best to publicize your arrival.  I’ll do this in this blog, in my weekly e-zine, on the South Side Cycling Club website Bike Chat page, and by word-of-mouth as I work at Bicycles Unlimited.
• We’ll put together some kind of “event” for you to meet and greet some of our local riders.  (You may feel free to promote any books, t-shirts, or other self- aggrandizing merchandise there.)
• We will go and ride in Georgia!
• For all you northerners and westerners, the Georgia Scene should provide you with enough material for a good week’s worth of posting.

Don’t worry about being mobbed by adulating flocks.  Mostly our local riders are too self-involved to pay too much attention to your celebrity status.

Do look forward to some of the sweetest riding on the planet.  We have the following available:

• Countless miles of rural roads with exceptional vistas.
• Ignorant, but mostly almost tolerant drivers.  (We do have the occasional obnoxious lout, but these really are in a minority.) 
• Oh yes!  Expect to encounter a few unleashed and annoying dogs on every ride.
• Mountain biking on some very sweet, and sometimes quite challenging local trails.
• The Great Smokey Mountains are only a few hours away, and offer exceptional road and off-road opportunities.
• Hospitality, in the best southern tradition.
• Some good rural roads where banjos can actually be heard.
• A fine large city with interesting local customs, and the best in urban cycling challenges, including roads in horrible repair, construction, dense traffic, and maniacal drivers.
• A climate that is likely to entertain, while it provides any (or all) of the following features:  Blistering heat, Freezing cold, torrential downpours, high winds, sultry days, drought, floods, tornadoes, impressive thunderstorms, soft gentle evenings, spectacular sunsets, flash floods, mosquitoes, chiggers, and ticks, and frequently some of the most amazingly good riding weather to be found on the planet.
• We have an abundance of hills, none too large, some good descents, and the (rare) long flat.
• We can even provide miles of happy bouncy fun on our quaint clay-gravel-sand unpaved roads.
• Let us introduce you to “Georgia Pave” while you are here.

And, as an added bonus, if you act quickly, I might even be able to arrange for us to go out on a night time excursion to do some cow tipping.

So what say?  Are you game for an adventure?