I had a great ride on Tuesday, got in about 2 hours on a great night and my legs felt the best that they had in about 8 months. During the ride while exploring some new roads I ran into about 5 miles of gravel on my road bike, I also ended up getting home 45 minutes after sunset. I had such a good time I decided that I wanted to do a night time gravel ride on Thursday and so I invited a few people including the one person that is just crazy enough to try it with me, Chris Locke, I picked out a 35 mile ride that included about 80-90% gravel roads north of Smithville Lake . I met Chris at 5:30 PM at a balmy temp of 45 degrees in the Smokin' Davey trail head, I realized as I was getting ready in the parking lot that I had forgotten the map even though I 
took meticulous care to pack extra tools, food and water, this was not great since I hadn't been on several roads that we would be traveling. The route covered four counties, started in Clay, then Clinton, Platte, Buchanan, Platte, Clinton and finally finished in Clay. You could almost tell when a county would start by the newly dumped gravel on the roads, several spots had 2"+ of 
new gravel which made it feel like climbing a gravel pile instead of a back road hill. As we rode through the night, you could count the number of cars on your fingers we saw in the 2+ hours we rode, including one that passed us that must have had a monster joint fired up, since they left a trail of smoke that should have us testing positive for the near future. As we returned to the car the temp really started to drop and we were both getting cold. In the end it was a hell of a workout and I can't wait to do it again. It was a nice change to winter training in the cold midwest.
took meticulous care to pack extra tools, food and water, this was not great since I hadn't been on several roads that we would be traveling. The route covered four counties, started in Clay, then Clinton, Platte, Buchanan, Platte, Clinton and finally finished in Clay. You could almost tell when a county would start by the newly dumped gravel on the roads, several spots had 2"+ of new gravel which made it feel like climbing a gravel pile instead of a back road hill. As we rode through the night, you could count the number of cars on your fingers we saw in the 2+ hours we rode, including one that passed us that must have had a monster joint fired up, since they left a trail of smoke that should have us testing positive for the near future. As we returned to the car the temp really started to drop and we were both getting cold. In the end it was a hell of a workout and I can't wait to do it again. It was a nice change to winter training in the cold midwest.
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