On Saturday 25 July 2020, I ventured out and enjoyed a fabulous Gravel Ride in the countryside 🚴‍♀️🚴🏻‍♂️🚴‍♀️🌾🐝🍂🐜🦎🐞☀️😁! The Cow-House-Oxbow-Gran-Fondo Ride 🐮🐄🐂🚴‍♀️🚴🏻‍♂️🚴‍♀️🤩 kicked into action at 8 am.

What is a Gran Fondo Ride? It is a long-distance bicycle ride exceeding 100 km, on either a road bike or in my case a mountain bike, in modernday cycling. The Gran Fondo ride originaed in Italy in 1970, and roughly translates into English as “Big Ride”

Safety in Numbers 💪 at the order of the day, responsibly doing a great 🦠 Social Distancing Ride with a few friends! Mask and Buff clad, we alternated between, fours 🚴🏻‍♂️🚴‍♀️🚴🏻‍♂️🚴‍♀️ and twos 🚴🏻‍♂️🚴‍♀️! 👉 The split ride with regrouping along the route worked like a charm, and allowed the guys and gals to enjoy some fresh country air!

The route surprised us with Jeep track along the railway line 🚂! Toot toot, we saw two lovely locomotives 🚂 with cargo 🤩! Then the wide open gravel roads welcomed us 🚴🏻‍♂️🚴‍♀️💨! Farmland 🌾🌱 with cows 🐄🐂🐮, pretty horses 🐎, tractors 🚜🚜 and large trucks 🚛🚚 met us en route!

Awesome to push the limits at times 🚴‍♀️💨💨😅! Then also to fall back some, to support and encourage my teamies, at a more casual pace 🚴‍♀️🤗🚴‍♀️! It’s about having some well deserved fun in the sun ☀️🚴‍♀️💨💃, combined with great camaraderie 🤩!

The Black Stallion 🚲 behaved himself beautifully! Every pedal stroke and gear shift smooth, the chain humming sweetly, making my heart sing with joy 🚴‍♀️💨! At nearly 14 yrs old, my little Vintage gives me so much pleasure 🚲😍! Love it!

This ride also completed the Versus Socks Virtual Ride which I supported 🧦💪🏆🥳! Magic 🌟! Managed to snag a couple of badges on STRAVA 🏆🥳! Little motivators to do the next ride, a little faster, a bit better, a couple of clicks further 💪🚴‍♀️💨🏆😁!

Back at Cow-House, I devoured two scrumptious muffins 🧁🧁😋 and some chilled ice-tea, because this 🐥 worked up an appetite of note 🚴‍♀️😂! Reflecting on a fabulous day!

⭐️ #Garmin gave a little Tech Glitch, nevertheless, there’s always a solution to everything, managed to upload my ride to STRAVA and Relive 👌! ⭐️

NOW 👉 Ready for a recovery ride 🚴‍♀️😁! Rubber side down! Stay Motivated! Keep Moving! Be Safe! REBEL Life 🚴‍♀️😷💃🎶🥳!

Photos by Luculle Stols – @real.life.rebel on Instagram