Sandra and Allen spent a fine Sunday morning/afternoon riding the back roads of Northern Virginia in search of exercise and some tasty Northern Virginia wine. The ride started off at 10 AM by riding through Clifton, coming out via Compton Road (pretty close to Woody's house), crossing Route 28 and heading towards Bull Run Park. We then turned south on Route 29 and then south again at Sudley Road to eat breakfast at the Bob Evans in Manassas. You see that white 2012 Gold Wing in the parking lot? This lady just bought it and it was to replace her previous Gold Wing that was almost a decade old. The price? About $25K, so it's a lot of bike for the money. She and her friend rode with us as we headed north again on Sudley Road (also called Route 234) up to Gum Springs Road - one we all know and love for it's high speed turns.

Crossing Route 50 we kept going on Gum Springs Road (also known as Route 659) and the other couple soon turned off to the east. We headed a bit west and then north on Belmont Ridge Road (also still Route 659) and took that up to Route 7 near Leesburg. Turning west again we rode a short distance on Route 7 and then turned north on River Creek Parkway. Our hiking destination was the Red Rock Wilderness Overlook on Edwards Ferry Road (the road was closed just past our destination for some reason). We checked out the old buildings (1850 time frame) and hiked a few miles to the Potomac River. The temperature was nice - cloudy and not too humid, so it was a pleasant hike. We saw a buck, a wild turkey, lots of squirrels and birds.

For the ride home we elected to head west on Route 7 and we took one of our favorite rides south - the Blueridge Mountain Road that goes past that Mt. Weather Emergency Operations station. Once we reached Route 50 we turned east but instead of just coming home we thought a wine tasting would be most excellent - so we turned south in Middleburg onto Route 626 (Halfway Road) and found the Piedmont Vineyards. Wine tasting here we come! Seventy bucks later we had a tasting of some nice wine, a couple of glasses of Sangria, some Brie cheese, crackers and salami, along with a $30 bottle of 2009 Native Yeast Chardonnay that we found very tasty. But we weren't done yet. Even though we felt a few sprinkles feel coming back home on Route 29, we elected to stop at a Starbucks for a nice cappuccino. That was a perfect way to end a lovely ride though Northern Virginia! If you have a ride in mind then let us know and we'll put it on our ride schedule for 2011.