Issaqueena's Last Ride and nearly mine as well

Well, where do I start? I missed the Best Dam Ride in McCormick County this year and I will miss the Tour De Abbeville, so I wanted to do a ride early in the season. A fellow bloger was doing his first ever Century on May 6, and I sent him some words of encouragement(I hope your ride went well). Around that time I got a flyer for Issaqueena's Last Ride. 8500 feet of climbing sounded interesting. My cousin Matt called and was telling me he wanted to try the metric century and that clinched it for me, I sent in my registration and check. I thought I would try it on my fixed gear, but as the time grew close that voice in my head that keeps me from doing really stupid stuff was yelling at me not to. I decided to listen. I staid in Central with Matt the night before to cut down on drive time the morning of the event. We got to Walhalla early and got our gear ready and checked in. This was Matt's first organized ride in several years and the first after his gastric bypass. His girlfriend Andrea was worried and told me to take care of him before we left. As we stepped out of the church where the event was based, Russ comes walking in we exchange hellos and Matt introduced himself. We decided to ride together, the three of us. We all meet up at the starting line and Russ has to go back to get his cell phone.
Russ made it back in time for the start and we were off. Matt took out ahead of us as Russ and I opted to start slow. The day was prefect, not too warm and clear. I was worried that we would be getting rained on today, but the weather decided to cooperate at the last minute. We were being passed here and there and every once in a while we would overtake someone. I wanted to finish this ride and there was mentioned a nine mile climb at some point during this ride. After a few miles we caught up to Matt and stuck together, chatting about the usual stuff and some things that stay on the ride. Matt had gastric bypass surgery done at the first of the year and at that time topped the scales at 370, he had already lost 40% of his goal in 4 or 5 months, much faster than usual. His doctor thought he was nuts for doing this ride, but gave him the go ahead. " The doctor was surprised that I can ride like I have been." Matt said as we rolled along. "Yeah, but you have always been very active even when you were at your heaviest, most people who have this surgery probably never were." I replied. "You know I'm the only one of the three of us who has not had major surgery." It was an observation that occurred to me, Russ had a quadruple bypass two years ago. The countryside was beathtaking, flowers in bloom the sun was shining, birds singing, a great day for a bike ride.
We turn on a small road that winds around this picturesque little lake and it looks very familiar. It was a lake I used to sample years ago. "On a day like this I really loved my job." I said as we crossed a creek feeding into the lake that for the life of me I could not remember it's name. The narrow but smooth road begins to tilt upward and I gear down and spin at an easy pace. Suddenly it gets steep and I change to an easier gear, stand and crank up the hill. I'm pleased with myself that I was able to climb this hill will several gears to go(I laugh now knowing what was to come). A few more short climbs and we made the first rest stop. I grab some trail mix and a cookie and make a quick bathroom break. We made comments about the buzzards circling and the gnats hovering around us. "My first century when I was fourteen, I had the buzzards follow me in" Russ reminisced. "I'm working on a gnat beard" Matt commented. We waited a few minutes for Matt's stomach to settle as after the surgery his digestive track can be unpredictable. We left this rest stop thinking that we can do this, it's not that bad. Little did we know.....