Snapped off a fast hundred miles this evening. My parents and in-laws were over for a late lunch/early dinner this afternoon so a real Sunday ride was out of the question but when they left, I figured I had two hours of solid daylight left so I put my gear on and rode North.

It’s frequently a mess but once I cleared the stop light to stop light scrum on the West Side Highway, the Sawmill Parkway was all but empty; it was as if someone had cleared the lanes and hung out a sign,”Ross’ Road.” Not wanting to disappoint whatever luck it was that had smiled upon me (Useless biker trivia: did you know that the Vatican has a patron saint for motorcyclists? It’s true. Columbanus, a 7th C. Irish monk), I ran hard and fast to Katonah. The Sawmill has a fair number of nicely graded turns that at, uh, nominal speeds are worth taking. It also has a couple of off-camber turns, several decreasing-radius downhill turns and a few really nasty mid-corner bumps that will remind you to slow down. There was traffic on 684 and the local route 35, so I took the hint and spun around to wick it back down the still quiet Sawmill and got home before dusk.