The Ribbon of Road Ahead

Ah it was a lovely day to go on a long bike ride…oops that was yesterday.  We rode from home to the Space age Truck stop  (about 5 miles) and got some essentials like KIND bars and lemon drops.  A slight break with some stretching on the cool grass and we were off again to Stanfield Meadows road which is relatively flat.  We pedaled another 5 miles into Stanfield, enjoying the birds, new calves and a wind that came at us at a diagonal, so it wasn’t too bad.  In Stanfield we pulled into out favorite haunt the Broken Barrel where Charlie and I split a fantastic tequila lime burger and a small salad.  He had ginger beer and I had water.  Then it was out to the Loop road.  I don’t know what go into us two old folks but we pedaled like 14-15 mpg as we “looped” through the farmland.  At the intersection of  Loop Road and Despain its like 7 more miles until it turns into Edwards and then it 10 miles  home.  27 miles went by quickly. Running out of daylight, we headed home with the top speed of 25mph on Highland extension, which we happened to be going west and downhill today.

Today was so different.  It was hot with a hot hot wind.  Can you guess how hot it was?  We pedaled out the lane and onto 11^th street, heading north. Following Cooney to Sunshine we were in the granny gear eeking out a miserly 4 miles an hour up the Sunshine hill. We came down through what we call the neighborhoods, past the Kopacz nursery and over to Geer Road.  It was not very fun when the chain came off as Charlie was starting to get us going up.  We had to stop and start mid hill, which is not fun at all on one as steep as Geer.  Making it to the top (in granny gear) we road on Punkin Center to 8^th and detoured to 4^th and up the 4^th street grade.  Back to 8^th and around the neighbor hoods again and darn if we didn’t lose that chain again.  Me thinks some repairs are in order. We rested in the shade of a WalMart tree enjoying KIND bar and Lemon drops leftover from yesterday.  Then we headed east on Elm to Townsend past the Field of Dreams with a ball game or two distracting us when a kid on a skate board with earphones and loud music came across the road and just about hit us.  Both of us called out to him but he couldn’t hear us until Charlie braked and got around him.  We were almost as guilty as he was being distracted by the baseball players.

Up 10^th to Highland turning west we went to NW 11^th and turned for home where we arrived just in time for the 4^th quarter of the Blazers game.  I dripped sweat all over the easy chair as I didn’t want to take a minute to change. 17miles was it? Should count double for all those hills.

What I learned today has to do with over shifting, shifting too fast, ignoring the stress on the chain as it hauls two big people up the hills.  Not that I will be doing any shifting, but its good to know. I am also  getting my butt ready for longer distances.  Even though my bike bibs have wonderful padding, those “parts is parts”  need something better than the hoo-ha cream I used yesterday.  Today I used good ole Bag Balm and it worked great.  I also learned, of I guess I knew this, when it gets really quiet and you don’t hear the wind anymore, its pushing you!                                         44 mile weekend.