It was a great day on Sunday to ride, and I didn't feel like riding on the highway, so I got out my old Trek hybrid (now essentially my wife's bike) and hit the Jamaica trail. This is the bike that I used before I bought my road bike - I really hadn't ridden it more than a couple of times in the last two years. It sets up and feels a lot different than my road bike, so I tried to make some adjustments by taking the platform pedals off and putting my old spd pedals on, and then put my old Fizik Aliante road saddle on in place of that big Bontrager pillow that came with the bike. I tried to get saddle height and reach about the same as the road bike, but there was no way to get the handlebars any lower (they are slightly above saddle height). Oh well, getting aero really isn't a priority on the trail.
The bike is a picture of fredosity - reflectors, big pie plate on the back wheel, suspension fork and seatpost, adjustable stem, twist shifters, and so on. I'm sure I looked hilarious riding it wearing bibs and a jersey instead of jeans and a t-shirt, but as I'm used to looking ridiculous, I didn't really care. The bike was comfortable and reasonably quick (I have 700 x 28 conti ultra sport tires on the bike) on the trail - no problems riding out to Princeton and back on the trail (about 31 miles from my house) in less than 2 hours.
The sunflowers were all over the place - especially out by Princeton.
The only negative part of the ride was that I didn't see much wildlife. No deer, no turkeys, just one squirrel for cryin' out loud. The only significant interaction with wildlife was the almost constant pelting from these:
They were everywhere, landing on my legs, chest, rattling around in my helmet vents - I even had one land on my nose at one point. Surprised the hell out of me.On another note, all sources seem to be reporting that the road race hosted by teamFIRE went well this weekend - great job by everyone involved. Having put together some large events myself a number of times, I really admire the way da terminator had everything and everyone organized in the face of consistent applications of Murphy's Law. I am only sorry I couldn't do more to help the day of the race - it would have been fun and really interesting to me as I've never really been to a race from beginning to end.
And I'm really, really sorry to have missed the celebration Saturday night - although that might have just given Nicol more fuel for her assassinations on my character when she next runs into my colleagues, former students, and sons at a Westbrook Music Building event.
In honor of the great job you all did running the race on Saturday, I would like to propose that next year we run a race that is organized like this:
3 comments:
Hmmm... I rode all the way to Heidleburgers yesterday and watched too many NFL games at the same time.
I think I would have preferred a mouthful of grasshoppers in hindsight.
Maybe you needed a mouthful of these grasshoppers.
I'm glad you're just kidding about the character assassination thing. But, you were the topic of conversation quite often that evening. :) They seemed to already know you very well and your boys were sweet kids.
Oh, and I almost ate a grasshopper yesterday while riding. There are various sizes to consume out there.
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