Today the goal was to ride 80 miles. We did. Our longest ride of the year, to date, and very little to say about it.
OK, maybe a few more details. It was sunny and warm all day. The route was a straight out and back along a 4 lane road which eventually dwindled down to 2 lanes. Easy rolling hills and not much traffic as we got further from town. Lots of cyclists doing the same ride, though most seemed headed in the opposite direction.
The most interesting thing was when we got passed by a single who didn’t even acknowledge us as we toiled up a hill. We didn’t lose sight of him, though and over the next 2.5 miles we slowly caught him, thanks to some long downhills. We sailed past with a hearty, “Howdy”, then collapsed. He went by again on the next up and disappeared.
We saw him again at the turnaround at the Andice General Store. We had a nice visit then. He’s a racer and was out getting long miles today. He left before we did and we thought we were done. But we ran into him one more time when we stopped at a bike shop at mile 70. Such a small world.
The folks at the bike shop were great. (AJ’s Cyclery) They even special ordered gloves for me and are sending them to me in Seattle for no extra charge. They’re a particular kind I’ve been in search of for years since my old ones died.
We also saw subdivisions of houses that must have been 2500-3500 square feet and they all looked like big Monopoly houses. No features to them at all. Just big boxes. If they had been green, I would have expected the Hand Of God to pluck them up and put them on Baltic Ave.
Finally, we did a classic tandem activity toward the end of the ride. We stopped at Krispy Kreme for a couple of donuts. If you don’t stop at DQ, Krispy Kreme is the next best thing.
For those who asked, Sheila’s allergies were somewhat better today thanks to Claritin but her eyes are still not back to normal. We saw a bunch more birds today including a lot of the state bird, the Northern Mockingbird. But our favorite is still the Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher. We couldn’t capture a picture of it but here’s one from the internet to give you some idea of it.
