I told Mr. Sheesh that I wanted to go for a ride this weekend, and I did not want to ride on the lake path. Now that I'm commuting by bike 3-4 days per week, along the lake path, it isn't as much fun to just ride the lake path anymore. It's kind of like going for scenic Sunday drive on the same route you drive to work every day. Instead, we headed north.

The first section is very bumpy - the roads are crap. Once you get past the first 10 miles though, the route is beautiful. Twisting roads through quiet northern suburbs with a few rolling hills thrown in for good measure. The route back took us through Fort Sheridan. At the end of the trip, we had ridden 37 miles in two hours and forty five minutes.

This morning, Mr. Sheesh asked me if I wanted to try and catch a local group ride that leaves from Evanston at 8:00 a.m. I've never been on a group ride before, so I was very nervous, but up for the challenge. I'd like to learn to ride with other people - close proximity, drafting, talking while riding. We got to the local coffee shop with just enough time to introduce ourselves and learn that the route would be the same one we had just ridden yesterday. Good! I knew what to expect!

This was supposed to be an open "anyone can join" ride where noboby gets ldropped. So I didn't expect the pace to be so fast that we lost sight of the group within the first five miles. So much for a no drop ride! Good thing Mr. Sheesh was smart enough to know to stay near me, because when he saw me falling off the back, he came back and rode with me. Since he knew the route, we rode it at our own pace. On the way back, we picked up two other guys who had been dropped from the ride and they rode back with us.

In all, I had a great weekend of riding - 75 miles! Now I feel like I could eat a horse, though! Good thing we're having steaks on the grill for dinner!