My ride Saturday was an adventure.

I need to go about 30 miles north to drop off 2 more dining chairs to be repaired, and pick up 2 that were finished, at one of the Amish carpenters. These are heavy oak chairs, turns out they weigh 22 lbs each, and the trailer coincidentally weighs the same. Weight hauled in addition to my usual 40 lb bike and me: 66 lbs.

I guessed it would slow me down by about 4 or 5 mph (resulting in 10 mph average). I guessed wrong. I averaged 6-7 mph! I thought it to be a 3 hr trip. It took 5.5 hrs, with few breaks. The 2 breaks took longer than I liked (grocery store, remove broken fender).

And COLD. It was ~10F when I started. My water froze in less than an hour. My toes hurt so much at the grocery store I had to sit down until they thawed. After that first miserable hour, it warmed up, and I fell into a rhythm of pedaling and wiggling my toes. Pedal-wiggle wiggle left, pedal-wiggle right, pedal-wiggle wiggle left. (My left toes froze faster than my right toes. They were also less coordinated wigglers.)

I don't know what happened, but suddenly the plastic fender had bent in half, my foot was caught in it, the front tire wouldn't move, and we all fell over. The trailer with chairs stayed perfectly upright. NO traffic on that quiet road. A 6 mph fall doesn't really hurt much. I didn't even tear my jeans.

It was only a fender bender.

My husband and I had discussed beforehand that I might be too ambitious, particularly in light of the temperature. I had nothing to prove and had no problems calling him and having him meet me at the carpenter with the car.

My knees hurt today, reminding me that I really need to get a longer seat post. The seat is high enough for my knees ONLY when it is past the "Do not raise past this mark" mark.

One of the nice things about this ride is that I rigged up a sort of handlebar bag (although that may have contributed to the fender mishap). I kept food in there, and by opening all packages right away, I could get at the food even with my awkward gloves. I clipped a little radio to it and a radio talk show ("What Do You Know") made the hours fly by.