This morning, I said to DH, since you're going out tonight, I'm going for a ride this evening. DH set my ride plan for this evening while I was working today:

"The plan's changed, cuz our host is sick. But I haven't seen Mark in a couple of years, so I'm going to his house for some beer. YOU can ride your bike over later, and give me a ride home!" This meant my bike was going to ride home in the back of his convertible.

So, after he left, with Mark's address marked on Mapquest, I planned my route while eating dinner -- Mark's house is a little over six miles from our house, but I wanted a longer ride. Found a twenty mile route, texted the route to DH, telling him no objections allowed, just info (he doesn't seem to like me to do the hard stuff alone, so sometimes I don't tell him til it's done, cuz he won't go along on the hard rides, either!)

Sun's nice and low in the sky, and it was a bit cloudy, to go with the 90-degree weather, making it a very pleasaant ride. Head winds on my favorite really fast stretch that slowed my by a few mph, but that was okay too. I was in the mood to work a bit, and needed wind to compensate for my long, generally downhill run after the one big climb early in the ride!

Hanging out with the guys for a while after the ride was good -- Mark's an interesting character. But then, time to go, and they tucked my bike into the back seat. We got home, and my poor bike was kind of stuck back there. It's a tight fit, and it was a bit challenging to extricate it in the dark. Once in the garage, we could see what needed to happen, since we had light.

The bad news is that in the process, they managed to damage my bar tape -- fortunately on the end of the bar, where I never grip, but oh, darn, now she needs new, and I'll need to go shopping...

It's actually kind of handy: I've been considering moving the position of the hoods, but didn't want to wreck perfectly good bar tape!

Aargh -- I should be asleep! We're getting up to ride down into town and meet another Mark-friend for coffee in the morning!

Karen in Boise