2nd of May Saturday rides

[emily_in_nc]

26 mile "market" ride with DH on our Bike Fridays. To the post office, then quite a few rural "fun miles", then back to town to our food co-op and ironically, two auto parts places for polishing supplies for our sailboat! Overcast and mid-70s temps made this a perfect day for riding. Had a blast, and it was my longest ride of the year!

[salsabike]

[maillotpois]

Oh salsa - I love those little guys!! How wonderful!

[Caroline]

My saturday was 170km in the Wicklows mountains. A wanted to go for a recovery sunday spin but woke up too late ... oh well.

[kfergos]

Saturday I did a nice but awfully hilly-feeling 64-mile ride from Marlboro down to Oxford, through North Oxford and Leicester (I think) up to Paxton -- Route 56 is really beautiful for a ways there -- through Holden (some friends let me use their bathroom) and accidentally into Worcester (oops, I guess I was on Ararat Street and not West Mountain Street; good thing West Boylston Street connects them, even if it's a horrible mile of Worcester's worse side), and then home via Shrewsbury (up the steep hill by St. John's Church, but it didn't seem as bad as last time I rode up it with my old double. Ah, the beauty of a triple) and Westboro. Gorgeous day; they predicted rain, but then it ended up warming up and getting sunny, so I just did a jersey and shorts, carrying my vest and arm warmers much of the way. I didn't really see many other people on bikes, but I did see a ton of people out mowing their lawns. Has the old-fashioned, man-powered push mower died? What's with riding mowers for lawns less than half an acre in size?

I also saw a car that had sat in a driveway so long that it had sunk down into the asphalt. I rode by, thought the tires were flat, did a double-take, and then realized the bottom third of the wheels had sunk deep into the driveway asphalt. I wondered how they're gonna get it out?

All in all took me about 4.5 hours, I think. It was a very nice day and a pleasant ride, although I'd kind of like to find people to ride with on these longer routes. Hmmm.

[denny]

Finally got some flat terrain training time this week in Atlanta. I got in 36 miles on the Silver Comet before having to get out of the way of yet more storms and tornado warnings. However, the most interesting thing on the ride was this humungous turtle in the middle of the trail. Never seen anything like it with a dragon like tail. After we all gawked a bit at this unusual sighting in the middle of the trail a nice rider from Team in Training moved him out of the path with the turtle kicking, hissing and rising to an aggressive posture.
Ingrate He's lucky another islander unlike me could have turned him into a succulent Turtle soup. I tried to post his pics but it needs resizing and I'm too lazy and tired right now to try.

[channlluv]

Did about 60, with gray skies. actauly managed to keep up. (getting my bent legs) until another bent rider had a flat. two female bent rider in the same town , unpossible!
...
we cut the ride a little short, but I add some on the end and the beginning

What are bent legs?

Roxy - nice of you to stop and help with the flat

[channlluv]

I got in 20 easy miles around Lake Miramar. It was beautiful, sunny afternoon, marred only by a wreck into a sticker bush by a four-year-old that I came up on during my third lap. Luckily, I had some Neosporin + Pain Relief, large Band-Aids, and some Kleenex in my bike bag. I didn't have any clean water for her mom to wash the wounds with. Poor little thing was really banged up and crying hard. I suggested her mom use the adhesive on the bandage to pull the stickers out of the girl's skin and off her shirt.

I kept telling her how brave she was and I gave her a Band-Aid for her hand, and a tissue to hold to give her something to do while her mom was pulling stickers with the other bandage. I hope she's okay now. She was starting to welt up, but had stopped crying, when I left them to walk out on their own. The girl had a little bike with training wheels, and there was an older sister, about 12, managing three dogs on leashes, one of which was really worried about the crying baby, and mom, trying to hold it together herself, I guess, after watching her baby crash hard off the paved path and into a psuedo-cactus bush. I don't know what they're called, but they're downright prehistoric-looking sticker bushes with some kind of toxin in the prickers, from what I saw on that baby's legs and arms. Sheesh.

I need to get some witch hazel pads for the first-aid kit.

Roxy