Country Roads

Denver John - Take me home country roads

I swear my life has a soundtrack...  there's always a song in my head for everything I do.  In fact, every morning I wake up with a seemingly random song broadcasting on my brainwaves!  Early on in today's bike ride I thought to myself "How nice that there's no traffic on these country roads" and in an instant John Denver's song was playing in my head the rest of the way. 

This is why I never feel compelled to iPod-ize my workouts - don't get me wrong, I love jamming to tunes on the run once in a while - but even without an iPod there's usually a song in my head anyway.  It reminds me of Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption when he tells Red about enduring solitary by remembering the music he had played over the loudspeakers to get him thrown in there:  "That's the beauty of music. They can't take that away from you."

Today riding the country roads they couldn't take John Denver away from me, so now I'm leaving him with you. :)

After a speed workout on Friday and a moderate 6-miler on Saturday, I was going to take it easy today with a 1-2 hour bike ride.  As part of enforcing my plan I pressurized my tires to just 60 psi instead of the usual 75 psi I use for flying along pavement - that way if I tried to go fast, I'd get frustrated by the mushy tires sapping energy.  I also brought the camera along to remind me to stop and shoot the roses.

Indifferent Lambs

Or lambs, as it turned out!  I was cruising along one of those melodious country roads when I spotted these woolen kids grazing.  The wet brakes on my bike squealed to a halt and every single lamb pricked its ears in my direction - how cute!  Unfortunately by the time I got my camera out of its double-ziploc bag waterproofing they'd all resumed breakfast, but it was still a cool scene.

Finally I stopped to check the time and to my surprise 1.5 hours had gone by!  I was feeling so good that it seemed like I'd been on the road for just half an hour.  I had told Amanda that I'd be gone 1-2 hours and now I'm looking at 3 hours if I turned around right then.  I called her up and we made some plans - I would continue on for a 3-hour-ish ride into town and she'd come pick me up and we'd go out to lunch. 

Back on my bike, five minutes later Amanda calls me back.  "Aren't you getting rained on?"  Sorry honey, it's just cloudy.  Turns out she was in Meijer and the metal roof was echoing a downpour throughout the store.  Well guess what?  Two minutes after hanging up, the sky opened up and I got soaked.  Amanda cursed me! ;)

Crop Circles

My only directional plan had been to ride south for a while, then return home.  With no pre-defined ending point now, I simply wandered south and west for a while until I realized that I had no clue where I was!  To make matters worse, there were signs of alien activity...  Crop circles!  Actually it looks like the work of a willy willy spawned by yesterday's violent storm front that downed several tree limbs.  See the cloud bank at the top of that photo?  A minute after snapping the shot I got rained on again, just as I got the camera back into its protective baggie.

Hill Climb

Now I had to find my way to town so whenever I hit an intersection I rode either north or west, depending on how ridable the road looked.  I hopped onto a nice westbound road but a mile later it turned south with no intersections for a few more miles!  Ack!  Finally I got on a westerly course and found myself staring at quite a hill!  Luckily it wasn't too bad at my slow pace; in fact, this was typical of about a dozen large hills that I climbed - and descended - during the ride.  According to MapMyRide my route involved almost 2000 feet of climbing - not bad for Michigan!

Going down those hills was fun and fast, but the raindrops really sting at high speed!  Yeah, those raindrops - the last hour of my ride was in a steady rain.  I was completely soaked, but it was 67 degrees and I felt great - perfect riding conditions if you ask me!  I finally came to a road name that I recognized and called Amanda to look up my location on Google Maps.  She told me that it was six miles to a familiar intersection, and from there I was "really close" to the airport.  She emphasized that it wasn't far at all, so I figured I'd meet her at the airport viewing area and assumed it was 8-9 miles away.

10 miles later I was wondering what the heck Amanda had told me!  Turns out that Amanda had thought I was at the familiar intersection, which was six miles from the airport.  So instead of 8-9 miles I actually needed 12 miles to reach the rendezvous point.  Less than a mile from the finish the road was blocked by geese!  Two families with adolescent goslings (about half the size of their parents; the fuzz was shedding from their necks) were thinking about making a crossing.  They ran back to the shoulder as I used the oncoming lane to get around them.  I slowed down to watch them when suddenly one of the parents hissed loudly and started running at me!  I accelerated and got outta there!

At long last I met up with Amanda and changed into some dry clothes before getting refueled at Pizza Hut.  My planned 1-2 hour ride became a 3-hour affair (including phone call and photo stops) where I covered 35 miles!  All told I averaged about 13 mph if I subtract out the stopping.  Surprisingly I still feel great!  Apparently last week's 50-miler with my dad has recalibrated my cycling endurance.  Nevertheless, I'll go easy on my legs when I run tomorrow.