a couple of rides in as many days…
So finally getting out there a little… Pete and I yesterday and today, Pete, Uncles Frank and Bill and I. not really long rides but good climbing and at times pretty quick pace. The ride yesterday was a new loop for Pete and I as we decided to head out towards the Halibut Point Road end of town. We hopped on the cross trail behind the high school and made our way up north via the extra wide gravel trail. Some parts of the trail are steep enough to necessitate a granny gear and others a pretty quick ride down the other side. The great thing about this ride turned out to be that we only had to ride about 1/2 mile of HPR and mostly stayed on the backroad trails of the Cross Trail and the Bench Land Road that isn’t currently open to cars. One unfortunate thing happened as we were about two miles from home, my 16 year old grip shift for the front derailleur bit the dust… was stuck in the little chain ring the rest of the way home.
Todays ride was a pretty wet one at times. We parked at Thimbleberry Lake trailhead and headed up the way to Blue Lake road. caught sight of the brother bears at Fortress of the Bear and then headed back to the truck via Sawmill Creek Road. Just as we hit the SMC Road it started to pour. Bill and I were riding in a pace line, me following Bill and hitting what seemed to be every puddle! Keeping up a good pace Bill decided to hit a huge puddle and drenched me in his spray! When we arrived back at the truck I opted to keep peddling and headed for the house by bike. I would guess that the entire round trip was about 8 miles at most, though always preferable over giving a cat a bath! Oh, from the ride from the day before you might have been wondering about my derailleur problem? Well I was able to rig the bike so that I could at least ride in the middle ring on the front gears. Made the up hill a little more interesting and the down hills I was forced to coast a lot more. Also the ride home on the road I was keeping a pretty high cadence, though I sometimes like that anyway. Its good spin practice, better than doing isolation drills!
