Saturday morning James and I had Zoe keep Bean so we could bike together at the annual Boonville Festival bike ride. It is an organized event to raise money for the Boonville Historic Society.
We left the house around 6:30 a.m. and made it to Boonville with plenty of time. We checked in, lined up at the start and chatted with friends.
The ride started promptly at 7:30 and we were off. We stuck towards the front and drafted in with the fast guys. It sure is fun to ride in a pack when you know what you’re doing. You can really go faster than you ever imagined.
Around mile 8 James got a flat tire. I started to stop with him but he told me to stay with the group and he would catch up. So I did knowing full well he would have a VERY hard time catching up because we were doing over 20 mph........he was signing up for some suffering.
I stayed in the pack until around mile 15 when I just couldn’t keep it up anymore. I have only been on one really fast ride since Beanie was born so this was hard work for me. I dropped off the pack about the same time as Dan Clinkinbeard (aka Clink) so we rode together until the next rest stop where James caught us.
We then headed to Lupus. James was pulling and I jumped on his wheel and we were off again, averaging around 20 mph. Clink jumped on too and we put the next 8 or 9 miles away really fast. Then Clink and James started yapping about doing brevets (super long bike rides) and I just listened. I was glad they slowed down a little because I needed to save a little for the end.
At the Lupus turn off the boys headed down the hill and I did not. They were going to bike down to the river and then back up. It is a BIG, long hill that I have climbed before, but I knew I would just die if I did it now. I stopped at the rest stop and drank some Gatorade and ate a fig Newton while chatting with the nice boys manning the stop. I felt silly with big lumps in my back pockets because I had packed my own snacks forgetting this was a supported ride……duh.
After a 10 minute rest I got back on my bike and headed down the road at a leisurely pace. The plan was for James to catch back up again and for me to get some recovery time. As I rode I decided that if he didn’t catch me by the next rest stop I would wait for him. I cruised along at a comfortable speed. This part of the course is really hilly and I even passed a few good riders. I was pleasantly surprised at how well I was doing.
When I got to the last rest stop I put my bike down, grabbed a drink and took my shoe off to rub out some soreness. I looked up and there was James already. I thought he would be farther behind but I was glad to see him. He told me he had flatted AGAIN on the way to Lupus so he changed his tire and just turned around. He said he thought he could catch me and we could ride together but instead he was right behind me the whole way back. Shoot! if i had known that I would have waited for him sooner.
We left the rest stop and again I jumped on his wheel and we hammered out the last few miles back to the Thespian Hall for ice cream. On this section we saw a huge, 8 foot round, black trampoline out by the road up against a fence. It had obviously blown there in the storm the night before. It was pretty impressive to see.
So my stats are: distance = 45 miles, average speed 17.1 mph. I was very happy with that since the route is pretty hilly in parts and I have not ridden more than 30 miles at a time since Bean was born!!
After the ride, we went home to find the girls in good shape and best of all…….Zoe had even been cleaning up behind the destructive little demon. I was soooo proud of Zoe, my house was spotless.
Later in the day, my dear sweet husband and I went to the AT&T store and picked up my birthday present, a new smart phone, the Samsung Captivate. It is basically the same as an iphone, but it is from Google instead of Apple. I was anxious to get it on Saturday so I could work on getting it all set up just right on Sunday. Funny thing was, we could not figure out how to answer a call with the darn thing. I had to get on the internet on Sunday and look it up. You have SLIDE the button, not tap it, to answer an incoming call. Sigh.
The rest of the weekend was certainly not as fun. James had to work all day Sunday, but most distressing was on Sunday afternoon some wild animal snuck out of the woods and took one of our chickens for dinner. We found a pile of feathers where a struggle had occurred and our poor little Rhode Island Red was gone. I am really sad at the loss of one of our sweet little hens and more importantly, I am worried that the critter will come back for another meal now that he knows how yummy our chickens are.
We left the house around 6:30 a.m. and made it to Boonville with plenty of time. We checked in, lined up at the start and chatted with friends.
The ride started promptly at 7:30 and we were off. We stuck towards the front and drafted in with the fast guys. It sure is fun to ride in a pack when you know what you’re doing. You can really go faster than you ever imagined.
Around mile 8 James got a flat tire. I started to stop with him but he told me to stay with the group and he would catch up. So I did knowing full well he would have a VERY hard time catching up because we were doing over 20 mph........he was signing up for some suffering.
I stayed in the pack until around mile 15 when I just couldn’t keep it up anymore. I have only been on one really fast ride since Beanie was born so this was hard work for me. I dropped off the pack about the same time as Dan Clinkinbeard (aka Clink) so we rode together until the next rest stop where James caught us.
We then headed to Lupus. James was pulling and I jumped on his wheel and we were off again, averaging around 20 mph. Clink jumped on too and we put the next 8 or 9 miles away really fast. Then Clink and James started yapping about doing brevets (super long bike rides) and I just listened. I was glad they slowed down a little because I needed to save a little for the end.
At the Lupus turn off the boys headed down the hill and I did not. They were going to bike down to the river and then back up. It is a BIG, long hill that I have climbed before, but I knew I would just die if I did it now. I stopped at the rest stop and drank some Gatorade and ate a fig Newton while chatting with the nice boys manning the stop. I felt silly with big lumps in my back pockets because I had packed my own snacks forgetting this was a supported ride……duh.
After a 10 minute rest I got back on my bike and headed down the road at a leisurely pace. The plan was for James to catch back up again and for me to get some recovery time. As I rode I decided that if he didn’t catch me by the next rest stop I would wait for him. I cruised along at a comfortable speed. This part of the course is really hilly and I even passed a few good riders. I was pleasantly surprised at how well I was doing.
When I got to the last rest stop I put my bike down, grabbed a drink and took my shoe off to rub out some soreness. I looked up and there was James already. I thought he would be farther behind but I was glad to see him. He told me he had flatted AGAIN on the way to Lupus so he changed his tire and just turned around. He said he thought he could catch me and we could ride together but instead he was right behind me the whole way back. Shoot! if i had known that I would have waited for him sooner.
We left the rest stop and again I jumped on his wheel and we hammered out the last few miles back to the Thespian Hall for ice cream. On this section we saw a huge, 8 foot round, black trampoline out by the road up against a fence. It had obviously blown there in the storm the night before. It was pretty impressive to see.
So my stats are: distance = 45 miles, average speed 17.1 mph. I was very happy with that since the route is pretty hilly in parts and I have not ridden more than 30 miles at a time since Bean was born!!
After the ride, we went home to find the girls in good shape and best of all…….Zoe had even been cleaning up behind the destructive little demon. I was soooo proud of Zoe, my house was spotless.
Later in the day, my dear sweet husband and I went to the AT&T store and picked up my birthday present, a new smart phone, the Samsung Captivate. It is basically the same as an iphone, but it is from Google instead of Apple. I was anxious to get it on Saturday so I could work on getting it all set up just right on Sunday. Funny thing was, we could not figure out how to answer a call with the darn thing. I had to get on the internet on Sunday and look it up. You have SLIDE the button, not tap it, to answer an incoming call. Sigh.
The rest of the weekend was certainly not as fun. James had to work all day Sunday, but most distressing was on Sunday afternoon some wild animal snuck out of the woods and took one of our chickens for dinner. We found a pile of feathers where a struggle had occurred and our poor little Rhode Island Red was gone. I am really sad at the loss of one of our sweet little hens and more importantly, I am worried that the critter will come back for another meal now that he knows how yummy our chickens are.
No comments:
Post a Comment