That's it, then, for real this time

31 miles at a relaxed pace. Tomorrow Ruby goes to the JDRF West Michigan chapter office to go on the big field trip to Asheville with all the other bikes!

I think I'm anthropomorphizing my bike a bit much. Of course, I've been in rather intimate contact with this machine for almost 2400 miles this year!

Anyway, it's getting chilly out there. A ride ending around 7 p.m. finishes in the mid-50's, which is pretty serious bundling up weather on the bike. In addition to the usual shorts and jersey, today I had fleece-lined leg warmers (basically thigh-high tights) and some heavy lycra arm warmers, and I would have been happy to have another layer on top.

Coming home from The North on the Hart to Montague rail trail, I passed the New Era Canning Company. They'd gone into hard-core Autumn mode, with what appeared to be a pumpkin canning operation set up in one of their parking lots. I could see whole pumpkins going through a wash of some sort, then going through a machine that apparently chopped them up. At then end of that, there were a group of people sorting out the nasty chunks. I don't remember seeing that last fall, but it was a pretty neat operation.

Time to go pack Ruby up...

That's it, then

75.2 miles - up to Pentwater and back, with, of course, a cinnamon roll stop in Silver Lake. That's my last long ride until Asheville, and after Wednesday I won't have Ruby to ride, either. I've got my mountain bike set up with slick tires so I can keep my legs from atrophying into powerless flabby twigs, but that'll be a short-distance thing.

I've developed a pretty sore lower back, so a couple weeks of easy, short rides should help with that. Our mattress is over 10 years old, so that's probably not doing me any favors. Maybe I should sleep on the floor.

ouchie

OK, so 218+ miles in a week can leave some muscular debris behind! Despite a day of rest, my 37 miles today were most certainly not a breeze. It was otherwise a nice ride, though; I mostly took it easy.

Annoyingly, my brain was working on a work problem: how to parse a multi-digit part description, determine which of the parsed bits were duplicates, and assign numbers to each of the bits so that duplicate bits have the same number. All in the Pro/PROGRAM "language" which is pathetically limited.

On the plus side, I'm over $1500 collected for my fundraising! That's a long shot from $3400, but given that that's barely two weeks of really working on it, I'm quite encouraged. My (illegal) delivery of letters around my neighborhood wasn't as productive as I'd hoped (only three contributions came back from some 70 letters distributed), but my co-workers have generously laid down the green for me. Now is probably about the right time to start getting returns back from the 60 or so that I mailed out, too - three came in today.

Oooga chaka

45.7 from Ada Park, with a few decent hills, so that's 218 and change for the week. I'll do 3 or 4 more rides on Ruby, and then she's off to Asheville with all her bike friends on the 28th. Since I'll want to still do a few easy rides between then and the Asheville ride, I've got my mountain bike set up with slick tires for road use. I'll probably tow Dane around a bit, for some 10-15 mile rides.

I think this is roughly what we did today.

I have never, bar none, felt as good as I did this past week! Even today, after a long, fairly hilly, fairly fast ride yesteray, I was happy to charge up hills. I hope I can hold on to that for three more weeks (and I doubly hope I can avoid the inevitable kid-just-started-pre-school cold that Kirsten is snorking her way though). Asheville is one of those life things that's hard to see past; everything is leading up to that, plans are being made, itinerarys are set (assuming Delta's bankruptcy doesn't have too many adverse effects), and my brain is fixated on it. Too bad it also pretty much represents the end of riding season.

This is going to be a long week

63 miles today, basically the reverse of the route I did last weekend. Horrifyingly, I was too late for a cinnamon roll, and had to settle for a creme-filled long john and a cookie. Next weekend is the last weekend she's open, so I'd best not be late getting up there if I want to have a proper cinnamon roll before the year ends.

I also now have exactly 2200 miles for the year, and assuming we do the planned 50+ miles in our group ride tomorrow, I'll have over 220 miles for the week!

Today's ride map...

Nice weather here...

Nice out there!

40.3 miles - up to and past Stony Lake on back roads, then East on Stone Road, and eventually back to the bike path just North of New Era for a fast cruise back home. It's nice up there - good roads, lots of apple orchards (many being harvasted right now), and sweet autumny smells.

I pretty much forgot, but even before getting involved with the JDRF ride earlier this year, I'd set a goal of riding two thousand miles this year. My odometer now reads 2137 miles! My other goals were to ride a full century, which will take care of itself in Asheville, and to get my weight down to say 210. That's over 20 pounds away, so that ain't gonna happen (especially given my discovery of the awesome cinnamon rolls at the bakery in Silver Lake - good thing it's a 50 mile ride minimum to get one of those!). Ah well, that's a whole lot better than the 280 I was pushing a couple of years ago.

Breezy!

40.3 miles, South into a hard wind, from a co-worker's house on the south side of Grand Haven, to Mike's bike shop (see the links, over there), bought and ate a Clif bar, and rode back to my car with a wonderful tailwind.

And typing is barely working, for some reason - text is appearing much, much slower than I am typing, and I'm no rocket on the keyboard. More later; maybe Blogger's on the fritz.

Later...

OK, that's better, but I can't think of anything I was thinking about earlier, when I wa thinking about things. Meh. Gotta go to bed anyway.

Oh, and I...

shaved my legs. Had to try it.

It's wierd. I can't feel wind on my legs any more. I don't know if I like that. I like feeling wind - it makes me feel like I'm actually moving.

The Posties lay the smack down

31 miles, around one of my regular loops south of Whitehall. Man, Scenic Drive is a disgrace to Muskegon county - a road right along Lake Michigan shouldn't be a mishmash of patches, holes, and uneven, crumbling pavement.

My neighborhood campaign of dropping pledge material in mailboxes resulted in a nastygram from the local post office pointing out that mailboxes are federal property (even the cow-shaped one you bought off Ebay), and it's a federal crime to put stuff in them unless it's stamped, and have a nice day. Well, my wife said that was the case, but I didn't find anything on the USPS web site regarding that, so being the anarchist I am I went and did it anyway. Fight the Power! Question Authority! Don't let The Man get you down! On the plus side, they did return 10 of the envelopes I'd left in mailboxes, so I could re-use the self-addressed stamped envelopes in them for (legally) mailed pledge forms. Must be the gift card we left our mail carrier last Christmas.

I did get a $20 pledge back from one of the neighborhood letters, on the first day after dropping them off, so that's cool.

Hills, a goat, and a cinnamon roll

62.4 miles - north on back roads to Silver Lake (topped out at 44.8 mph going downhill into the town!), then east to Hart, south from Hart on country roads to Shelby, then the bike path home.

I rode on roads I hadn't been on yet this year, which was nice, except for a few spots on one road that were in really bad shape, and the inevitable recently-chipsealed roads here and there. Eventually I couldn't avoid getting on a main road, but it was only the last couple of miles of the road that drops into Silver Lake, and those miles are all downhill. I know I saw 45 pop up on my computer, but the Max Speed function only gave me 44.8, so I'll call that my new record. A kid in a Suburban gave me a big grin when I finally sat up and started to coast down.

In Silver Lake, though, I took a quick break and bought a fantastic cinnamon roll at a little bakery/pizza place. There was a mom and two teenage girls in there, who mentioned that they'd seen me earlier; I guess those Herman Miller jerseys are pretty memorable. The bakery shuts down for the winter in two weeks, so I've got to head back in that direction a few times! The last weekend they are open there's an apple festival - don't want to miss that. The dry weather should give us small but really flavorfull apples.

I followed the main city street South out of Hart, and climbed, and climbed, and went around a bend and climbed some more. You can see the topography here; the road I was on is the one that curves to the west as it heads south from near the top of the image. Looooots of contour lines in there! I'm looking forward to comparing these to the Asheville hills.

There was a goat in a ditch somewhere out there, too, looking at me dully. Goats are funny.

Rain!

36 miles from work - over the Grand Haven bridge and south, then back. Felt tired - I must have put out more effort than I thought yesterday. Tomorrow will be an off day.

It's raining, although only enough to tease the grass. To be perfectly honest (and possibly insensitive), we need the aftermath of a hurricane to go over us - we're something like ten to twelve inches below normal. The remains of Katrina just teased us; there were clouds visible to the south, but blue sky overhead. If we have a heavy winter, it will go a long way towards replenishing water supplies. But heavy winters are miserable with a 30 mile commute.

Gotta go fold letters and pledge forms.

Monoliths and Pledges!

29.4 miles - a version of the Stonehenge loop. It's a nice ride - varied terrain, with either quiet country roads or wide shoulders.

And I've got money! Two of my co-workers surprised me with pledges totalling $125! Yee-haw! I've also got 80 pledge forms set up for delivery around my neighborhood; I hope to get those distributed in the next couple of days. I also got 550 envelopes, 550 return envelopes, and a roll of 100 stamps. Release the hounds!

Stoopid bees!

36.4, with the first 16 including a backpack full of spare clothes to drop off at my folks' place in Twin Lake.

Within a few miles of the end of my ride, a bee bounced off my leg and evidently went stinger-first into my belly. It didn't get me badly enough to leave the stinger behind, but it's nice and red still.

I also managed an hour or so of sailing my dumpy little boat on Twin Lake. Once all the jet skis and skit boats and whatnot have gone in for the evening, the lake is wonderful to just glide around. It's clear enough to see a good 10 feet down, and with no waves to contend with, it only takes the tiniest breath to keep the boat moving. When the breath becomes a blow, the boat moves smoothly, and responds instantly to the slightest twitch of the tiller. Man that's nice.

Bill paying via bike

With gas at $3.20 and up, I ain't driving to the other side of town to pay for Dane's preschool tuition, so I hopped on the old mountain bike and motored over to Whitehall, then stopped at our hardware store to get a screw for mounting my rack to that bike. Anywhere I stopped, I heard complaints about gas prices, and I finally started to hear people talking about changing travel plans. I guess $3 a gallon is some sort of trigger point.

So I'm giving myself credit for 5 miles. Woot.

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