One of my favorite views along the American River Bike Trail
Short Commute 6/10/10 19.38
Trail Ride 6/12/10 26.40
Rex Ride 6/13/2010 57.84
103.62 for the week 11th Goal Hit
No one big ride this week, just three short days.
I decided I needed to come up with a shorter commute to fall back on for those days where I either don't have time or energy to do the 40ish mile commute from Sacramento Bar to mid-town.
After a little investigation I decided that parking at William Pond Park and riding into work is still worth the effort, I still get in a 20 miles round trip ride, and I cut my car commute in half of what I would drive, 14 miles round trip vs. 30 miles. All in all still a worthy effort. This should resolve whether I ride or not on days when getting back to my car needs to be accomplished by a certain time - usually before they close the park gates!
I think the wind this week either has people worked up, or just spaced out. I witnessed a couple of occasions where drivers and cyclists pulled out in front of others. One driver sped out of his parking space right into the car parked behind him. I just sat there with my jaw dropped waiting to see if he did the right thing, and he did. He went into Rite Aid and found the owner of the car he mashed. Two young men on the bike trail on bikes way too small for them (do they know just how ridiculous they look?) refused to give a right of way without a confrontation. They verbally accosted one rider (who gave as good as he got) and would not yield the lane until they looked behind and saw that they had several angry riders backed up behind them. I came upon several runners who were just stopped dead in the middle of the trail, either completely unaware of people trying to get around them, or mouthing off to those that were asking for some space. I had a hard time biting my tongue with one group, really wanted to tell them to get their tanning booth tanned, fat asses out of the way, but as an owner of a fat ass myself (lily white at that) I refrained. Limited myself to a hard stare which I am *sure* made them think.
I even saw a rattlesnake in the same section of trail where I ran over one a few weeks back, I think it may have been the same snake. He is brave, there were joggers, walkers, riders all over that area, and there he was bold as brass slithering his way over the asphalt, little rattles raised in warning. I had to swerve to go around him, did not want to run over him again! Although he looked none the worse for wear from the previous time I ran him over, with both tires. He is a fat little sucker. Gawd, what if he remembers me? Ooo, what if he is looking for me? I'll have to ask Jay about the long term memory capacity of a rattlesnake.
The Rex Ride was, as always, just a fun day on the trail. No great stress to this ride, no set distance, no climbs, just a Sunday ride. The wind finally died down, and the heat turn up, it is summer in Sacramento ...
The volunteers who run this event are friendly, the after ride lunch is very good, and it is a good opportunity to run into riders I don't always see. And, I ran into Kevin Sparks at the bar-b-q, he is looking well and appears to be doing fine.
The after ride lunch as always was really good, a beer garden, Merlino's Freeze (I had two!), and JR Barbeque, chicken, tri-tip, beans, coleslaw, cornbread, nice lunch. I dug into it so quick I almost forgot to get a picture!
I got in 58 miles in around 3 hours of riding, a pretty good day.
No comments:
Post a Comment