Can't Ride

It's been raining and snowing.  We have been working on the set for Camelot at the theater.  Peter got a great workout today with the snow blower.  We have 2 feet of snow!

So we haven't ridden in a whole week.  Feels weird.

I'm going to ride tomorrow even if it's raining.

We still need drivers!

Peter is riding too...

Rode about 25 miles on Sunday from Placerville to Old Town Folsom. It was a glorious ride... except for the "Uphill Death Ride" between North Shingle Road and Cambridge Road! For every yard going downhill there were two going uphill. There is no shoulder on Green Valley road there.  Most cars are cautious, polite, and safe while they pass though.  Was only honked at by one rude person in a beat-up truck who obviously detests bicycle riders!

At the end of the long ride I was rewarded with a flat tire... walked the last 1/4 mile as I did not have a spare.  Arrived at the parking lot at Bicycles Plus in Folsom just as Karen arrived with the truck.  A welcome site to see she was!  Karen rode 40 miles earlier in the day herself.

Had finger surgery today to remove a cyst.  Will not be able to ride for a few days. Darn!

Mystery and Problems Solved

The Main Mystery:  Why is there never enough money?

When I’m riding on the street, I see lots of rode debris.  Some of it is not so mysterious, like beer bottles, candy wrappers, Starbucks cups, and old bicycle tubes.  Sometimes I find money.   Over the last six months I’ve found 17 pennies, 4 dimes and a quarter.  I’m slowly getting rich.  Which may take care of my first mystery.

However, this week I came across some ripped up photos, a nice pair of scissors, a new pink pearl eraser, and a smashed glue stick, all randomly spaced out over about a mile in El Dorado Hills.  Then, just before these things would have slipped from my consciousness as insignificant, I saw It.  Half of a carrot with what appeared to be a neat black bullet hole through it.  I circled back to be sure.  I rode on another mile and it occurred to me what this collection of SEEMINGLY unrelated items meant.  Obviously, some soccer mom had become frustrated during a scrapbooking session and had snapped because of her strict diet.

Mystery solved.  Thank goodness the carrot had been on hand.

Solutions to some of the minor problems that have cropped up:

-Numb hands-  Raised handlebars and gel-padded gloves

-Numb butt-  new seat cover and gel-padded shorts

-Numb feet-  better fitting shoes and gel-padded inserts

Gel padding seems to be the miracle invention.

Other issues and solutions:

-Choking on bugs-  keep mouth closed when inhaling

-Pedestrians in the path-  ring my nice, cheerful bell
-Wet sleeve-  wipe nose on other sleeve

-Going too fast-  Use the br….wait a minute, I riding a fat-tired, knobby tread mountain bike.  Too much speed has not been a problem.  Isn’t anybody screening these problems?

Our biggest issue was what to do about the vast difference in our respective riding styles.  Specifically, I ride twice as fast as Peter does.  After some training, advice-seeking and working on drafting, we’ve decided that it doesn’t matter if we aren’t riding together.  He’s going to leave each morning a few hours before me and I’ll catch up with him for lunch.  Then we’ll take off and meet up for dinner.  It doesn’t matter if we’re actually riding together all the time.  We’ll have our cell phones, and we might experiment with walkie-talkies.  The camper can be our message center.  We’ve come up with radio handles-  I’m MaryAnn, Peter is Skipper and the camper is The Minnow.

I’m just glad he didn’t want me to be Ginger.

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While I stopped to talk to someone who thought my bike was too heavy, I leaned it against a tree.  It must have already been loose.