NCbiker

With an absolutely beautiful day set to unfold, I headed out this morning to best my personal mileage record by riding my age (54). Previous best was 40 miles. I'm sure this is no big deal to many of you, but a great accomplishment for this couch potato that only a mere six months ago struggled to cross five miles of pavement without collapsing from exhaustion.

I decided that while doing my pie ride, I wanted to enjoy the journey as well as the destination and having seen another thread on BF where riders were posting pictures of bikes in front of water. I thought it would be fun to stop along my route and take pictures of different bodies of water, as that's something we have a lot of here in coastal North Carolina.

Picture taking also helped me keep the motivation up, as I just concentrated on getting to the next water scene and not on mileage. I'm posting the pics so that I can reflect back as my rides get longer, as well as hoping others might enjoy them.


Inter-coastal Waterway at the Wrightsville Beach draw bridge.



In front of the sailing club at Masonboro Sound, Wrightsville Beach, NC



Atlantic Ocean at Masonboro Inlet, Wrightsville Beach, NC



Atlantic Ocean at Crystal Pier, Wrightsville Beach, NC



Harbor Island Canal, Wrightsville Beach, NC



Burnt Mill Creek, Wilmington, NC



East Side of Greenfield Lake, Wilmington, NC



West Side of Greenfield Lake, Wilmington, NC



Hugh MacRae Park, Wilmington, NC



Home, Coconut Cream

Blackberry

Trifecta: Beautiful day. Beautiful bike. Beautiful pie.

teachme

+1! Is that beer in your water bottles?

NCbiker

No beer, Gatorade and peach tea got me through the day.

teachme

Oh; thats good!!! I recently started filling my bottle with green tea, and find it very refreshing. Excellent pics, and keep up the good work on your rides.

qcpmsame 

Very nice ride report and pictures, beautiful bike and of course, PIE. What a great day!!!

Bill

rck

Whenever I look at pictures that show coastline I get homesick for water. I mean large bodies of water. I'm envious of the ride and the ride. Congrats!

dannwilliams

Curious if you used a gps computer to track your rides, as I would like to see the map, to get an idea of where each picture was taken.

gtragitt

You are wrong - any pie ride is a big deal. You should be proud!

NCbiker

No, unfortunately I don't have a GPS. It's on my want list. Maybe I'll have one by the time I'm ready for my next ride goal which is a metric century.

Bikey Mikey

Do note, the first ride on any new +1 bike = Pie.

JimF22003

Nice! I worked in Wilmington for a couple of years back in the early 90's, but I wasn't riding a bike back then (I was over 400 pounds at that time.) Sometimes when it's real cold here in the wintertime, and the weekend weather report looks good in Wilmington, I will drive down there to get in some winter riding. Didn't have that opportunity this year

Maybe one day I'll make another road trip and look you up!

NCbiker

Yeah, come on down! We were really lucky this year as it never got cold enough to stop me from riding. No telling what hurricane season is going to bring us tho.

jppe

I drove over to Wilmington and back on the 21st visiting a facility near UNCW. I saw some folks with bikes on top of their cars and wondered what roads would be good for cycling. Plan to be at Wrightsville the last of June for a multi day conference. I'm sure the winds can make or break you day. Great job on the longer distance!

NCbiker

This area has done a pretty good job in trying to accommodate cyclists. There are two major North Carolina bicycling highways that cross the Wilmington area. NC Bike route 3 that runs along North Carolina's coast for 300 miles from South Carolina to Virginia. The part of this route that runs through Wilmington from downtown to Carolina Beach has an on road bike lane. There is also Bike Highway 5 that ends in Wilmington which is a 160 mi. route along the Cape Fear River from Apex to Wilmington.

The city has created the River to Sea Bike Way which is a 12 mile route from downtown Wilmington to Wrightsville Beach. They have also completed a large part of a proposed cross city trail that runs north to south through the center of town and around UNCW.

Below is a link that shows some of the bike routes around here, but it's from 2008 so quite a few of the proposed sections have been completed:

https://www.wmpo.org/PDF/2008-02_WMPO_Bike_Routes.pdf

SFGary

NCbiker, nice bike indeed. What's that bottle in the outside holder? the one with the tube sticking out?

NCbiker

That's a rechargable air canister for my Airzound horn. Great for stopping dogs in their tracks and I've been able to get more than a few motorists to turn their heads and pay attention by giving them a blast.