Bike Forums - My Sunday ride report (for you Hip)

So it has been so freakishly warm in MD lately that I have been itching to ride. I was going to ride last week but work got the better of me.

Then I was going to ride saturday, but the cleaning of the house stuff got the better of me.

So we get to sunday. Beautiful day. Almost in the 60's My inlaws were to arrive at around 2pm, so I planned my ride to start aroun 1:30:D (they are staying 2 WEEKS. I have to pace myself).

So I do what is becoming my favorite local loop. it looks like this:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/e...kValue=1758580

I start off with a nice downhill and gradual uphill. Nice warmup. Then another downhill and turnoff to a nice quiet country road. Then comes the first steep uphill, I make good use of my triple in my area...

As is usually the case I drop into my "granny" gear and bam, the chain jumps right off. Luckily I am able to unclip before I lose all momentum and fall, but not without my own rendition of "The nutcracker"

Wonderful ride, once I got warmed up I felt great. At one point I started to pass one house and heard the barks of not one, but 2 big dogs. They were making a mad sprint through the yard at me and I am going "oh great". I don't have a fear of dogs but I always worry when they run out in front of me that I am gonna hit them. But then suddenly that invisible fence kicked in and those dogs stopped looking like they had been snapped back by the collar. I just turned and and laughed.

At one point I have to cross Rt 140, which is a 4 lane divide highway, at a light. I usually don't wait for the light here simply because there isn't enough cross traffic to trip it. So I just cut across the first 2 lanes and was waiting in the median area when a Biker on his Hog pulled up to turn left. We both look at each other and smile. I said "It's hard to believe it is december out" He agreed. Then he said "man that bike looks awful painful to ride" I said, "I dunno, yours seems awful loud" That caused us to both laugh. We got a break in the traffic and took off. I beat him off the line, but only for about 20-30 feet.

The rest of the ride was nice as usual. I passed one other cyclist and 2 runners. I pulled into the driveway and say my inlaws had arrived. My mother in law saw me and said "wow you've lost weight". That certainly helped stop my urge to turn around and do another loop just to get another couple hours away from the house.

Can't wait to ride more this week while the weather holds.

-D