Hangin' With the Kids

Not what you expected from the title? As you can probably tell from the photo, most of the women in this group are closer to OSLO's age than they are to mine. (One exception, of course.) We took a group ride this morning, and I was a bit nervous. We're all loosely connected through the college, and this was a 'practice ride' for the group. Their plan is to ride the Holland Hundred in July. Probably the 36 mile distance.

I was a little concerned about my ability to keep up.  Two of them were clearly younger and stronger and faster than the group average, and a third might have just been more accommodating.  4 road bikes, counting mine.  The woman in the Ironman Hope shirt rode an older, but  quite nice celeste  Bianchi.  (She's had it since graduate school.)  I put together the route, so I led most of the way, and had to push it harder than usual  for the first half of the ride to stay ahead of the group.  Two of them wanted to 'fly' when we got to a 2.5 mile straight shot on country roads, so we sent them on ahead.  They waited for us at the end of that stretch, and seemed happy and sweaty.  The pace slowed considerably after that.  Young and strong clearly trumps old and experienced, but in the end, the 2,300 miles on my legs payed off, and I managed to hang with the kids.  Kinda fun.

Flower Show

If you look closely at this tiger lily, there's a butterfly in there somewhere. Out near the old bridge this afternoon..

I know so little about flower names that anything I say has about a 50% chance of being right, but I call the yellow flower below a day lily.

This is also a day lily, but a different variety.  I have quite a few of these around my yard here -- this one is near the deck along the edge of the bank.

Black eyed susan, out by my mailbox.

Another tiger lily -- also out by my mail box.

It was a beautiful day today -- I was out watering my flowers that don't get hit by the sprinkling system, and I liked the light. 

Blooms of Summer

I think this is Queen Anne's Lace. I found quite a bit of it at the old bridge over the Pigeon River this afternoon. There was no sign of the Cardinal Flowers yet.

Tiger lilies, I believe. I found some along the edges of several ditches today, though these were in someone's yard, along Riley Street.

My next door neighbor says that the deer have been eating her tiger lilies along her bank, and informed me that they are also eating my zebra grass. Our neighborhood association is meeting in a couple of weeks to discuss what to do about the growing herd of deer up here. I predict that it will divide into two camps -- the Bambi camp, and the shoot them camp. The presence of deer ticks in the dune grass may tip the scales, but that's just a guess.

June is not my favorite month.

A while back I declared that I was happy to be able to ride 106 miles in 4 rides, and implied that I was now able to do that any time I wanted to. Well, not so much. Biking was going well at that point, and I clearly was overly impressed with my fitness levels.  It has not happened since.  This past week, in particular, I appear  to have fallen apart.  I did ride about 88 miles this week, in 4 rides, but my legs hurt and I'm looking at the last week of June with what will probably be one of the worst June mileage totals in the last 11 years. 

There has been one high point this week, though.  I rode my bike to Grand Haven yesterday.  This has been on my summer goal list for a while.  Years.  It was not the 42 mile round trip of my 'youth', however.  Though the expression on my face makes it look like I've ridden that far.  I  rode up there, parked my bike in their garage, and the girl drove me home in her car.  She brought her brother and her best friend with her.

They performed their usual minion duties (cut the grass), spent some time swimming and hanging out at the beach, went out to supper with us and accompanied us to Captain Sundae's.  Pretty much a perfect summer day.

We took a late walk around the neighborhood, getting back in time to watch the sun set. 

Today the girl drove us all back to Grand Haven, where I picked up my bicycle and rode it home.  Though my legs hurt before I even got on the bike, I felt good enough to add an extra loop.  I took the trail/bike path  east from Lakeshore to the highway, along Croswell, north of the Pigeon River.  It gave me a chance to check out the current state of ripeness on the blues.  25.5 miles.  Here's my take.  I'm not as strong as I'd like to be.  I'm not as strong as I thought I was.  But I'm strong enough to make that ride, even if it is only a one way trip.  I may have to call that good enough.  Final note:  I have to complain about the wind again.  A one way trip means that the wind blows just the one direction for the entire way.  Yup.  Headwind both days.  JB has repeatedly tried to explain to me how it is that wind force is the cube of its speed, but I don't get it.  But I do believe it.  Tailwinds do not compensate for headwinds.  There's no equalization going on.  It is much, much harder to ride into the wind than the benefit you get from the tailwind when you turn around.  Just so you know.

Let the Cowboys ride

What's the deal with the wind? I am so very sick of it.

Morning Rides are Different

I took this photo about 8:30 this morning. I was on Ransom, near 152nd, looking east into the rising sun. I get unhappy with homeowners who water the whole road while watering their lawns, but I yield that right to blueberry farmers. Partly because it makes such an awesome sight.

Four rides this week only gave me about 90 miles.  As a recovering mileage junkie, I'm thinking about taking a 5th ride tomorrow -- on a walk day.  Send help.

S-T-R-E-T-C-H

The other Professor told me about another county park, somewhere along the lake shore, south of Kirk Park, north of the power plant. We rode out that direction one dreary day a week or so ago, but gave up looking for it when the sky began to darken ominously, and she'd really already ridden as far as she wanted to go for her third or fourth ride of the season. Today I was looking for a destination for a stretch ride, and decided to see if I could find it.

A couple of you will recognize this spot -- the camera is pointed west towards the big lake, with Kirk Park off to the right and Olive Shores Park some unknown distance to the left. I turned left, and followed the signs.

It was a bit of a disappointment. The part of the park that I saw consisted of a parking lot, bathrooms and a path to a very, very tall stairway up and over a sand dune known locally as Mount Olive.  (It says so on one of the signs.)

JB says the number of stairs indicate a dune height about that of an 8 story building. It's a big dune. If someone is into climbing stairs it might be worth the trip out there. Or if you're a fan of Road to Perdition, the movie starring Tom Hanks, some of which was filmed there.  I stretched the ride out by heading east from there and stopping briefly at Hemlock Crossing, a park much more to my liking.  For one thing, it's much, much flatter.  32 miles again.  I'm knackered.

Rider's Block

Wind speed of 17, gusting to 25. Not exactly howling, but still hard work on a bike. I had a talk with myself about it on the return leg of today's ride. Here's what I said: "Since you choose to be a biker, you need to accept that days like this are just part of the deal. You need to make your peace with the wind. It -- literally -- goes with the territory." (It didn't help.)

 A bench photo from a recent walk with the other Professor.  It's in front of the log house more or less across the street from here.  New owners, new bench.  I think it fits in pretty well.

This dead end road gets a lot of visitors since they surfaced it in asphalt instead of gravel. It was as far as I got today.  I couldn't talk myself into a full length ride (see paragraph 1).  My head gives up before my legs do, every time. 

2,000

The COTU spent some time with us this weekend, helping out with stuff we needed help with, and generally just hanging out.  We took a walk on the beach last night, and had the place mostly to ourselves.  Well, except for the ultra light.

This morning I got up early and took a short bike ride, even though it was walk day.  The stars had aligned such that I needed 15 more miles to get to an even 2,000 miles for the year so far. 

The other Professor and I took a walk around the neighborhood tonight, just before sunset.  We chatted a bit about the year just past, then watched the sunset from the association deck.

Pine Bend

My approach to blogger is to download photos in "compose" and do all of my text in HTML. Works for me.

I need some clarification on the term 'stretch ride' from whomever it was that added that new term to our lexicon. Today I rode out to Pine Bend Park. It is about 3/4 of a mile south of the trail on Croswell to the park, adding 1.5 miles to my usual Pigeon River loop ride.  The total ride distance (27 miles) did not exceed my longest ride so far this year, but it was longer than I typically ride. So was it a stretch ride? If so, that's two in one week, and I need to go lie down. If not, carry on as before.

I got tired of being too cold on my recent rides, so today I overdressed. The big lake's water temperatures are still in the 50's, so the portion of any ride done near the lake is kind of cold. Early summer has arrived inland, however. So multiple costume changes are sometimes necessary during a ride. Today, in fact. (One of the problems of composing in HTML is that my text and my photos don't always match.  SIGH.)

I haven't been to Pine Bend Park for a couple of years.  It is an extension of Hemlock Crossing Park, where most of you have been.  The road in to Pine Bend has been paved since I was last there, and the old house on the property (circa 1901, I believe) has been restored, and is available for 'functions'.  It is a pleasant, glade like setting.

Pine Bend exists primarily as a starting/stopping point for the hiking trails that leave Hemlock Crossing Park, just north of the Pigeon River bridge.  I've walked the entire distance once or twice, but it's been a while.  It's not a long hike, but it's an interesting one.  Here's a link to a description of the park.  Click on the park map link  to see how the two parks connect.

Four rides in the first 7 days of June, 106 miles.  That's right where I want to be.  I'm riding less without riding less.  It took me a while to get here, but I'm pleased that I can do this.  By the way, I really like the Kashi Cherry Dark Chocolate granola bars.  They have a little bit of soy protein, so they aren't ideal, but I haven't found many snack bars with protein that don't use soy.  The brown stuff in the bottle is iced coffee.  Blame Sharon.

Never on Sunday

I should have known better than to attempt a 'stretch' ride today. Every single member of the Moron Family tends to be out and about with all of their pets and toys on sunny Sunday's. Lesson learned.

I did get a couple miles further than I had on any other ride so far this year, so that part was good. When I got to this sign, I took it as a sign (duh) that I had gone far enough.

On the return trip, I stopped to admire the view of the Pigeon River from the bridge that separates it from Pigeon Lake. I had a 'tranquility' photo in mind, when I heard some rustling in the cattails below me. It looked like a brown dog at first, but eventually it was clear that it was one of Bambi's cousins. (Last week there was a dead one of Bambi's cousins on the bike path at the other end of the bridge. Along with evidence that a car had been involved in its demise.)

The mild winter may have had something to do with it, but they are everywhere this spring. And they're hungry. I'm not happy to be donating my hosta to them, but their damage to real crops is likely to be a more serious concern this year.

It had been a couple of days since I'd ridden, and a long ride felt good. My theory that a 32 mile ride is just two 16 mile rides back to back turned out to be flawed, however. Fortunately, tomorrow is a walk day.

Watch Out World

Today was the day that she picked her car up from the dealership. She has her own set of keys, and drove the car back to the beach house from 8th Street and the highway, in busy weekend traffic. She did fine, getting used to the feel of her new wheels for the first time.

So now we just hope that the patron saint of new drivers watches out for her. She left here around noon, heading for her other Grandmother's house. She seemed to be having fun.