Monday December 18, 2006 Pete and I again were looking for a good use of a vacation day, and what better activity can you come up with than a bike ride.  It was a little cool outside but it wasn’t snowing or raining so this day definitely qualified as another perfect day for a bike ride.  Our streak of being able to ride well into December without any snow or ice to worry about continues. 

Our goal for this day’s ride was to get out and do a few errands while traveling from place to place on our bikes.  Pete had a couple places he wanted to go and I had a couple stops I needed to make.  We both needed to go to a hardware store, so one of our needs was actually the same which was convenient.  Typically Pete is the one with a list of errands to do, but on this day I actually had more errands to accomplish than Pete. 

We started out by me riding over and picking up Pete at his house.  We cut through Pete’s sub over to Dutton and down the hill to Paint Creek Trail (PCT).  We rode the trail south into town.  It was mid-morning and there weren’t many people out on the trail as we rode.  We did pass a couple walkers and joggers, but we were the only bikers on the trail at this time.  The trail surface was relatively hard so riding wasn’t too bad.  Usually this time of year if the trail isn’t covered with snow it tends to be soggy and riding is harder, this day is was in good shape.  

Our first stop was the Library.  I put a couple books Diane needed to be returned in my burrito basket before I left my house.  The trail takes you directly behind the library.  I went to the drive through to return the books in the drop off drawers in the wall.  When you are in a car the size of the circle makes it hard to get close enough to reach the drawers through your window.  I have to really stretch out to reach.  I have even seen some shorter people open their car door to be able to reach the return drawer.  It is real easy on a bike, no problem at all.  You just ride right up next to the wall and easily reach to open the drawer and place the items inside.   

Next stop was the Ace Hardware store on Rochester Road.  It is only a short ride from the Library to the hardware store.  We were there in a matter of minutes.  I think Pete needed something as well, but I can’t remember what it was.  I needed to buy a package of lint traps to replace the used one on my washing machine drain outlet.  I think this was all I got at the hardware store.  We were only there a short time before we were back to riding again.  At this point it was still too early for lunch so we decided to keep riding.   

We went east over to John R Road and we ended up at the Hampton Golf Course (HGC).   The HGC is a small public golf course that was designed and built around the Hampton community which is houses, condos and apartments.  This small course is used primarily by the local residents, but kids and woman leagues also like to use this course due to its short length and the fact that it is not a very difficult layout.  We rode on a couple of the cart paths around the course and we ended up coming out into the parking lot.  The parking lot was completely empty with the exception of a lone pair of golf shoes sitting in a parking spot all alone.  The weather has been nice enough the past couple weeks for people to go out golfing.  Must be a golfer stopped to change out of his golf shoes and put his regular shoes back on and forgot and left his golf shoes behind.  I thought it would make an interesting picture, these lone pair of golf shoes sitting in the parking lot.  I stopped and took out my phone and took a quick picture of the shoes.  When I got home and downloaded the picture I noticed the shadow of my bike in the picture which to me made the picture even more interesting.  See the bottom of this page for this picture and the other pictures I took this day.  Pete picked up the shoes to check out the size.  I think Pete was checking to see if they might fit.  Apparently they weren’t 13 EEEE so Pete didn’t want them.  I may have exaggerated some on Pete’s shoe size, it might only be a 12 EEE. 

After our golf course adventure we rode over to the target shopping center on Rochester Road.  We stopped in the Best Buy store for our regular visit to the larger screen TV department.  I’m not sure what Pete is going to do once he finally ends up buying his big TV.  We walked around Best Buy for a little while and after we got bored it was time to hit the road again.  I was getting hungry so it must be getting close to lunch time.  Before we hopped back on our bikes we discussed a few options for lunch.  We decided on the Taco Bell which is located in the same shopping center.  It is located closer to the Rochester road, not attached to the main strip of stores. 

We didn’t do the drive through at Taco Bell.  We went inside and order our lunch.  It was nice looking around and seeing all the business people out on their lunch breaks, with me and Pete off for the day just relaxing knowing we didn’t have to go back to work after lunch.  We sat at a tall table where we could see our bikes outside.  It only took us a few minutes to eat our meals, Pete a little quicker than me.  

After lunch we started heading back north toward home.  We were also planning to spend a little time this day working on the Jubilee pinball machine.  I needed to stop at the bank to transfer some money from my savings to checking account.  After a short stop at the bank we made one more quick stop at a gas station where I picked up a gift card for my nephew Brian as a Christmas gift.  We decided to skip the rest of our errands in order to get home and start on the pinball. 

We were making good time riding home when out of nowhere Pete started complaining it felt like he was dragging something.  We had just finished talking about our average speed from our previous ride on Saturday when Pete started slowing down.  Well, it only took a minute or two to figure out that Pete was getting a flat tire.  That was the reason Pete felt like he was dragging something, his tire was slowing going flat.  He must have run something over earlier in the ride that either caused a puncture or caused movement within his tire that might have caused a pinch flat.  Either way the outcome is the same, a flat tire and no more riding until repaired.   

I walked a short distance with Pete while we discussed our options.  We finally decided if Elaine was available to pick up Pete I would ride home by myself and then Pete would drive over after he got home so we could work on the Jubilee.  Pete called Elaine using his goof tooth and she agreed to swing by and pick up Pete and his bike with a flat tire.  The designated meeting place was the Greek Island parking lot.  I rode the final 3.5 miles to my house alone.  This final 3.5 miles was a nice quite uneventful ride. 

Following are the statistics from this ride, 21.1 miles total, 24.5 max, 2 hour and 11 minutes of ride time with an average speed of 9.6 mph (slower than normal average speed due to a short distance of walking with Pete’s flat tire.)
David Lindquist