Monday Sep 3, 2007 was a holiday, Labor Day.  My company along with almost all automotive related companies schedule this holiday as a non-working day.  I think Bob was still out of town visiting friends up north and Steve had plans for a birthday party this day so he wasn’t available either.  Pete and I weren’t doing anything in the morning so we decided to do a ride. 

We did a morning ride, but not too early, we decided to sleep in a little.  I rode over to meet Pete at his house around 9:30 am.  We talked a couple minutes trying to decide where to ride this day.  We were leaning toward taking the PCT north to Lake Orion.  At the last minute we decided to go the opposite way and head south toward Rochester.  I’m not sure why we changed our minds, I think it was because Pete wanted to stop by his Credit Union and we both agreed we needed to pick up an item at our local Murray’s auto part store near John R and Auburn. 

We did take the trail south and got off at Woodward where we cut over to Rochester Road.  On our way down Rochester Road we cut through a couple car dealerships looking at both used and new cars sitting out in the lots.  The Dealerships weren’t open so there weren’t any salespeople out bugging us as we slowly rode around looking at vehicles.  Even though I understand how much inefficiency and waste goes into to making of a car and car parts I am still amazed at the price of a new vehicle.    

Again, we were fortunate to have great weather on this day.  For a long holiday weekend in Michigan we actually had really nice weather for each day.  Even though I know fall is coming upon us very soon it didn’t feel like a fall day, it still felt like a nice summer day.  There wasn’t a whole lot of traffic out yet, must be a lot of people are taking advantage of sleeping in on this holiday.  I always enjoy our bike rides during early morning or on holidays when traffic is less than normal.  It is quieter and more peaceful and even though we can never let our guard down it seems like we don’t have to be quite as alert when riding on these type days. 

After touring the car dealerships we made our way further south and east to Pete’s credit union.  I always have to tease Pete about how far this place is from where he lives and works.  But, I have to admit it has given us a destination to ride when we are trying to decide where to go.  After the credit union we went to Murray’s.  Pete was looking for some touch up paint for one of his cars.  I wanted to get a product called back to black.  Back to black is a liquid that comes in a small bottle and it is used to restore the black color to certain plastic parts on cars.  I use it on the Jeep Wrangler fenders.  These fenders are plastic and black in color when new.  Over time they tend to fade to a grey color and it doesn’t look quite as nice.  Now that Jonathan is driving the Jeep quite a bit I showed him how the back to black works and he used up the last of the bottle we had.  I told Jonathan I would get some more next time I was at the auto part store, and this was the time.  I quickly found what I was looking for and I paid for my item and put it in my burrito basket.  I went back inside and Pete was still looking at the touch up paint.  He couldn’t remember exactly which color of dark red he needed and when checking the book for the year and model of his car they had two choices.  He was pretty sure which one he needed, but he made a quick phone call to home and asked someone to check the color written on the inside of the car door just to confirm.  Pete made his purchase and we were on our way. 

It was approaching lunch time and we were a bit hungry so we agreed to stop somewhere for an early lunch.  We didn’t want to waste too much time this day so we ended up going to Taco Bell.  We each got something to eat including a diet Coke.  I ate mine as fast as I could making a concerted effort to try and finish before Pete.  No chance, Pete just has the fine art of eating fast down pat.  After a few bites I was done and ready to join Pete who had already made a bathroom stop in the time I was taking to finish eating.  I got a refill on my pop and placed it in the wire form water bottle holder on my bike.  I really didn’t want any more pop, but for some reason when there are free refills I feel obligated to get one even if I am no longer thirsty.  Never know, I might want a drink somewhere along the ride back home. 

After Taco Bell we headed straight home.  We took one of our regular routes through various subdivisions.  It was somewhere between noon and 1:00 pm when we got back, I think a little closer to 1:00 pm.  Overall a nice ride and we still had the better part of this Holiday Monday still ahead of us. 

Following are the ride statistics from this day.  20.4 miles total, 23.5 mph max speed, average speed 11.5 mph with time on bikes of 1 hour and 46 minutes.
David Lindquist