This weekend we did two rides, one on Saturday and a second on Sunday.  On Saturday Dec. 4, 2004 I did a short ride with Bob and Pete and on Sunday Dec. 5, 2004 I did a nice ride with Bob and my brother Tom. 

On Saturday it was cool, but a beautiful day so Bob, Pete and I decided to go out for a short ride.  The temperature was in the high 30’s when we started around noon.  We were having card club at my house that night, so Diane wanted me to stay around and help clean up in an attempt to fool everyone into thinking we keep our house some what clean and orderly.  I did my chores early and decided I could use some fresh air.  I checked with Bob and Pete and they were up for a short ride as well.   

We went to Penn Station for lunch.  Everyone had a few things going on so we didn’t want to stay out too long.  I rode over and picked up Bob and then we headed over to Pete’s house.  Since we decided to take the trail south into town it made sence to pick up Pete at this house.  On the way past Steve’s house we gave him a quick call on the phone to see if he wanted to join us.  The Golden Dragon (one of Steve’s many nicknames) wasn’t home so we left him a message to let him know we were thinking about him, and continued on our ride.  We also received an email from Rich, so we know he is still around.  Rich has been very busy with scouts and other functions I’m sure.  We look forward to when Steve and Rich both start riding with us again.

At the Penn Station for lunch Pete was kind enough to give me a coupon for a philly steak and cheese sub.  I was planning to use the coupon until I looked at the expiration date and it was Nov. 1, 2004.  I asked the girl taking our orders if I could use a coupon that was only expired by one month.  She politely told me no, thanks a lot Pete.  Bob and I both ordered soup and half a sub, Bob got a tuna sub and I had a chicken cordon blu sub and we each selected chicken noodle soup.  Pete, or should I say “Roscoe” ordered a regular Italian sub.  I didn’t realize Pete had used the name “Roscoe” when he ordered until the girl delivering the food walked past our table calling out the name “Roscoe”.  I made the wild assumption there weren’t any real Roscoes in the place, so I figured it was Pete’s order.  I even had to ask Pete if that was his order as she walked past, I think he forgot what name he used when ordering.  As usual, the subs were very good and the soup was pretty good as well.  After we finished lunch we suited back up for the cool breeze and started our ride home.  We took a fairly direct route home and nothing comes to mind worth reporting about this ride home.  It did turn out to be one of the shortest rides we had done in quite a while, but it was still great to be outside and even better to be riding a bike.  

Following are the statistics from this Saturday ride.  12.7 total miles, 25.5 max speed, 9.9 mph average speed and total moving time on bike of 1 hour and 16 minutes.

While I was out my brother Tom called to see if we were riding on Sunday.  I called Tom back and told him I would go for sure if he was interested and we planned to meet at my house Sunday morning at 10:00 am.  Pete was going to be out of town with Elaine visiting our friend and fellow pinball collector Don.  So, Pete wouldn’t be joining us on Sunday.  I checked with fellow co-founding member Bob and he was interested in going again.  Tom rode with us for the first time last weekend and it was good to see that he enjoyed himself enough to come back and ride again.  More often than not a lot of the first time riders don’t end up coming back.  I’m not sure why this is, but it must be they have really important and strong commitments, otherwise I’m sure they would come back to ride again.   If Tom shows up a couple more times we will have to dust off our bobble head making device and anoint him an almost core member with placement of a traditional bobble head picture on the website.  Tom showed up around 10:20 am, and he again brought his son Andy to hang out and play with his cousins Max and Jonathan.  I think Andy almost has as much fun on these days as Tom does riding with the club.

Last week Tom got a little cold on the ride home.  If you don’t wear the proper wicking material then your clothing will retain the sweat and hold the moisture against your body causing you to feel cold due to the natural effect of evaporation.  Apparently Tom took my advice related to wicking material and went out and bought himself a few items.  When he showed up he was prepared for artic subzero temperatures.  He had multi-layers of wicking shirts that consisted of at least four shirts the last layer being a fairly substantial hooded pull over.  I think he was very proud of how well prepared he was from a clothing point of view, because he showed me the many layers of shirts.  He also brought a fleece jacket and another jacket that he was preparing to wear over the fleece.  What I didn’t realize until he told me later was that he had on long underwear under a pair of wind pants.  At least I convinced him to leave one of the jackets home.  I think Tom got a better work out than either Bob or myself.  Just think of how much energy he had to expend to overcome all that clothing just to move let alone pedal a bike.  If I had worn that much clothing I’m sure I would have sweat out at least 10 pounds.  One thing about Tom is he doesn’t do anything half way, once he sets his mind to something it is full steam ahead.  He kind of reminds me of Pete in that way.  If there is one thing I hope I can pass on to Tom from the experience of these bike rides, it is the fact that it is OK to just relax and have fun and there is no better way to do that than being outside exploring nature and suburbia while riding a bicycle with the Rochester Hills PCT Bicycle Club.  Believe it or not as Tom and I were riding over to meet Bob at his house Tom said to me, “It is kind of cold out here I think I should have worn a turtle neck.”   I wore two thin wicking shirts, a cotton sweat shirt and a light weight jacket.  I also had on a pair of wind pants, but no long underwear.  Even though the temperature was in the mid 30s when we started the forecast was for sun with a high around 40.  I even took off my jacket and put it in my burrito basket about 45 minutes into the ride.

Bob and I agreed a nice ride for this day would be to head north on the trail to Lake Orion.  We figured it was better to get the uphill portion of the ride done before lunch and then it would also be easier for Tom on the return trip since the ride home on the trial is a majority down hill.  What we hadn’t anticipated was the warm sun drawing the moisture out of the previously frozen trail surface causing the non-shady parts of the trail to be somewhat soft and mushy.  When the trail gets like this it makes pedaling more difficult from an effort point of view.  I am happy to report that even under these more difficult than normal circumstances Tom did very well and we made good time with only a couple rest stops along the way.  I knew this was going to be a few more miles than we had ridden with Tom the previous week, but normally this is a pretty easy ride so the extra miles are not an issue.

We took Adams north to Silverbell and then went east to the PCT.  Once on the trail we took it all the way to its current end in Lake Orion.  From the end it is only about a mile or so to the old downtown area which is where we planned to eat lunch.  Our favorite deli, the Poppyseed was our destination for lunch.  When we arrived in town we stopped to take a picture next to a Santa Clause statue outside one of the stores.  While taking the picture, I think it was Bob that noticed a pet goat on a leash outside another store on the other side of the rode.  Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t see to many goats chained by a leash hanging around in public.  Even for Lake Orion this seemed a little unusual to us.  One thing the PCT Bicycle Club likes to do is share our experiences by both written word and pictures and this was one photo opportunity we weren’t going to pass up.  The three of us went across the street headed for the goat.  I got there first and not being a big fan of petting zoos I don’t have much experience with goats.  As I approached this goat it was obvious to me it wasn’t a normal goat.  It was very small and it acted like a friendly dog.  It acted like it want to be petted, so I bent down and petted him on the head.  When Bob and Tom got there we took turns posing with the goat taking pictures with my camera phone.  See the pictures at the bottom of this page.  I think the name of the store where the goat was hanging out was Tatum Studios Fine Art and Furniture.  A friendly lady stuck her head out the door of the store and told us the goats name was Georgie, which was short for George W.  I asked her if she minded us taking pictures with Georgie and she told me it was fine that Georgie enjoyed company.  She even offered us a free cup of coffee, but we politely declined.  After our visit with Georgie it was time for lunch.  Tom ordered half a Rueben on rye bread with a bowl of soup, Bob got the monster sandwich on French bread and I ordered a chicken pesto sandwich on focaccia bread.  The monster is a big sandwich and Bob took half of his home.  After our outstanding lunches it was time for our ride home. 

All the way there I had been telling Tom the ride home on the trail would be much easier because it is slightly downhill heading south.  With the trail surface being mushy I think we all were glad it was down hill after lunch.  We took the trail to Gunn Road where we got off and went west toward Adams.  Once we got to Adams we headed south on the bike paths.  We made one more stop at the shopping center at Silverbell.  Bob and I each bought a large cookie at Herman Moore’s restaurant called AH!MOORÉ.  After Bob made a quick shopping trip at Krogers we were back on our bikes pedaling for home.  Tom showed a big improvement in stamina from last week, he did really well.           

Following are the statistics from this Sunday ride.  20.1 total miles, 22.0 max speed, 9.4 mph average speed and total moving time on bike of 2 hours and 6 minutes.

Thanks for checking in.

David Lindquist