On Sunday July 31, 2005 there were three of us that attended the bike ride.  In addition to myself I was accompanied by Bob and Pete.  We wanted to get breakfast on this ride so we started out around 9:00 am.  Bob and I met Pete at an intersection near his house at 9:15 am.  I know I sound like a broken record, but the weather was perfect again, warm and dry. 

Our first stop was the Greek Island for a bite to eat.  When we arrived we ran into fellow bike club member Ray and his wife Cheryl.  They had just pulled up in their cool corvette and were headed into the Greek Island just like us.  I hadn’t seen Ray in quite a while and it has been many months since he has ridden with the club.  Even though Ray hasn’t been riding with us he has been out on his bike.  He told us he had recently completed the Michigan 150 which is a 150 mile bike ride spread out over two days somewhere up north.  Ray said it was a great time and he suggested we all think about doing M150 ride next year.   

Bob, Pete and I took a table and we ordered our breakfast.  We all got a version of the breakfast special.  I got mine without the hash browns because I just wasn’t that hungry and Bob also ordered his without hash browns.  Pete not only got the hash browns but he also ordered his eggs under easy.  The look on the waitress’ face was classic, she had no clue what he meant by under easy.  I immediately started laughing at Pete, I have never seen anyone have so much trouble ordering eggs.  

After breakfast we got back on our bikes to continue our ride.  Pete needed to be home by around noon to get ready to take his youngest daughter, Megan, to camp.  We decided to ride over to the Old Orchard Trail (OOT) and go as far as we could on that trail and still get back by noon.  Bob led the way through downtown Rochester past the assisted living complex and past the new Royal Park Hotel on our way to the OOT.  This trail is very fun ride.  It is actually better suited for bike riders than the PCT.  The riding surface is paved black top which is much easier to ride on than the crushed limestone of the PCT.  I took a few pictures with my phone camera from this ride.  I will post the pictures at the bottom of this story, see below. 

There were quite a few serious bicyclists out riding on the trail.  What I mean by serious bicyclists are the type with all the bicycle attire from head to foot riding very expensive fast road bikes.  We are serious bikers in a somewhat different way.  We don’t get as carried away, but we are still serious bikers that ride for fun.  There aren’t as many walkers and runners on this trail as PCT, which makes sense.  The harder surface is not suited for the walkers and runners. 

One of the nice things about the harder surface is you can get farther quicker by being able to maintain a higher average speed.  We ended up making good time and we got all the way to the end of this trail which is currently located  around 28 or 29 mile road.  There was a party store just up a little ways so we headed there to get a drink before turning around for the ride home.  Bob and I went in to get a bottle of water while Pete rode next door to a small road side vegetable stand.  Bob and I rode over to meet Pete at the vegetable stand, the name on the place was Verellen Orchard.  They had really nice looking fruits and vegetables.  Pete was checking out the sweet corn.  Bob also started picking out some corn.  They both ended up buying a few ears.  Needless to say, Pete has a peculiar way of selecting each individual piece.  The sign above the corn stated, please do not husk the corn.  Pete was pulling back the husk just enough to get a look at the kernels.  They had to be a certain size and a certain orientation to be acceptable to Pete.  There was a lady that walked up and she started looking at the corn at the same time as I was making fun of Pete and his method.  She ended up taking all of Pete’s rejects and putting them in her bag.  At one point Pete was just handing the pieces he didn’t like right to the lady and she just put them right into her bag.  And here is another surprising fact, Pete didn’t have any money so I had to lend him money for the corn.  He actually ran out of money at breakfast and I had to lend him some to help pay for his meal.  Some things just never change. 

After Bob and Pete got their corn we rode over to a bench at the entrance to the trail and they both proceeded to husk the corn so it would lighten the load for the ride home.  Since Pete doesn’t have his own burrito basket on his bike guess who got to carry Pete’s corn home, you’re right, me.  Lucky I am a nice guy. 

With the corn safely packed away we then headed back down the OOT toward home.  This trail doesn’t appear to be as well maintained as the PCT.  The weeds on both sides were growing wildly out of control.  Some of the weeds had to be eight feet tall.  At one point Pete decided to see if he could karate chop some of these tall weeds down with his arm and hand as he rode past.  Each time he chopped at a weed he would let out a loud karate chop type scream.  I took a few pictures of Pete as he chopped away at the weeds. 

When we got to 25 Mile Road we made a right turn heading east.  Pete was concerned about getting home in time so this route would shorten our ride a little.  Turns out there is sidewalk all the way on 25 Mile Road now from that point so it was actually a decent ride.  Just before Stoney Creek High School there is a narrow section over a small bridge without sidewalk and we are forced to ride in the street, but the distance in the street is short and we made it safely.    

This turned out to be a fairly long ride and the last few inclines going east on Tienken just past Rochester Road were just the little extra work out we needed.  It feels good to ride these types of hills knowing you have the power and stamina built up from many weeks and months of activity.  Bob and I split up with Pete at the same intersection we met him earlier in the day.  Pete took his corn and Bob and I continued the last couple miles to our neighbor hood. 

Following are the statistics from this ride, 28.5 total miles, 28.0 max speed, 11.5 mph average speed and 2 hours and 28 minutes on bikes.
David Lindquist