Sunday October 2, 2005 Pete and I did an early morning bicycle ride.  Lately it has been difficult to get in our bike rides.  I think the fall time of year has turned out to be the busiest and most difficult time for me to do long bike rides on the weekends.  With both Jonathan and Max playing soccer as well as Jonathan reffing soccer and Diane now working it is just hard to get a large block of time for a nice long ride. 

I have been using my remaining vacation days to take off Fridays from work and Bob and I have been doing some jogging on these Fridays which I also enjoy.  Last Friday Bob and I walked from his house until we got a little ways on Charlwood where we started to run.  We have slowed down the pace of our jogging just a little, which helps us go further before we get tired.  We went all the way to the intersection of Avon Road and Rochester Road, we also zig zagged through a few side streets on the way.  Bob used the sueandpaul.com web site to map out our route and reports that we went 6.0 miles, which is pretty good for me.  We walked over to Penn Station for lunch and still had to walk all the way home, so in total we did 12 miles, half jogging and half walking. 

For the Sunday bike ride the plan was to meet Pete out at his house and take the trail north to Lake Orion.  When I got to Pete’s he had changed his mind and wanted to head toward Rochester and stop off at either Staples or Office Max to do some quick shopping.  It was fairly early, around 8:00 am when we started.  Since we were going south we agreed to stop at our favorite breakfast place, Greek Island.  Pete got the breakfast special and I got french toast, we each had diet coke to drink. 

It was a little cool at first, but by the time we finished breakfast it was already starting to warm up.  Our first stop was Office Max which was closed when se got there so we continued on to Staples which was also closed, so we just road around for a bit before heading back to Office Max which was open this time.  We locked the bikes and both went inside.  Pete quickly found out they didn’t have what he was looking for and I was just killing time looking around.  After a quick visit we were back on our bikes for some more riding.  Before getting back on my bike this time I took off the pull over wind shirt I was wearing.  It had warmed up to the point where I didn’t need this extra layer.  I put my wind shirt inside my burrito basket and stowed away Pete’s jacket using the elastic draw strings on the top of my burrito basket.  Pete definitely needs his own burrito basket.  Attention to all of Pete’s family members here is a good idea for a Christmas present for Pete, a burrito basket for the back of his bike.  They might not know what you are talking about in the bike store if you call it a burrito basket, but if you ask for a storage pack to mount over the rear tire they will understand.  In addition to the basket he will also need a rack to mount it to, so this is a second good idea for another present.  

We deviated slightly from our regular route home just for a change of scenery.  The day was turning out to be very nice.  The sun was out and it warmed up to a pleasant temperature, another perfect day for a bike ride.  I’m hoping as we proceed further into the fall it will be easier for me and all the other club members to get out on the bike rides.  Pete is talking about possibly doing another century ride one more time before the end of the year.  He mentioned the Wednesday before Thanksgiving as a possible date.  If anyone is interested in joining us for a 100 mile bike ride feel free to contact me.  

Following are the statistics for this most recent ride, 20.6 total miles, 21.5 maximum speed, 11.0 average speed and 1 hour and 51 minutes time on bikes.    
David Lindquist