The weather was absolutely perfect for my 48th day-in-a-row cycling. With the exception of maybe the first half hour of our 5-man group ride, which began right around 8 o’clock in the morning, we were met by temps as high as 89 degrees that reportedly had a real feel of 96 degrees. I believe the report. It was really steamy out there, folks.
The sky was 100% clear and the wind was coming from the east at 3 mph. Hey, on the plus side, we at least had very little wind.
Shortly after being my wife's shining-knight-in-armor, road biker escort during her 4-mile training run, I rode with Ed, Gary, Tom and Sandy through the South Florida cities of Pembroke Pines, Davie, Weston, Cooper City, and Southwest Ranches.
We sort of changed our route somewhat today out of pure boredom with our usual course. Sandy S and I talked about making up an entirely new route that would include a specialty pancake house as our mid-ride stopover place. I’m excited and hungry just thinking about it. There’s nothing like carbo-loading with hot flapjacks smothered with your syrup of choice.
About four miles before our return to the barn, Sandy, Tom and I chose to cut across some grass to avoid having to lift a monstrous chain over our heads and then ducking ourselves and our bikes underneath. The huge, thick chain is put in place to prevent motorcars from entering the church’s parking lot from the residential area.
Sandy, Tom and I made it through the grassy area just fine. We’ve done it a couple times in the past. But when Gary attempted the shortcut, he ended up doing a one-and-a-half forward summersault over the handlebar of his bike.
Not spotting the large stump that was sticking up about a foot above the grass, smack dab in the middle of the narrow path, his bike stopped instantly, throwing Gary over his handle bar onto the soft grass.
I gave Gary a 3 only because his legs were spread out too far and his toes were not pointed. Other than those two flaws, he did a perfect forward one-and-a-half summersault. Tom was more generous by giving him a 4 1/2. Tom and I used the current Olympic grading system.
We may be a bunch of crazy retirees, but we do have fun.
Gary, by the way, is fine. He stood up, smiled, brushed himself off and then got back on the saddle. He thought he deserved at least a 5 for his unplanned acrobatics.
Yesterday was sort of a bummer of a day, so I only had a chance to ride 5-miles on the gym’s stationary recumbent bike.
Ride via Garmin Connect and Strava:
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