The long way home

Woke this morning and knew I would head out for a ride. 65 degrees. Perfect start temp. I headed down to Cook's to meet up with a different club then the one I normally ride with. There were several folks getting ready to ride. Just as we get ready here's comes a car zipping in and Jenn jumps out and slaps her bike together and is ready to ride in record time! Chris, her husband is in Washington (and hating not being one his bike with us). We head out and started pretty fast. Now these folks are heading to Cabot and the country side and I've already riden from the house so my paln was to ride until we got to he backside of the NLR airport and drop of through the neighborhood and get back to the house. We made it to Remont road and headed out toward Batesville Pike. I was having such a good time that I just kept on riding. We stopped at a coffee shop in Caot that was great and vert bike friendly. Bike friendly to the point of filling out water bottles with ice then water. That's customer service first class in my book! I had a vanilla latte over ice and a cinnamon scone (warmed even!). We started back and I was feeling good but seemed to be dogging a bit. I had some major gear slipping and it would be my most comfortable gear too! Hills, did I tell ya we were in the hill climbing mood today? When we came back around and had to climb the Batesville Pike my legs started calling me ugly names. I was climbing at a very lame 5mph. The I had to do something I've not done in about 3 weeks and that was drop into the little ring. I was glad I was in the back now because I was embarassed. Just sort of a downer to have to do that but then again, that's what the little ring is for. When we got back to the top of the hill and at the turn off for Maryland St. I bidded farewell to all including a couple of new guys (Brad and Bob... both strong riders) and turned toward home. I flew down Maryland for some reason and came out on JFK and had to sprint in traffic to the Walmart parking lot and cut through and up through the neighborhood to the house. No one home and I've forgotten to change the code box to open the garage door so I sat up on the front porch with my water enjoying the nice summer breeze. I later let myself in with my extra key. When I punched in my ride it came to almost 4200 calories burnt! I can pig out now! WooHoo!

Funny story: One of the guy's that was supposed to lead the ride had knee surgery on Thursdaay and he was so bummed about not riding that he came out to Cook's and pulled out a lawn chair and talked t us until we departed. Doc told him he could be back on his bike in 3 days. Tomorrow is the third day! Bill Stewart, get well soon!