Came home from church, ate, and got ready to go for a ride. We need to do 2 long rides a week, so decided to do one on our hilly roads in the area and the other on the mostly flat, paved portion of the White Pine Trail that goes from LeRoy to Cadillac. We figure the PALM course will be a mix of hills and flat land, so training on both will help us be prepared. With hills we have to work hard to get up, but get to rest on the way down. On flat stretches, we just pedal and pedal, coasting once in awhile to give our legs a rest. We knew we would be to tired to deal with 4 miles of hills from our LeRoy to our house when we were done riding, so we loaded the trike up on the trailer and drove to the trail in LeRoy. They have a nice parking area to leave the car and trailer. We put a padlock on the hitch coupler clamp lock on the trailer, to help dishonest people resist the urge to try and make our trailer, their very own.
It was partly cloudy and in the mid 50's, winds were about 5-10 MPH, a nice day to ride. We thought we would see more people on the trail than we did, but I think many were having Easter dinner with family. We rode by a house in Tustin where an Easter egg hunt was in full swing. Even as we were riding away we heard, "I found one", another one said, "I found 2. Later on we saw 1 lone, orange jelly bean on the trail. Probably some kid was riding with their Easter treats dropped it. Further down the trail, someone had written, "Happy Easter" in bright yellow chalk.
Button was sad that he didn't get to go along today. His new carrier won't go on with the panniers, so until I figure out how to do that he will have to stay home. Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, hoping to work on getting it modified then. I'll pick up the parts I need when I go into town to get groceries.
Saw quite a large flock of Canadian geese by another pond, but couldn't get close enough to get a good picture. We were serenaded by spring peepers quite a few times, sometimes from both sides of the trail, peeper in stereo. For those of you who haven't heard spring peepers in awhile, here is a link. Many of the ares we rode past today, looked similar to this. We also heard frogs croaking and saw some ducks in a pond.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5GyKoVWehI
As we got closer we got to Cadillac we saw more action on the trail, people out walking their dogs, riding bike , taking a baby for a walk or out running. Someone asked if they could take a picture of us on our trike, of course we said yes. Heard quite a few comments on how cool our trike was, and someone asked us how fast it went. Our answer, "really fast down hill, slower than a slug, going up." It's not real common to see a trike in our area, much less, a tandem trike. We did meet 2 other trike riders on the trail, stopped and chatted a few minutes. They have as much fun on their trikes as we have on ours.
Fortunately, we did NOT have a bear encounter. Found out later, that there have been quite a few bears hanging out around the area where M115 goes over the trail , which is just before this tunnel. Bird feeder have been destroyed.
There is one bathroom stop on the trail, it is about 1 mile and a half form Cadillac, near a staging area for snowmobiles. We were glad to see it. seems like necessity stops are few and far between. It's much worse when we are road riding.
By the time we were at 30 mile mark, by butt hurt, my ankles hurt, my thighs and calves hurt. I can see, we will need more training and the Lord's help to make it through PALM 30. We stopped, got up and walked around some, had a snack, and felt better. It was only 4 more miles back to the car.
We rode 34 miles today, putting our total mileage for the week at 78 miles. Tony, who is in charge of the training schedule was happy with that, and so was I. I must say I am glad we will have tomorrow off from riding. It will be good to have a rest.
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