What a wonderful day to ride. Clouds and sunshine mixed, and only a little wind, got us off to a good start. We needed to do a long ride today. We are pretty bored with doing the same routes, but really needed a mix of hills and flat today, so once again, we pedaled to the White Pine Trail.
No turtles schlepping across the road, but in a pond, I saw a cluster of them, gathered, like knots on a log, soaking up the sun. They were to distant to see what kind of turtles they were, or to get a picture, but close enough to enjoy. So many things to see, hear and smell on our rides. I never tire of what the Lord has in store for us.
Seeing the turtles, reminded me of last weeks lunch time experience. We were sitting at the kitchen table, having tuna sandwich's. I glanced out the french doors, to the lake, which is about 300 ft from our house. A BIG bird swooped down, about 10 feet from the waters edge, and flew up with a fish, dangling from it's claws. The fish was good sized, perhaps a pike, feeding on minnows, in the shallows. I couldn't see what kind of bird had caught it, until the hunter landed on the shore with it's prize. As I watched the scene play out, I described it to Tony. The bird's white head, clearly told me, it was a bald eagle. No docks or boats are in yet, to block my view, so I could see the fish flopping around on the shore, the sun glinting of it's scales. Once again the eagle pounced on it's prey. The binoculars were in our camping trailer, so I couldn't get a close up view, but I could see, from the motion of the birds head, that it was ripping off, pieces of the fish and eating them, while holding the fish down with it's claws. This went on for about 10 minutes. Then the eagle flew into a tree, leaving the remains of it's meal to the raven scavengers, that had begun to gather. Our lunchtime, nature show, was over. It was the best dessert we had all week.
3 dog hill had no barks to greet us today, and the 3 billy goats were in the fenced in area beside the barn. A little ways up the road, there is a new building on our route. It is a nice looking pole barn.
As we watched it being built last fall, we wondered if someone was going to live there, but as far as we can tell it, is a business that sells outdoor, wood burning furnaces. A well trained dog lay in front of the building, watching us ride past. The owner even came out to make sure, the dog was staying, put. A cyclers, dream.
Our wireless cycling compute/odometer is very erratic. Sometimes the mileage is accurate, other times it isn't. It seems to add mileage, when we ride longer distances. There are times, when a 20 mile ride, feels like a 27 mile ride, but the truth, is the truth, and an erratic odometer doesn't change a thing. We have been riding familiar courses, where we know the mileage, but not knowing our true speed, drives me nuts. As far as we can figure, it clocks us at about 3MPH faster than we usually ride. We have a Bontrager, trip 3, wired computer, but haven't had time to get it put on yet.
At times, Rollin has been throwing a chain when he is in low gear, so I have been avoiding using low gear. I finally I ordered a jump stop, which goes on by the front deraileur, and keeps the chain where it should be. We have one on Rosie, and it works great. Tony's new crank arms should be here next week, will try to find a week day to ride into the bike shop, and have the cranks arms, the odometer and the jump stop all put on at once.
Last week, our new Luxry-Lite cot came and we got it assembled easily. The company upgraded the cot we returned, to the deluxe version, but really, we couldn't tell much difference. The cot is light weight and comfortable to lie on. Tony pulled to hard on one of the rings ,it released suddenly, hitting him in the chin. Later, we saw that the ring was cracked. Guess we'll be finding out how good the lifetime warranty on the cot is, the part has been returned.
Plowed fields, hills, pine forests, marshlands, full croaking of frogs, and sunning turtles, kept us company as we pedaled along. Trees on the verge of leafing lined the trail as we made our way to the beaver pond, where we stopped for a snack. Trillium is on almost flowering. The trail is ready to burst into summer, even though parts of it are still brown.
Our legs are telling us the training is paying off. The hills don't seem quite as steep, and on the flats we have more wind in our sails. Each ride, seems a little better than the last. Mixing hill riding with the trail, gives us the chance to build muscle and endurance, while doing some speed work too. Today, we rode 32 miles., our longest ride this season.
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