off the path

my wife wanted to go for a ride again tonight. yippee! we took the same route that she in my youngest walked last night, so she could know how far there meandering had taken them.

when we got to the bike path heading south, i decided to give myself a bit of a workout and dropped off the path into the grass beside it. doing that, i've found, keeps me at my wife's speed. i rode down and across dried up waterways and through ditches. it was a blast!

when we turned around down by the river and headed back, i took the high road up and around and came back to the path and dropped back into the grass again. my wife accellerated. i pedaled like crazy and she kept riding away from me. when i finally caught her, she breathlessly reported she'd hit 16mph.

i returned to the pavement for a bit and then saw another opportunity to go offroading. i jerked my wheel left and dove down between the two rows of trees. my wife accellerated again. i was bouncing this way and that trying not to end up hanging from a tree like a modern day absolom. mind you, this is not a hard-packed trail. i was riding through tall grass, over very bumpy dirt made even bumpier by roots and sticks and mole tunnels. i laughed a lot as i wove in and out trying to catch that beautiful young woman who stole my heart more than 20 years ago.

toward the end of the rows of trees, the paved trail curves to the left. that's where i caught her. she had to slow for the bend in the sidewalk while i was able to plunge almost straight forward.

back together again we proceded home. that's when she decided we needed a bit more riding. she wanted to know how far our regular walking took us. so after a brief stop to drop off our sunglasses, we were out on the streets again. i took a few small detours on this once-around-town loop, but mostly not through the grass. people tend to frown on cyclists riding through their manicured lawns. the loop was 1.6 miles.

what a fun ride! my wife loved time with me. i loved the crazy stuff. and floyd was beaming from gear to gear. let's do it again! (6.80 miles @ 9.6mph)