Nov 28, 2006

lunch ride

met a couple of coworkers for lunch today... can't believe this awesome weather we're having...

to prepare for the ride, i put on the usual tee shirt with a henley over it. i decided to wear my leather coat with the liner - to help keep me a little warmer. i figured i probably didn't need my electric gloves, not quite that cold.

i headed out for the ride... ended up making two mistakes... first was dressing too warmly. although if you're not going to dress appropriately, it's much better to wear too much than not enough. luckily i was dressed in layers and could shed some of the clothing for the ride home... which is exactly what i did. ended up removing the liner in my coat, not using the henley and riding with my summer gloves. ride home was much nicer - especially since i took the back roads home...

second mistake was leaving too early. got my times confused and ended up leaving thirty minutes earlier than i needed. and i didn't realize it until i was about five minutes from the restaurant. not so bad - it gave me a chance to people watch. although there really wasn't much going on or to see...

again, ride home was nice because i was on two lane roads the whole time. they're much less crowded and have more twists and turns. great for riding on a day like today...

Nov 18, 2006

saturday ride - smithfield

took a ride down to smithfield today... as usual, it was a great day for a ride...

it started out with a short ride around the corner to attend our homeowners association meeting. what a joke that was. we're got a board that doesn't give a damn about what the home owners want and a bunch of homeowners that want to stick their heads in the sand. i was the only one who stood up and said anything at the meeting. of course, talking around the neighborhood, people tell you, i'll back you up. did that happen?? no... for the second year in a row, i put my name up for a position on the board. didn't win, again... at least i'm trying to make change instead of just whining about it...

after the meeting i was ready to ride... i needed to ride. as i threw my leg over the bike, i'm mumbling expletives in my head about the meeting, f-this, f-that, blah, blah, blah... i'm probably less that five miles down the road when the thoughts in my head are changing... i'm starting to think about the ride, the weather, the surroundings... before i knew it, thoughts of the homeowners meeting were totally out of my mind and i'm enjoying the hell out of the ride...

for me, that's one of the beauties of riding - it can be so relaxing, so meditating. it takes me to a different place - literally and figuratively!! it give me a new perspective - instead of looking at the negative and complaining, i start looking at the beauty in things.

i was prepared for a cool ride this morning. i bundled up in layers, put the face mask on and even geared up with the electric gloves. surprisingly, it was warmer that i thought it would be. i decided to start the trip to smithfield without the electric gloves and face mask. good choice because i didn't really need them and would have probably been a lot warmed that i needed to be... it was sunny and the skies were clear, except for a few white, puffy clouds floating around. again, a great day for a ride.

the ride down was uneventful. a little more traffic than usual. but that's not bad... the occasional person riding too slow... not that i wanted to be a speed demon, but at least keep up with the speed limit. it gets really frustrating to get behind someone going slow on a two lane road. especially this two lane road because there aren't many chance to pass. when you do finally have a passing lane, it's usually too short to pass, or the inevitable cage coming in the opposite direction. but, it doesn't matter, i'm enjoying the ride, being part of the countryside that i'm riding through.

got to smithfield and met up with some friends. we hung out for a couple hours and it was time to leave. ride home was gorgeous... didn't seem to get behind any one going slow... seemed as i approached people that might have been going slow, they turned off before i got to them.

while riding was nice today, it was also nice to get home...