Pages

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Mission accomplished

Well I made it. I only broke two spokes this time, about 25 miles out. I was determined to make it but at that point I was sure I wasn’t going to make it back home. I stopped along the side of the Great River Road, river to the left and bluffs to the right. I decided to call Beth and ask her to pick me up once I got to the park, but my phone was dead. When I tried to call out it showed “emergency calls only” on the display. I thought this was an emergency! I guessed that when I got to Grafton I would use a pay phone, but the only one I saw was broken. I kept on going only much slower, before the broken spokes I was averaging over 17mph which is good for me, after I was probably doing about 13mph. After about 3 hours and 43 miles I finally arrived. I went to the lodge and reluctantly paid the desk clerk 75cents to use the phone. I called Beth and asked her to come and get me. I found a nice picnic table and ate a peanut butter and honey sandwich that I brought from home. Now all I had to do was wait. Beth arrived in a timely manner and we loaded up the bike and drove to the Cyclery and once again dropped off my bike. I am going to call them tomorrow and find out what they are going to do. I think I should get this one fixed for free or at reduced cost since it happened so soon after they fixed it. Any way the important thing is that I made it.

Riding My Bike To Pere Marquette State Park

I’m going to make another attempt at this today. Last time didn’t go so well but the flood waters have receded, and my bike has been repaired, so I should be able to make it. I hope to ride home also which would make 80 miles round trip. I expect that I will have to call Beth and have her pick me up somewhere along the way home. I am bringing some food, and plenty of water. I also will be carrying some spare inner tubes, and other accessories. I wish I had a small camera to take along so I could add some photos of the route. I think I will ask the kids if I can borrow one of theirs. Well I better get going so I can get ready to go. Wish me luck.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

wii Fit

Beth bought a wii Fit yesterday. We brought it to my sister's house yesterday, and everyone had a good time with it. ("sidebar"- Ending a sentence with a preposition should be allowable grammatically. It is just more natural sounding. Take the previous sentence for example the correct way to say it is "and with it everyone had a good time" that just doesn't sound right to me. But I digress). I haven't used it yet but I plan to in just a bit when I get done posting a few things here and there.

Oh No not AGAIN!!!

Since my road bike needs to go to the shop for new spokes I figured I would brush the dust off my mountain bike and take it out for a spin yesterday. About two miles from home pedaling started to feel weird. I thought my left pedal was going to fall off but as it turns out the whole left crank arm came off. I bet I looked silly standing there next to my bike trying to disengage from the pedal with the crank arm hanging from it. So that's two bikes down in two rides. Luckily I can fix the mountain bike myself, it just looks like the bolt that hold everything together came loose.
I also ran 6.2 miles yesterday after I made it home from the bike ride. I was surprised that I ran that in my 2nd fastest time ever. Maybe there is something to the idea of warming up after all.