Monday July 24, 2006 Pete and I did an evening ride after work.   

Late July 2006 and the weather has been very warm and humid.  Riding in the evening after work is nice because typically the temperature has dropped a little making the riding a little more pleasant.  

I am going to go off topic for a minute.  The day before on Sunday July 23 Bob and I took our kayaks over to Stoney Creek Lake.  It was again very warm, but overall just a perfect day for kayaking.  Even when the temperature is in the upper 90s it doesn’t feel bad when you are out on the water in a kayak.  The water was as smooth as I have ever seen it before.  There were times when the water surface didn’t even have a slight ripple.  Bob was paddling after a couple swans and got relatively close.  They didn’t seem to mind him so close by in his kayak.  I took a couple pictures of Bob out in front of me while he was following the swans.  In a couple of the pictures you can see the clear reflection on the water surface of the trees on the shore and the clouds in the sky.  I think these pictures turned out quite well considering they came from my cell phone. 

Back to the bike ride.  I rode over and met Pete at his house.  From there we headed over to the trail.  Coasting down Dutton hill on the way to the Paint Creek Trail (PCT) we reached our maximum speed.  We took the trail south into town.  We got off the trail on Woodward and headed east toward Rochester Road.  This isn’t the same Woodward that connects Detroit and Pontiac.  We have a secondary road that runs east and west just south of Tienken that is also named Woodward.  Pete has a real sweet tooth for heath blizzards at the Dairy Queen so we stopped for desert.  I enjoy an ice-cream treat as well, so I never argue when Pete suggests stopping for a blizzard.  

Pete had a book on hold at the Library.  So, the library was going to be our next stop.  It is just a short ride from the Dairy Queen on Rochester Road to the Library.  Once we got there Pete went inside and I waited outside sitting on a bench relaxing next to our bikes.  Due to a long line at the check out counter it took Pete a bit longer than I expected.  Once Pete had his book we were back on our bikes starting our ride home. 

We took a regular route back toward home.  At one point after having just cut through an elementary school there were some young kids sitting in their driveway just goofing around.  Shortly after they noticed us they started yelling out for us to honk our horns.  Pete had told me about these kids, but this was the first time I had experienced this type of recognition.  Pete’s air horn was low on air and he when he tried to give the kids a blast the lack of air resulted in barely a short toot.  Since the kids were still yelling I pressed the button on my air horn and gave them a good loud blast.  They seemed appreciative by yelling out and laughing. 

The rest of the ride home was an easy fun ride home. 

Following are the statistics from this ride, 17.4 miles total, 36.0 max mph, 1 hour and 36 minutes time on bikes and 10.8 average mph.
David Lindquist