This week we had two official club bike rides; one on Saturday Oct. 30 and a second on Sunday Oct. 31, 2004.  Pete and I did the Saturday ride and on Sunday Bob joined Pete and I.   

Pete called me on my cell phone Saturday during the after game party for Jonathan and Mark’s soccer team.  We had just finished putting the closing touches on another victory to remain undefeated for the season.  Bob cooked up hot dogs and I bought pop and the parents brought a bunch of deserts, so we had a really nice party.  I told Pete I would call him in the afternoon once I got home and we could do bike ride.  Bob was busy preparing to host friends that evening, so he couldn’t join us for the Saturday afternoon ride.

Saturday turned out beautiful.  It rained during the night before and early morning, but cleared up in time for the 10:30 am soccer game and was very nice in the afternoon for the bike ride.  It was actually quite warm for this time of year, in the 70’s.  Pete and I both needed to be home by late afternoon and our ride started around 2:15 pm.  I rode over to Pete’s house and we left from there.  We took PCT south to Rochester and from there decided to head over to the old Rochester golf course to scope out how far the construction had progressed.  Pete still wanted to cut up some more putting green before the end of the year.  Once we got to the old golf course we were disappointed to find all remnants of the course had been consumed by the construction.  All the fairways, greens and the rest of the course had been plowed under.  There wasn’t anymore putting green to be had.  Needless to say Pete was extremely disappointed.  Even though Pete didn’t get as much green as he had hoped, the good news is the green that he did get is doing very well.  He is going to end up with a very cool and functional natural putting green on the side of his house with historical roots, no pun intended.

After riding around the entire perimeter of the course we decided to start back toward home.  This Saturday was the big Michigan vs. Michigan State football game, with kickoff at 3:30 pm.  I brought a radio in my burrito basket and pulled it out for the ride home.  I used wire ties to hang the radio from my handlebars so I could listen to the game during the ride home.  Michigan wasn’t playing very well and it seemed like this was going to be State’s day to pull off the upset.  Those that follow college football know this game turned out to be quite a classic with Michigan winning in triple overtime.  I am still not sure how State let this game slip away.

Even though it was a nice day temperature wise, it was very windy.  At some points during the ride I actually had to lean into the wind sideways while riding to prevent from being blown over.  I heard on the radio during a weather break that the winds were gusting up to 50 mph.  The wind made riding both fun and difficult.  During the ride home Pete decided to use the wind, which at the time was blowing in a northeast direction, to see if he could break our speed record going down the decline on the sidewalk on Livernois between Avon and Walton.  So, technically this was a wind aided attempt, but perfectly legal in our bike club.  Pete did end up setting a new record, he got up to 37.7 mph.  By the time I realized what he was doing it was too late for me to keep up.  I followed behind, but never even got into third gear on the large sprockets, so I only got up to 34.5 mph.  Even though Pete was going faster it seemed like I went faster than 34.5, oh well, I assume my speedometer is working correctly so it must be accurate.  

After our short stretch of speed riding the rest of the trip home was difficult riding up the gradual hills with the swirling winds.  Over all we had a nice ride that turned out to be a good work out.  Following are the statistics from this ride.  Early in the ride we stopped at the Rochester Bike Shop, Pete had a question about his bike.  When we went inside I took off my speedometer and put it in my pocket to prevent someone from stealing it while we were in the store.  I forgot to put it back on until later in the ride, but with the help of Pete’s speedometer I was able to figure our distance accurately, but I do not have our actual ride time for this ride.  22.0 total miles, 37.7 and 34.5 max speeds, 9.8 mph average speed.

We started the Sunday ride early because both Pete and Bob needed to be home somewhat early this day.  With daylight savings time this weekend the clocks were moved back one hour Sunday morning.  The plan was to pick up Bob at 7:30 am and then meet at Pete’s house at 7:45 am.  Pete must have warned me half a dozen times not to forget the time change for the ride Sunday morning.  I stayed up late, very late for me, messing around with a new cable I had just received that connects my camera phone to my computer.  The idea behind this cable is it is supposed to allow you to download your pictures from the phone to a computer without having to email and pay the Verizon fee per picture.  I was struggling locating the proper drivers and software to use with the cable.  I finally gave up and went to bed very late.  While lying in bed Sunday morning I heard our grandfather clock start chiming.  I thought it was going to chime six times, telling me I still had some time before I needed to get up and get ready for the ride.  Well then I heard a seventh chime and I thought I’d better get moving if I am going to be at Bob’s house by 7:30.  When the eighth chime went off, still half asleep, I jumped out of bed thinking I was late and both Bob and Pete were waiting for me.  Without even considering the time change, I jumped out of bed and got ready as quickly as I could.  I jumped on my bike and rode over to Bob’s house.  When I got there at what I thought was 8:10 am, really 7:10 am, the garage door was still closed, which is unusual for Bob.  I went to the front door and knocked, Bob answered and I apologized for being late.  Bob looked at me funny and said, your not late your early.  That is when it dawned on me that I had forgotten about the time change.  Oh well, I called Pete and told him to meet us at Brewster school. 

Our plan this Sunday was to ride up to the Greek Island for breakfast and then just do a nice short local ride.  Bob and I rode over to Brewster, we got there just a minute or two before Pete.  We saw Pete heading toward us in the distance, something looked funny, his head appeared larger than normal.  As he got closer it became apparent he was wearing a Jar Jar Binks mask on top of his bike helmet.  He was also wearing a small black cape.  At first this seemed strange, but then I thought about today being Halloween and the fact that Pete always dresses up for Halloween.  I took a couple pictures of Pete, see below.

After breakfast we rode around the downtown Rochester area.  We also went past the new Royal Park Hotel before heading back north on PCT.  When we got to Silverbell, Bob jumped off the trail and started heading home.  Pete and I were going to ride a little while longer, but a mile further up the trail it started to rain, so we decided to head back home as well.  We turned around and went back to Silverbell and got off the trail there.  We were probably only a few minutes behind Bob who took the same route home.  I don’t think Pete had ever gone east on Silverbell from this point.  It is a long gradual uphill for what seems like forever.  I am not sure if the Dutton Hill is better or worse than this stretch.  At least with the Dutton Hill you get it over quicker, on Silverbell this stretch wears you out.  Pete wore the Jar Jar Binks head the whole ride.  He got some interesting stares and comments form various people as he rode past.

Following are the statistics from this ride.  15.6 total miles, 21.0 max speed, 9.6 mph average speed and total time moving on bikes of 1 hour and 37 minutes.

David Lindquist