Bike Ride Sunday April 3, 2005
Joining me on this ride were Tom and Pete.  I wasn’t sure I was going to do a ride this weekend.  Me and my family had just gotten back from our spring vacation in Florida the day before.  We drove home straight through with only a few breaks to get gas, eat and stretch our legs.  When we arrive around noon on Saturday I was exhausted.  I felt like I had jet lag.  I took care of a few things around the house that needed to be done, but other than that I just took it easy Saturday and went to bed early.  Come Sunday morning I felt much better and it was such a nice day I figured if anyone else wanted to ride then so would I.   

Other than being quite windy it was a very nice day.  Tom drove over to my house and we rode over to pick up Pete at his house.  When we started the wind was coming out of the south-west so we figured at least we would have the wind at our backs for the ride home if we started out heading south.  I don’t know why but I always enjoy riding south on Squirrel, so we decided to head that way toward Auburn Hills.  We rode up to Walton and we ended up cutting through the grounds of Oakland University to get to Squirrel Road.   There are a couple nice hills on Squirrel along this route.  We took advantage of the down hill sections and at one point I got up to 32.5 mph.  There is either something wrong with my speedometer or me, because I just can’t seem to get past 32.5.  At this point I am going to blame my speedometer, I just don’t want to think my physical limit is so low.  Part way through the ride I noticed the wind appeared to be changing directions, I had a feeling this was going to be one of those rides where no matter which direction we went we were going to end up riding against the wind.  This ride was turning into a good physical challenge.   

We rode past the backside of the Chrysler headquarters and over M-59 on our way to the downtown area of Auburn Hills.  I have stated before, but it is worth repeating, the city of Auburn Hills did a very nice job on Squirrel especially at the crossing over of M-59, it is very bike friendly.  Not much is open in downtown Auburn Hills on Sunday.  We had to ride a around for a little bit to find a Subway in a shopping center off South Blvd for lunch.  Pete had one of those Subway cards with the stickers filled out so he planned to get a free sub.  Apparently someone had been selling the stickers on Ebay and Subway has discontinued this promotion and no longer honors these cards.  Too bad for Pete, he didn’t get to use his card for a free sub, just bad luck. 

Just as I thought might happen the wind did almost a complete 180 and it was in our face for the ride home after lunch. 

After lunch Pete decided he wanted a malt from Maggie Moos.  This gave us a reason to head east to Adams Road on the way home.  For the couple short moments when the wind was pushing from behind I just stopped pedaling and enjoyed the free ride from Mother Nature.  When we got to the Village shopping center where Maggie Moos is located I think we were all ready for a short rest.  Tom and I sat on the bench outside the ice cream place waiting for Pete.  We sat around for a few more minutes while Pete finished his vanilla malt.  Tom commented a couple times how this was a tough ride due to the wind and he asked me a couple times how many miles we had ridden.  I didn’t take any pictures during this ride and surprisingly enough even with the combination of Tom and Pete nothing out of the ordinary took place.  I think we were all working so hard pedaling and just focusing on getting home that we didn’t have the energy to do anything interesting or unusual on this ride.  Stay tuned though, I’m sure both Pete and Tom will keep us entertained in the future, it just comes naturally to both. 

Following are the statistics from this ride; 19.7 total miles, 32.5 max speed, 10.1 average mph and 1 hour and 56 minutes total time moving on bikes.

David Lindquist