On Saturday July 2, 2005 Pete and I were the only club members to go on the bike ride.  Being a holiday weekend this ride was planned on short notice.  Pete is currently checking out various GPS units and he wanted to demo a couple so we decided to ride to the Oakland Mall area and go to Circuit City. 

I rode over to pick up Pete at his house.  Our plan was to ride down PCT and then cut over to John R Road and take it all the way to 15 Mile Road.  The weather was again perfect for a bike ride, the sun was out and the temperature was warm.  We knew this would end up being a fairly lengthy ride and this would make three consecutive long rides for me and Pete.  There were quite a few people out on the trail taking advantage of the nice day. 

Before this ride I installed the new pedals with toe clips and straps that I purchased on the last bike ride.  This would be my first ride of any length using the toe clips.  I rode around my neighborhood for a few minutes right after installing them just to make sure they were working proper.  They seemed to work fine and I was ready to give them a trial on a long ride.  It didn’t take long to notice the benefit the toe clips provide, especially on hills.  I should have gotten toe clips long ago, they are definitely an advantage. 

John R turned out to be a decent route heading south from Rochester Hills.  There were only a couple spots where we had to ride in the street in areas where we ran out of sidewalk.  Most of Troy has nice wide sidewalks along John R.  Again, as soon as we crossed M59 we noticed the land flattened out and the riding became more consistent and easier.   

Pete came up with the idea of stopping at White Castle for lunch, I also like White Castle so this became our lunch destination.  It was still too early for lunch and we were still a few miles away when we came across a Seven Eleven.  We each had a coupon for a free Slurpee that we got in our gift bag from the Tour de Cure.  It was time for a break and a Slurpee sounded good.  We pulled into the Seven Eleven and pulled out our coupons.  We noticed the coupon allowed only a 12 ounce size, which is quite small.  Pete asked a girl working there if we could upgrade to the next size for the 25 cent difference in price, she said it was OK.  After a couple sips of our Slurpees we were back riding.  I put my drink in the water bottle holder on the frame, saving it to drink during lunch. 

A few more miles down the road and we finally arrived at White Castle.  Pete and I each worked up a decent appetite, we each ordered four cheese burgers.  I asked for ketchup on mine, they asked me if I still wanted mustard as well.  I told them yes, I would like both ketchup and mustard.  It didn’t matter, when I got my order none of them had ketchup.  Instead of complaining I just went up to the counter and grabbed a few small ketchup packages.  When I was up at the counter there were two elderly gentlemen at the drink dispenser trying to figure out how to get water.  I showed them where the special water button was located and they thanked me for solving their dilemma.  Pete actually ate his lunch at a reasonable speed, I only had one cheeseburger left by the time he finished, normally I am just starting to eat by the time he is completely done telling me it is time to go.    

Next stop was Circuit City.  Pete barrowed my phone and made a couple calls while I located the GPS units.  The guy working in the department was not familiar with these units so he went to find his boss.  The other guy was very helpful and patient with Pete.  They opened up a couple boxes and compared a couple Garmin units.  The one I really liked was the one that was a combination PDA and GPS.  It was really cool, I have my eye on this one for the future.  After we spent about 20 minutes at Circuit City Pete was done and it was time to head home. 

The ride home was uneventful.  As usual it was a good workout heading primarily up hill the last few miles.  Following are the ride statistics from this ride, 34.5 total miles, 22.5 max speed, 11.3 mph average speed and 3 hour and 2 minutes on bikes.
David Lindquist