On Monday July 4, 2005 my family was planning to visit Carol and Barry’s residence for our annual Huntington Woods fireworks party.  We don’t leave for Huntington Woods until around 4:00 pm so there is plenty of time before hand for a bike ride.  Everyone is busy and sometimes traveling so it is not unusual for these holiday rides to be small groups.  This day it was only Pete and me again. 

We had three rather large overgrown pine trees on the left side of my front yard taken down recently.  I am now in the process of cleaning up the leftover woodchips from the stump grinding and taking away some of the dirt to flatten out the land where the trees used to be located.  Pete still has the narrow trenches next to his driveway that he has been talking about filling in for a long time.  I told Pete he could take some of the dirt from the tree removal.  Pete came by in his new Magnum with a few large plastic totes and pails.  We filled up the totes and pails with dirt and before Pete left he suggested a bike ride.  I was ready for a break and agreed to meet Pete over at his house in a few minutes. 

We didn’t have any plans for this ride and since we started out somewhat late we knew it couldn’t be a long ride.  I wanted to be back in time to get ready for Carol and Barry’s without rushing.  The weather was perfect for a ride, warm and sunny but not too hot.  Steve had just recently repainted his driveway black and he was worn out from this job so he didn’t ride with us.  We rode by Steve’s house on the way to the trail and I must say Steve did an excellent job, the driveway is nice and uniformly freshly painted black.  I guess it is a rule in Steve’s subdivision that your driveway has to be black, seems like a strange rule to me, but what do I know.  

On the way to the Paint Creek Trail (PCT) we go down the Dutton hill just east of Pete and Steve’s subdivisions.  Dutton is a dirt road in that area and if the surface is somewhat smooth and you are brave you can gather quite a bit of speed going down this hill.  I think we could break the club speed record on this road, but it is usually a bit rough and a fall on this dirt road traveling at a rate over 35 mph wouldn’t be pretty.  

We headed south on the trail toward Rochester.  Since it was such a nice day it didn’t surprise me to see a lot of people out on the trail.  We saw people walking, jogging and riding bikes.  We didn’t see the horse back riders that we run into occasionally.  There was so much traffic on the trail Pete and I had to ride single file most of the way. 

It only take a couple minutes to reach Rochester from Dutton.  We even timed the Tienken Road crossing so we didn’t have to wait, this is unusual.  Since it was lunch time we thought it would be nice to eat at Penn Station.  A lot of the places were closed for the July 4 holiday, including Penn Station.  We had to find another place to eat.  We rode up and down Rochester Road looking to see what was open.  There were a few places open, but the majority of places were closed.  We ended up stopping at a Subway.  The daily special at subway was a turkey and ham sub.  This is what I usually get and Pete claimed it was his favorite, so we both got the special.  Pete got his toasted.  I think this is Subways attempt at competing with Quiznos.  Subway subs are quite good and I think the toasting just dries out the bread.  In my opinion their process of toasting is just off a little bit, it doesn’t make the sandwich better.  It does melt the cheese a little but it just dries out the bread too much. 

On the way home Pete wanted to stop off somewhere to get some beer.  Even though Steve didn’t go with us on this ride he was planning to go swimming at Pete’s once we were done.  Apparently Pete invited Steve over for a beer and he didn’t have any at home.  We stopped at a drug store and Pete picked up a six pack of 16 oz Miller Lite in plastic bottles.  At first Pete suggested I put the Beer in my burrito basket, I think he was just joking.  There was no way the beer would fit in the burrito basket.  Pete just carried the beer by hanging the plastic bag from the left side of his handle bars.  I took a picture of Pete with his beer and will post it at the end of this story. 

I told Pete to be careful with the beer hanging from his handle bars, I knew it would throw off the balance of his bike.  He started out fairly well, but the first time he had to make a turn he almost fell due to the excessive weight on one side.  That would have been quite a sight, Pete sprawled on the ground on top of his bike with bottles of beer scattered about.  Needless to say I had my phone camera on the ready in anticipation of a potential fall.  I guess I’m glad to say that Pete maintained his balance and never did fall.  At least he was thinking when he bought the plastic bottles of beer, if he did fall at least the beer would have survived. 

I passed on the swim and headed home and Pete headed to his house to meet Steve.  I hope they waited a couple minutes before opening their beers, otherwise they might have sprayed beer all over themselves and anyone else standing nearby.  Following are the ride statistics from this ride, 12.2 total miles, 28.5 max speed, 11.0 mph average speed and 1 hour and 6 minutes on bikes.
David Lindquist