Continuing our streak of perfect weekend days, Saturday July 30, 2005 was another perfect day for a bike ride.  Bob mentioned to me earlier in the week that he wanted to ride Sunday and would not be riding Saturday.  Pete was in for Saturday, so it looked like I would be doing two rides this weekend.  No one else contacted me for Saturday so I thought it was going to be just me and Pete. 

Plan was to meet Pete at his house around 9:00 am.  When I arrived at Pete’s I found out Pete’s daughter Laura was going to ride with us again.  This would make two weekends in a row for Laura.  I guess Laura must have enjoyed herself to come back for more.  This time Laura invited one of her friends, Katie.  Both girls did quite well.  We did have to make a couple short stops to allow Katie to catch her breath, but overall she did just fine and Katie is our latest new member.    

We decided to take the trail north to Lake Orion.  Both Laura and Katie took their time going down the Dutton hill on the way to the trail.  Dutton was a little bumpier than normal and there were quite a few loose stones on the dirt road surface, so both Pete and I were also cautious going down the hill.  Once we got to the trail entrance it was only about a half minute before Laura and Katie caught up. 

Since last weekend’s ride Pete bought new tires for Elaine’s bike, which is the bike Laura has been using.  The new tires are the type found on hybrid bikes, better for road surface by being less knobby.  These tires are the same type as Pete and I have on our bikes.  This would make the ride a little easier for Laura.  Katie was borrowing another bike from Pete’s family inventory.  It was a green mountain bike with normal mountain bike knobby tires.  I think the tires were a bit low on air so this would be a good workout for Katie.  Just before lunch we stopped and filled the tires with the proper amount of air, this made the ride home a bit easier.   

On our way to Lake Orion we came across a couple different piles of horse manure on the trail.  Pete and I were out front and each time we came up to a pile of manure he would yell out a warning to the girls behind.  We would shortly come across the source of the manure.  There were two mounted police officers, one male and one female riding their horses north bound on the trail.  As we slowed down and rode next to the horses Pete honked his duck horn which caused one of the horses to make a slight movement to the right.  Thank goodness he didn’t startle the horses too much, I wonder if they could arrest Pete for something if he had upset either horse too much.  As we slowly passed by Pete told them that their horses had left a mess back on the trail.  The male officer understood Pete was joking and he quickly replied it couldn’t be their horses, must have been from someone else.  The female office just replied, “Oh Well”, she didn’t seem to be as tolerant of Pete’s humor. 

As I stated earlier, we made a couple short stops along the trail and the girls took this time to have a drink of water.  Once we got near the end we cut over to Lapeer Road and continued to head north on the sidewalk.  It was still relatively early so we decided to keep riding before looking for a place for lunch.  We went through the old downtown area where we saw the slow progress of the rebuild of the Sagebrush.  After we rode down the main street we made a left on to the sidewalk of Flint Street.  There was a restaurant on Flint and a few people were sitting outside of this restaurant so we had to be careful riding past.  At one point we had to weave our bikes right and then make a quick left.  After the left there was an Observer and Eccentric newspaper box right in front of us.  Laura was a little late turning her front tire to the right and she ran right into the newspaper box.  It made kind of a loud bang, but Laura recovered quickly and really never did fall.  She was laughing about it and she didn’t appear to hurt herself or the newspaper box.  

We continued on and headed to Lapeer Road again.  We went further north all the way until the sidewalk ran out, which is only another mile or so.  Near the end of the sidewalk is where the old Boathouse restaurant is located, it is now a Buffalo Wild Wings.  We rode around the parking lot and behind this restaurant before heading back south.  It was at this point we finally stopped at a gas station to check the air in the tires on the bike Katie was using.  The rear tire checked out just a little over 15 lbs, no wonder she was struggling on this ride.  We filled both tires to the proper pressure.  After the gas station we started talking about where to stop for lunch, I think the girls were ready for a break.  They wanted to go to the Taco Bell on the west side of Lapeer.  Pete and I thought this would be fine, even though Pete is very disappointed with Taco Bell since they stopped carrying the green sauce.  Personally I never used the green sauce so I don’t miss it, but it is really a sore point with Pete.  If I remember correctly Steve is also a big fan of the green sauce.  We had a nice lunch at Taco Bell, I had a double decker taco and a chicken gordita.  I didn’t pay attention to what everyone else had, and Pete ate his so fast it was gone before I got a look. 

After lunch we talked about what route we should take back home.  Pete suggested taking the trail to Kern Road and then cutting over to Adams to avoid having to go up Dutton hill.  The girls wanted to see how far they could make it on the Dutton hill so we decided to retrace our route from earlier in the day.  Pete and I also decided since we were going to try and ride up the Dutton hill that we should try and match Bob’s accomplishment of riding up the second hill all the way to the next subdivision entrance.  Until this ride Bob was the only club member to have accomplished this feat.   

I took a couple pictures with my phone camera during this ride and I will post them at the end of the story. 

Riding south on the trail we maintained a much better pace than earlier.  It is naturally much easier going south on this trail due to the gradual downhill.  I think Katie was doing a better job keeping up now that she had the proper air pressure in her tires.  She was still at a disadvantage with the type of tires on her bike, but at least they weren’t half flat. 

Pete and I were out front when we got to Dutton and we made the right turn to start the ride up the hill.  I was following behind Pete and the girls were behind me.  Pete was making a steady slow climb up the hill.  About half way up the hill for some reason I decided to pass Pete and ride faster up the hill.  This was a mistake on my part.  I should have just maintained the nice slow pace.  By going faster I was working my lungs too hard.  Once you make it to the top of the first hill there is a short relatively flat portion before the incline starts up again.  I didn’t have enough time to recover before starting up the second incline.  I made it all the way but I was really sucking for air when I got to the top.  When I looked back I didn’t see Pete at first.  After waiting just a few seconds I saw Pete coming and he made it all the way without stopping as well.  We had to wait a few minutes before the girls showed up.  Apparently they made it about half way up the first hill before they walked the rest.  The girls didn’t do too badly, this is really a difficult hill, especially after you have just finished a relatively long bike ride.  From here it was just a short ride to Pete’s house and another 2.3 miles from Pete’s to my house.  Thus ends another outstanding ride on a beautiful day.   

Following are the statistics from this ride, 24.9 total miles, 25.5 max speed, 9.9 mph average speed and 2 hours and 29 minutes on bikes.
David Lindquist