Cramming It In

In about a week the whole damfam is heading to warmer pastures for a week.  We're finally biting the bullet and taking B to Disney.  A couple days of paying for Walt's cryogenics, a couple beach days, a couple something elses and then we'll be back.  This is our first real family vacation in over three years so thoughts of riding hasn't even entered my mind.  Even cyclists who live in Florida almost never consider going riding.  Who would want to really?  I'm totally talking out of my ass of course, having no riding experience down there, but from what I remember from my trip down there with my parents in junior high, the riding sucks.

but, I'm off target here.  With the impending 8+ days of riding exile on the horizon, I've been trying to eek out any rides that I can sprinkling in 3 hour rides here and there when the opportunities arise.  Sunday afternoon was just such a day.  45 degrees, sunny and windy as a mother fucker.  I chose a route that headed straight to the hills and kept me on narrow, twisty roads to minimize the wind effect.  It was a mostly uneventful ride with a few surprises.  Surprise numero uno is that my legs are actually feeling pretty good of late and a three hour ride leaves me wanting more.  Surprise number two was meeting this poor pooch on the road.

Don't see why he's sad?  Well, take a closer look:

Yep, that's one very enlarged sack.  At first I was concerned that the dog was a stray and I chased it down so that I could call the shelter but he/she eventually wandered into an establishment that looked to be a bit less than spandex tolerant so I let it go.

Surprise number three was the amount of gravel road that I hit.  I hadn't planned on any gravel for the ride but I was hitting a few unknown roads and google earth doesn't tell you if a road is gravel or not so hit them I did.  When you're on a skinny tired road bike it can be hard to hammer on such roads for fear of flatting but they were a nice change of pace and they weren't so soft that they were unenjoyable.

Surprise number four wasn't actually my surprise.  On one of my dirt road excursions I came up behind a family out for a walk.  I figured that they'd hear me clanging along but by the time I was within 20' of them, they still hadn't noticed and I didn't want to scare the shit out of them so I simply said "How's it going?" and I swear to god, if the woman had been Fred Sanford, she would have dropped dead right there.  Upon reflection, combining a deserted dirt road with a deep voiced (what can I say, my voice is dead sexy) greeting could leave someone a bit unnerved.

Dirt road two is lined with painted telephone poles.  Hippies live in them thar woods.