617.93 miles
49:13:07
| Since we only have one 40 mile route out here, this weekend we hit the Six Cities again. Not too much to complain about on this ride. The trip out to Subway was nice and uneventful. We even ran across a reasonably cognizant driver! As we were tooling up a slight hill, about 5 miles from Subway, a guy in a convertible passed me (and Rebecca, who was about 6 bike-lenths behind me). He needed to make a right turn just in front of where I was. Rather than doing the annoying thing (turning right in front of me, cutting me off), he slowed down and showed realization that I was there by waving me by. I think he also let Rebecca by. Of course, the correct thing to do would have not pulled up just in front of me, and just slowed down so he turned behind me. But hey, 80% right is pretty good. :) Of course, we stopped at the Lowry Nature Center again. This time we brought the camera, and I got a decent picture of the Indian Pipe we'd seen last weekend.   We also got some information on making a butterfly garden, which we might do with some of the "undeveloped" land in the back yard. There's a couple of places that's mostly just weeds or dirt/woodchips that would look good planted up with things like cone flowers and the like - stuff that'll attract butterflies. The ride back went well too. We had to push our way though a couple of large herds of 8 MPH lolligaggers - families out weaving back and forth across the path. The worst part is when I'd pass them, as soon as I went past, people would weave back out - right into Rebecca's path! So now we just announce both of ourselves, even though it's really redundant. Thank god people don't drive like that (oh wait, some of them do). Rebecca had more gumption today, and it showed. Over a quarter of a mile per hour faster than last weekend! |
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| I reworked this route, removing the annoying trek through 5 MPH gravel paths. The result: about 3 miles shorter, and much more enjoyable. We also found a new way from Subway to the trails - all right turns, instead of fumbling through parking lots and walking down grassy slopes. Hooray! Our side-trek into the Lowry Nature Center was quite enjoyable as well. We decided to lock up the bikes this time and amble along one of the hiking trails. I strapped the Banjo Brothers trunk bag on my shoulder, and off we went! Quite nice trails, and we managed to not get lost. We also came across an interesting plant that looks like a mushroom/flower mix. We inquired at the nature center, and found out it was an Indian Pipe. Never know what you'll find - too bad I didn't have a camera long. After this ride, we got to enjoy a soak in the hot tub. The best part of the ride! :) |
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| Today we thought we'd see about getting to the Midtown Greenway via the Kennilworth (sp?) trail out of Hopkins. Basically the same as a ride we took a few weeks ago that took us up to St. Louis Park, only shorter. Fairly short ride, we might make it into a "loop" by going up this way, then heading north to the spur and either looping back right away, or riding up to St. Louis Park and back. It still takes us back to Hopkins and then back home the same way, but it's a little loopy. |
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| We tried out my latest route creation, the Six City Sampler (so named because we end up going through Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, Chanhassen, Chaska, Victoria, and Excelsior). You can see the route (or approximately it - we had a construction detour at 312) over at RouteSlip. It was a pretty good ride, although I think we're going to nix the part where we travel through the twisty off-road trails. They were crushed limestone, but nowhere near as hard-packed as the LRT trails are. Although I'm proud to say we didn't get lost! The worst part about this ride was the dope-acy of some of our fellow bicyclers. People who are riding two-abreast down the trail and they don't move into single-file when there's oncoming traffic (ie: us!). I mean, if you're gonna crowd the path, at least crowd your travel partner, not the stranger coming the other way who really should have access to their half of the path. And thanks to the Victoria resident who gave us some directions when streets weren't labeled. In truth, we ended up finding our way using the original directions we got, but he was quite friendly about giving us advice. We also stopped at the Lowry Nature Center just outside of Victoria, which made for a nice 5-ish mile detour. It's a good place to stop and go to the bathroom, too. I think we'll re-do parts of this ride so it's not as annoying in the middle. But all in all, it looks like a pretty decent 40-ish mile ride. Our speed wasn't so hot on this ride, although dorking around the gravel paths dropped our average by over 2 MPH just in the time we spent on them. |
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| Tonight we went up Woodland/Tonkawood up to the northern corridor of the SW LRT trails. Then we went southwest, down through Excelsior and beyond. This was a nice stretch of trail, and even getting through Excelsior was pretty easy. I think we were about 4 miles away from the end of the trail, but we'll explore that this weekend on a loop route I'm working on. That is, as long as I don't get us completely lost. Anyone have good ideas about what to name the new route? :) |
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| Once again, out exploring. This time we rode into Hopkins and crossed over to the north corridor at 5th Avenue. After putzing around a bit, we found our way to the trail (it's down a block further than I expected). Our plan was to go up to 101 and try and work our way back to where we tried to get through the other week. We managed to make it to 101 (going through Hopkins was pretty slow - crossing roads every block and whatnot), but since 101's under construction, the path kind of falls apart if you're going to go back south again. We ended up just getting on 101 and going the 4 blocks to Excelsior, then just heading home. I think I've seen now where we were supposed to go under Highway 7, although both of us still remember it looking more like a glorified drain pipe, rather than a tunnel. But it's somewhat of a moo point since we can't really get anywhere from there until 101's better. |
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| Tonight's ride started out as an exploration to see if we could connect with the paths we were on previously, perhaps finding them from the other direction. We went up 62, then hit the LRT and went into Hopkins. At that point, we could either go on the Hutchinson Spur or the northern corridor of the LRT. The sign was a bit confusing. Mostly because the heads on the arrows were kinda small, and we were biking at the time. Anyway, I took us on the wrong direction, and we ended up going up the Spur. It was all good - it connects with the Cedar Lake trails that we used to rollerblade on when we first met (and when I had an apartment out there). We biked up to the end, by downtown:  Then we turned around, and came home. It was a nice 30-ish mile ride, and it was a nice night to be out. We'll try the other way next time. : |
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| Our intent tonight was to shoot down Excelsior to the library, and take the paths by it up past highway 7 to the northern corridor of the LRT trails out here. We should have taken the actions of a certain pedestrian as a sign of what was to come. The paths we were on are crushed limestone, and at many points on this section they get down to maybe 4 or 5 feet wide. Plenty of room for a bike to pass a walker, even a dog with a walker, provided they pick a freakin' side and move to it, rather than just stare at you as you slow down more and more, trying to figure out which way to go around them. The end result was me moving over so far that I hit a sandy shoulder and went down (feet disengaging from the pedals as I hit the ground, thankfully) and Rebecca going down because she was right after me. I managed to not say anything snide to the woman who finally moved over when we were laying in the path. As I've said before ... I'm all for yielding to pedestrians, but I expect them to make an attempt to move over too. Anyway, we continued on, expecting this path to continue along 101 as advertised. But instead we found ourselves going east along highway 7. Then the trail just up and ended. Not what the map had me expecting. We ended up turning around, going back down to 62 and getting on the LRT trail going north from there. We biked into Hopkins, and saw where we could hit the northern corridor, or the other trails that go off of it which continue into Minneapolis. We may try that route and see if we can find our way back to where we thought we could go another day. We both remember what looked more like a drainage tunnel than a path that went under highway 7 - maybe it was the path. :O Oh well, at least we got a picture for this route. Deer stopping to drink at a pond that smelled like a port-a-potty. Maybe it's the pond where all the deer come to crap. |
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| We managed to get enough stuff out of the garage so that I could find all the biking gear, and thus we were finally able to get a little ride in around the new location. We biked down to Banta, so I could get an idea of how the ride to work was - 20 minutes at a fairly leisurely pace. It'll be a little while before I start biking to work, but now I have some idea of when I'll need to leave. After that, we went back up north to 62. On our way there, we passed some bicyclists that you do not want to be associated with. Picture if you will: two people on bikes, riding on the road, no helmets, going about 10 miles an hour side-by-side. One of them was swerving around as though there was nobody else on the planet (well, almost). This was on Dell Road, which while not a highway is also not a deserted road. We passed them up and as we did, one of them said, "Oh! You're making us look bad!" Rebecca told me later that her comment inside her head was, "No, that's you making yourselves look bad." Once we got to 62, we went east a mile or so to hook up with the southwest regional LRT trail. We went south on that for about 4 miles, hitting construction and a detour around 312. Then we turned around and came back, because by that time it was about 8:30. We survived the rolling hills of Minnetonka pretty well (considering it's been about 2 months since we got appreciable exercise). We'll probably do some more exploratory rides, and hopefully come up with some good routes soon! |
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| A not-too-hot day on a weekend was the perfect invitation to hit the Forbidden City Circle. And as usual, the ride didn't disappoint. We were smart enough to go on a Saturday (and to leave earlier, too), so by the time we go to Subway there wasn't even a line. Much better than the 20 minute wait as everybody and their brother orders 4 or 5 sammiches a piece. Rebecca managed to forget that her shoes were attached to her pedals again, but only once. It was a noneventful spill, taken on a path up to the bathrooms at our usual post-lunch bathroom stop. Trial by fire, baby! We'll miss this ride when we move southwest - hopefully we'll find something just as good. Or we'll have to make this into part of an 80 mile ride or something. ;) |
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| We got the word that the house inspection was fine, so we're all set to sell our house! We celebrated by going on a quick bike ride. It was Rebecca's first time out with her Egg Beater pedals. She managed to only fall once, and it was pretty early in the ride. We had a pretty crappy average tonight, because part of the trails are dug up for repair. And man, they needed it! Probably won't get done before we move, so our last ride on this route may be our slowest in a long time. :O |
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| Our intent was to have a nice bike ride before we dug in and got the house all ready to show. But man, this ride was almost too much work to enjoy! It started out with the new chain I got for my bike. Unfortunately, since I basically use the top 3 gears on my cassette 97% of the time, they were worn so far that the new chain skipped. I found this out as we left the house. So I had to turn around and put my old chain back on. Then we tooled around just fine until we came to the railroad tracks just after crossing the Camden bridge - there was actually a train there! We had to sit and wait for that to finish before we could head out again. Most of the ride otherwise was good - we got to Subway, had our lunch, and left. But once we hit the trails we found out just how many other people though it would be a good day to be outside. So many people! It wasn't a bad ride, just not as easy as it usually is. |
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| The Forbidden City Circle was one of our favorite rides from last year (all 3 times we did it), and it's starting out as our favorite ride this year too. We had a beautiful day - sunny, 72°, not much wind. And of course the mostly-hill free nature of the ride. Of course, there was one major downside: we violated the two most important rules of this ride, and we violated them at the same time.
But in the end, we had a really nice ride. Let's do it again sometime! |
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| A nice warm Saturday beckoned us to ride to the Coon Rapids Dam. As it turned out, Tom and Fran hadn't made their ride of it yet, so they biked over to our house in the morning, and we all departed at 10:00 (give or take a few minutes). Our average going out was even better than our best last year - 15 MPH. We all knew it would drop on the way home, but even our end average was better than we usually do. The ride in general was very nice - great weather, not much traffic, and not too many people clogging up the paths, when we ride on paths. And best of all, Rebecca didn't get sicky feeling or anything. At least we don't have to fear biking, as long as we keep her prepped and drinking water as we go. |
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| Up near 70° here today, and I snuck out of work (well deserved) a bit early to go on a ride. We set out on the old Rice Creek Recess Route. Being one of the first warm days of the season, lots of people were out. People who aren't interested in looking down the path (the designated bike path) to see if anyone's coming before they strike out with their little dog. Or moving in a timely fashion when people ring a bell and shout, "Coming up behind you!" ("On your left" didn't work much, since people were just meandering down the middle of the path). Of course, we're all about yielding to pedestrians, even ignorant ones. We announce ourselves pretty early. We slow down. But it's still annoying. This was my first ride with the Egg Beaters. I liked 'em a lot. Real easy to get into and out of. My left cleat is a little clicky, but I should be able to adjust it as time goes on. I think even Rebecca could use 'em, since you can clip in on any of the 4 sides. Rebecca wasn't feeling real well towards the end, so we slowed down a bit. We might have been going a little faster than usual at the beginning, so we still came in at almost 13 MPH for an average. Plus, those paths are even rougher than the roads on Bonaire; and that's hard to do! |
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| Our last day on bikes! We rode into town for lunch at the Lost Penguin. Mmmm ... dorado. It's not a pretty fish, but it sure tastes good! After that, we wandered around town a bit, and got some stickers for our bike suitcases (as it turns out, mine - pictured below - doesn't stick well to the textured outside of the cases. Bah!). We biked to the grocery store to get some foodstuffs, and then back home. It was a good time, and the bikes had fun too!  Tomorrow night the bikes would come apart, ready to rest as they traveled home.  |
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| Today we broke 150 miles for the year. Last year we didn't even get to 150 on Bonaire - what a difference having our bikes show up makes! We biked into Kralendijk and took a boat ride out to Turtle Beach on Klien Bonaire. The coral was quite nice, although we didn't see any turtles. Of course, with all the nice snorkeling we do in general, it wasn't that amazing. But worth doing. We biked back home, stopping at Subway for lunch. Tom and Fran went off to have lunch with some people we met, but I hadn't brought my paraphernalia, so we split up. While Tom and Fran were off gabbing, Rebecca and I went to Tori's Reef. As we perused the sandy open areas, we stumbled across another stingray! This one wasn't as big as the first one we saw, but he gave a good show as he swam away from us. |
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| There's one thing that's really bad about riding to Rincon. No, it's not the heat. No, it's not the wind. No, it's not the hills. Not, it's not the galavanting donkeys. It's the fact that we have to get up at 5:45 AM so that we can leave before sunrise so we don't bake in the afternoon sun. And that's what we did. Tom and Fran were up even earlier, fearing that us youngun's would race past them (in reality, it took over half the ride for us to even catch up to them). This year, I managed to bike up all the hills - even the big one just before Rincon. Rebecca made a valiant attempt, but had to walk up the bigger ones. It turns out she shouldn't have been wearing her bandana. Sure, it helps absorb sweat, but it also made her head really hot!  But we all survived the ride, without any broken spokes or anything. And the ride into town was much better this year, since the road construction from last year was all done. Bonaire has one nicely paved road, and we got to bike on it! We pulled into town and went to have lunch - at 9:30 in the morning! When you're traveling with a diabetic, all the other people get to be diabetic too, at least for eating schedules. :) Not like they weren't hungry by that time. We had breakfast for lunch at the City Café, then biked home for a nap (a 4 hour nap). All in all, the Rincon ride was a bit over 28 miles, with a 12.7 MPH average. But we weren't done yet! We had an early dinner, then it was off to the Divi Flamingo for a night snorkel. Of note, we saw a flying gurnard, and a little Atlantic longarm octopus.   |
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After breakfast today we departed for nearby Donkey Beach. We'd been there last year and were somewhat unimpressed. But this year, a lot of coral and fish had come back to it. We even saw another octopus on a giant piece of coral near the surface! We biked back home for lunch, then Rebecca and I biked south to Salt City. We ended up swimming up to The Invisibles, hoping to see a Spotted Eagle Ray. No luck there, but we did see a large Southern Stingray. It was about 4 or 5 feet across, and didn't mind being followed a little.  But all was not octopus and stingray happiness! When we got to Salt City I noticed a disagreeable bulge on my rear tire. Since we were only 3 miles from home I decided not to deal with it in the blazing sun. But when we got back, the tire came off. Much to our amazement, the tube was undamaged. I'd expected a rip in the inner layer, with the tube squeezed through and bulging out on the outer layer. But what we found was a bulge inside as well. It appears that the two layers simply came unglued, and possibly uncured glue inside created gasses that expanded and caused the aneurysm. Luckily Tom and Fran had a spare tire of the same model that we use. So they gave us that one, and from now on we'll always travel with a spare tire in addition to spare tubes! Later that night we loaded up the bikes for our adventure tomorrow: Rincon! |
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| We started the day out light by biking into town to do some "shopping." Since all the shopping in Bonaire can be done in about an hour and a half, even I could be convinced to do it. I also wanted to see if any of the dive shops had replacement diaphragms for my snorkel, since the "water shedding" design wasn't working real well. Alas, no luck. We had lunch at the Lost Penguin, and they finally had Dorado - the best fish in Bonaire! After lunch we biked back to Captain Don's for more snorkeling. On the way we stopped off at the Cycle Bonaire store. Not much in there ... not impressed. At Captain Don's we spent some time in the areas we hadn't been to earlier. We saw 3 octopus, a turtle, and even a juvenile trunkfish (that's the size of a pea!). It was a good snorkel indeed.   |
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| Today was one of our lazier days. We slept in while Tom and Fran went to church. After lunch Rebecca and I biked over to Tori's Reef for an afternoon snorkel. There was a lot of wind as we got down towards the southern end - more than I remembered being out there. At least it was "just" a crosswind, but still - it was probably a 35 MPH crosswind. Once we were in the water, we saw lots of interesting things, such as a Sand Tile Fish (who was about 2.5 feet long) and our first Hawkbill turtle of the vacation.   As we were leaving, we came across two buddies playing in the water. A jack and an eel. No matter how much we swam around, the jack wouldn't leave the area of the eel. Whether he was planning on eating the eel (the darker coloration of the jack could indicate that it was hunting) or was just being friendly, we'll never know. (Can't see the eel? He's the spotty thing just to the left of the fire coral).  After all that, we biked back home (again with the crosswind!) and relaxed for the rest of the night. |
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Today we got up early and biked the 8-ish miles to Oil Slick Leap. Only on Bonaire does 8 miles feel like 15. As always, Oil Slick was great for coral, and this time we saw a Queen Angelfish - our first (and only). Then we biked back home for some lunch and a nap. A nap because today was to be our first night snorkel. I had an early dinner, and we biked over to one of our favorite nighttime places, the Divi Flamingo. Alas, they'd taken down their giant floating trampoline. Last year, dozens of tiny Caribbean Reef Squid congregated under the raft. We'd hoped to see them again, but that will have to be a dream deferred. Our night snorkel showed us a big ol' Green Moray eel, a couple of Spanish Lobsters, and lots of other fun nighttime friends.   After that, we biked home in the dark. It was the inaugural use of the reflective flags I made for our trailer, which is made out of the front half of a road-worker safety vest I picked up at a garage sale last year. It was nice and reflecty, and I was glad I had it on there whilst out biking in the darker stretches of Bonaire. |
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| Our day today started with a short (3-ish miles one way) trip to The Invisibles for snorkeling. Meanwhile, Tom went to the hospital to liberate Fran. No visit from a Spotted Eagle Ray for us, but we saw lots of nice fishies as usual. Then we biked into town to meet Tom and Fran at the Lost Penguin for lunch. They sang happy birthday to me, and also to the man sitting behind us! They'd met him previously at church on the island, and he piped up that it was his birthday too.  After lunch we split up again - Tom and Fran went home to take it easy, and we went to 1,000 Steps for more snorkeling. 9 miles usually doesn't take so long, but thanks to the crazy island wind our trip out there and back was longer than you'd think. Plus, taking our bikes down those 1,000 steps took a while! As we got close to 1,000 Steps we hit a bit of rough road (not that there's really anywhere on Bonaire that doesn't have rough roads) and lost our trailer blikin' light. Alas, a Bell tail light that I got a Toys 'B Us on clearance just isn't up to being clamped to the axel of a trailer and ridded in Bonaire. Once we got to 1,000 Steps we saw yet another fish we'd never seen before - a Striped Burrfish! Rebecca also saw a Blue-Striped Boyfish that kept following her around.   On the way home we stopped at Subway to get dinner for the gang. It seems that Rebecca's computer picked up some interference from the security system on the door, because when we got home her distance was all screwed up, and it said her maximum speed was 67.8 MPH! Good thing we both have computers, so we could just reset hers to the correct stats. |
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| Today we decided to go snorkeling at Captain Don's. We biked over before lunch, locked up to a nice sturdy metal bar which was also designated for scooters, and jumped in. Since we were going to be there all day, the pre-lunch snorkel took us to one side of our entry point, and then we swam back for lunch. We ate at the Rum Runners restaurant, which is part of the whole Captain Don's resort thing. They're a bit stingy with water refills ... which can be bad when you're spending the whole day either biking or snorkeling. Poo on them! After lunch we went back in and swam the other direction. This took us past a number of other beaches and resorts, and also let us see lots of fun things, like cute eels and Caribbean Reef Squid. Unfortunately, Fran was running a little tired and (unbeknownst to us) started hyperventilating and aspirated a little water. Tom got her out of the water, and she got to take a ride to the hospital in an ambulance (one of two on the island). We found out about all this at about 8:00 that night, since we packed up and went home separately (the joys of having our own trailer this year). Although they kept her overnight, Fran was feeling and doing fine the next day (actually probably that night, too), so the effect on our overall vacation was minimal. |
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| We arrived in Bonaire on the 14th and put all the bikes together that night. We were afraid that Rebecca's bike might be out for a day because the seat post collar broke (the threaded plug inside the collar stripped out). But luckily Tom had a longer bolt, and we used a locknut on the other side. But I'll need to contact BF and see about getting a new one. I wonder if there's a warranty on such things - we haven't even had the bikes a year yet! (Update: After inquiring with Bike Friday's service department, I got a pleasant email telling me they were sending us a replacement. Talk about service!) Anyway, back to today. We biked into town to shop at the "new" grocery store. We'd always gone to Cultimara ("always" for us meaning last year), and this place is tucked away behind the Lisa gas station. They had some stuff that Cultimara didn't, although they also only take cash! :O  We also stopped by the De Freewieler to see if we could get a new blinky tail light for Rebecca - hers mysteriously stopped working on the trip out. No luck there, so the trailer one became hers. After that, we rode to Cultimara to get some other stuff, then to the Mexican bakery (more on this later), and the farmer's market. With our panniers laden, we headed back home. Of course, it's not a day in Bonaire without snorkeling. So our first trip out was to The Lake. We saw lots of nice fish - nothing amazing (that would be later). But plenty to see anyway!  |
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