Well, that was special

This Ride: 59.7 miles
Month: 802.2 miles
2011: 5,919.7 miles
Total since 1/1/2010: 12039.4 miles

“Well, that was special” is part tongue in cheek and part a note of accomplishment.  As I sit and write this, I’m exhausted.  This was a hard morning.

I started out tired.  For some reason, I’ve just been tired all week, and my legs were leaden from the beginning this morning.  We had 11 riders out for a beautiful morning ride, and other than a little quicker pace that I wanted to ride, it was good to be with the group.  The sun has not risen now when we get to Annapolis, and in fact, it is just coming up as we leave.  This morning’s sunrise was spectacular.

At Hard Bean, most of us had muffins rather than the breakfast sandwich.  I had a pineapple/coconut muffin that was quite tasty … and then Myna brought out the complementary pie (apple & pumpkin) and we all shared a few bites.  Dan arrived in street clothes just as we were getting ready to leave and he polished off the pie.

I decided to accompany Mike on his commute to work because I really needed to get at least 54 miles (or so I thought) in to meet September’s goal of 800 miles.  All the way through Severna Park I contemplated just going home.  Mike even half suggested that I go and get the other bike for the last half of the morning’s longer ride, but I pushed on past the turnoffs to home and continued on the fixie up to the airport loop.  Along the way, Mike got an education in some of the adjustments to riding a fixie, mostly the little extra things that need to be attended to in order to ride this bike safely.  I was also trying to figure out some noise and a headset issue along the way.  By the end of the ride, I figured out that my drive chain is not completely circular, so that the chain is tighter at certain pedal positions than others.  I’ll adjust the chain, making it looser, and I’ll solve the drive train noise.  The headset might take the bike shop to help me with.

By the time Mike and I parted ways, I was ready to be done.  The good thing for this morning is that at that point I was about as far away from home as I get on this route, so I resolved to go home and quit.  As I made my way home, I realized that my calculations were  incorrect, and I needed 57 miles on the day to meet my goal, so I set myself up to do a couple of loops near home to get the miles.

And I made the goal.  802 miles for the month.  This was my longest ride on a fixie yet.  I’m still 380 short of my pace for 8,000 miles on the year, BUT I passed 12,000 miles since 1/1/10!  Around  400 miles to go to have cycled half way around the globe.  And, about the time I hit that milestone, I’ll have ridden as far as I did last year.  If that doesn’t happen before October 14th, it will happen during the upcoming EPIC ride October 14-15.  More about that later.

At breakfast, Bryan showed off his Randonneuring medals.  He accomplished the Super Randonneuring Series (S-R).  He rode separate 200k, 300k, 400k, & 600k rides in one calendar year.  He doesn’t have his R-12 yet!

There were four of us on fixies.  Chip should get his new bike today.  We are all looking forward to seeing it.