Another Birthday Ride

My birthday is in February, and I've been inviting folks to ride miles equaling my age every year for 11 years now.  This past February the ride could almost be classified as epic.

Jan contacted me and asked if I had a route for her meetup group to ride in the French Prairie area.  I asked her, "how many miles?"  She answered, "oh, about 60 miles"

Just so happens I have a 60 mile route in that area!

Today we rode what was described as a 60 mile birthday ride for all those who turned 60 this year.
Who would have known there were still so many old codgers around?

Jan W photo

 We had a good ride south, covering the 30 miles in 2 hours clock time. A true 15 mph average.  Not bad for an old out of shape guy like me. With the stop signs and photo ops it meant we saw 18-20 on the speedometers most of the time.

One of the photo stops was as we were crossing the former Lake Labish.  In February the high winter water had threatened to make us use an alternate route.  Just 48 hours before we were to ride the water receded enough to allow bikes passage.  Today, after a record dry year, there was no danger of high water.

We arrived at our planned refueling/sandbox stop at the 30 mile mark.  We spent about 15 minutes there.  The clock kept running.

On the way back north we traveled through many hop yards.  Hop harvest is happening right now, and the roadside was littered in hops that had blown off the trucks as they transported the crop.
I stopped to snag one of the nicer looking specimens.

The last half of the route has more hills than the first half, and I had a flat.

Jan W photo

 Both of  these issues conspired to make the last 30 slower than the first.  After falling behind to fix the flat I had some catching up to do. Luckily, I found the rest of the gang waiting about 7 miles up the road.

Donna G photo

We pedaled in to our finish with a 13.3 mph clock time average for the full 60 miles. Not as good as the first 30, but respectable given lunch, flat tire, regroups.

 Most of us stepped into the local pub for a well deserved beverage and caloric replenishment.

It was a good ride, with much better weather than the February version!

.......Road bike........Rollers.......MTB.......Lifecycle....Total
Today.......60...............0..............0..............0..............60
Jan..........765.............0..............0..............0.............765
Feb..........248............0..............0..............0..............248
March......183...........0...............0.............0...............183
April........228...........0...............0.............0...............228
May.........200............0..............0.............0...............200
June.........199...........0...............26...........0...............225
July..........246...........0...............0.............0...............246
August.....502...........0...............0.............0...............502
Sept...........181...........0...............0.............0................181
Total........2752.........0...............26............0..............2778