Nov-24: Putzing About -- Seeing the Sights (or is that Sites)

"Irregular" cycling buddy Snapper e-mailed asking if I was available to ride Wed. morning.  We quickly agreed 8 am, Blue Jay Point County Park (BJP), for 35 or 40 miles to "just enjoy the day and get in some saddle time". 

Special paragraph just for Andy D., aka sagittandy:  Look, Andy, I defined "BJP".  ;-)

Highlight #1 of the ride:  We rode from BJP across to Norwood, went past LT's fire station, and on toward IvaHawk's.  Then, instead of turning onto Victory Ch Rd, I crossed Snapper up by continuing another 100 yards to Wood Valley Rd and then turned right onto Boxelder Rd.  My thinking was that I'd "spring" that road on Snapper, and "see" what comments I might get.  The joke was on me.  Why?

I had previously ridden Boxelder three times:  In July, I had to get off the bike and WALK part of the road.  In October, I had gotten as slow as 4.7 mph, but no walking.  Just a few days ago (in fact, my last ride before this one), I had managed to keep the pace at 5.0 mph or above.  Each of those previous experiences had occurred approximately 124 miles into Byron's devilish L-L-L 204 km Permanent.

Today, the encounter was after only 6.7 miles.  Without working all-that-hard, I kept my pace at 11.0 mph, until the very last few yards of the "steep slope", where I slowed to around 10.0 mph.  I started laughing.  It took a couple miles before I stopped laughing. 

(No wonder IvaHawk gives me funny looks whenever I mention that bear of a climb on Boxelder -- it apparently isn't so bad unless Byron has previously worn you out with 124 miles of hill-hill-hill ... well, if I'm going to describe the Perm as "devilish", I guess I should write "124 miles of hell-hell-hell".)

After I finally stopped laughing and caught up to Snapper, we rode leisurely on Carpenter Pond (apparently it was Snap's first experience with CP since it was "stimulated" a few months ago), recalling previous notable flo-max moments, checking out a particular parking lot for future Snapper use with Mrs. Snapper, and generally enjoying the semi-crisp, absolutely clear, sunny and still reasonably colorful scenes.

Highlight # 2 of the ride:  Upon reaching the cul-de-sac at the bottom of Baptist Rd, Snaps claimed he had never been there before.  The lake was quite picturesque.  In fact, he forced me take a snap of him.  He immediately sent a copy of the pic to either Mrs. Snapper or our friend Smitty (I'm not sure which -- he threatened mentioned both). 

After enjoying the sights at the edge of the lake, we took the short way (Southview and Kemp roads) back to BJP. 
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Tomorrow:  probably another "40", with a largish contingent of "Irregulars", around the lake.  I think I'll suggest we do the loop "backward" so that the sun will be behind us when we are on Old Weaver Trail (OWT). 

Hey, Andy, look!  Two things defined in one blog post!
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Nov-24: 

BJP:  Norwood-Boxelder-Ray-VctCh-DocN-Baptist-RollingView-Southview-Kemp-CP-MVC; 38.9 m.; 2 hrs, 38 min in-motion; 14.7 mph. 

Q-1 tot: _16 rides; __938.2 m.; _60 hrs, 39 min; 15.5 mph.
Q-2 tot: _31 rides; 2,263.3 m.; 151 hrs, 29 min; 14.9 mph.
Q-3 tot: _37 rides; 2,293.2 m.; 156 hrs, 31 min; 14.7 mph.
Oct tot: _13 rides; 1,050.6 m.; _58 hrs, 44 min; 15.3 mph.
Nov tot: __7 rides; __504.6 m.; _33 hrs, 30 min; 15.1 mph.
YTD tot: 104 rides; 7,049.9 m.; 469 hrs, 57 min; 15.0 mph.
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