No big ride with other riders. I had a ride with someone even more special. All morning while my oldest was out of the house with my wife the youngest got it in her head that we should do the shopping while they are gone. What? I explained we needed to head to the city and we didn't have the car, and completely unprompted and to my surprise she said "lets take the buggy!" Huh? TAKE THE BUGGY. No, lets wait till they get back? "NO"
Okay so I conceded defeat and started digging the trailer out from behind the other bikes. We got it cleaned up and sorted out the bags loaded up and we headed in.
Yup. On the trailer. To the big fancy grocery store (non-organic milk is almost a dollar cheaper there than the local shaws, which i found out after buying milk because we needed it the day before) in the city. not the little fancy one on Waterman. Nope the big one down the other side of the hill.
And of course it is windy. A few other bloggers of note have mentioned the wind yesterday. On the way in with an unloaded trailer, except for my rather tall pre-k kid in there we made decent time with the tail wind. Felt pretty nice.
Swung by the office and grabbed the lock (why i can't find keys to the U-locks at home or u-locks for the keys i do have i don't know - maybe the locks are with my drill) and rolled down in to go shopping. My littlest prefers to shop with me at the big wholefoods (as she calls it) because we both know where everything is and we have fun doing it. Yeah it is fun shopping with my kids. Doing anything with them is fun.
So we get there load up with stuff (gallon of apple cider, 5 pounds of flour, pound or two of cheese, quart of yogurt, bottle of olive oil, cans of beans, some sweet italian sausage...) notice the list isn't really populated with light weight items. By the time we added all the veggies, well, i had slightly more volume than I had thought but I had brought the big messenger bag and put the bread and veggies and apples (organic fujis were on sale) in there and put the heavy stuff in the trailer.
Oh man was that work making it up olney. And then turning onto Brown into the headwind, ooof. It was a slog.
It has been a long time since I've hauled her around and the ride on Saturday wasn't really a cake walk. But man it was great. She had a blast. Coming home into the intensely strong 20+mph sustained headwind was something else all together. To top it off we get down onto the causeway and just after that in the protection of the scrub I hear her trying to get my attention... "Daddy I have to go potty REALLY BADLY!" Oh boy. She's a slave driver alright. What's a dad going to do but redouble his efforts and crank that thing up. Total red line all the way home. No relief.
I did notice coming in that last mile i was was turning over the big ring with intensity into a headwind towing nearly 100 pounds of stuff and kid, where as yesterday with a tail wind in the same section i couldn't even turn the little ring over in the smallest cog with much force.
No bonkitude for that ride. It took just about an hour to ride back, 45 or so to ride there. The most exciting thing was a small old escort coupe that slammed into the back of a toyota camry at the bottom of the vet before the onramp to 195. Screech and a crunch/bang, radiator was dislodged and the engine sized up and locked man that was a crazy hit. I was focused on the up coming left hand turn and trying to slow down enough and only looked over when i heard the tire squeal. dude driving it looked about to be in his early 20s, and got out okay it looked like. Air bag went off. He was definitely going too fast down that hill and probably texting or something (funny how every accident now is blamed on distracted drivers texting).
Nothing exciting on the way back. Our route was quiet, very very few cars. That's the nice thing about hitting the big one, it might be a bit farther away but there's a nice very low traffic route between there and the bike path.
I was cooked by the time I got home. But the legs were actually feeling pretty strong and okay. I didn't get doubles in on either day but enough work. I kept thinking we're going to need to get a tandem so I can go to the city with both girls.
Might have to talk to the store about having better/more spacious bike parking though.
What a day and all thanks to the unprompted enthusiasm of a 5 year old.
heddwch
G
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