July 26 miles

[smudge ★]

Approx 8.5 miles. NO idea of avg mph, and don't care.

 

Brought the new Sirrus up to camp to visit the in-laws. Sister-in-law and her granddaughter were there, visiting from Phoenix, AZ area. Jordan (9), has a "camp bike" we bought for her. Probably a Walmart bike or something we got second hand. It spends most of the year in our garage attic, but it gets to go to camp for a week each year for Jordan to ride. She's the only kid out there, so she doesn't get to go too far.

 

Aunt LIsa brought her Sirrus to camp, and we immediately went on a "ride" when I got there. We took a right at the camp gate, and started off ok on the dirt (sand) road. Then it got bad; super loose sandy and biting flies. We went probably less than 1/4 of a mile. My 28 mm tires were not liking the sand, and she dug some nice ruts with her bike too. We turned around and went the other way out toward the paved road. We had maybe a mile to go to get to the pavement. After a bit we got to the section of dirt road that was fairly hard packed, and we did ok there. 

 

Well, Aunt Lisa doesn't take a bike all the way to camp (hour and a half by car from home) just to do that little bit of riding. I asked if she wanted to go on the blacktop for a while. She looked at me and said sure. After about 15 seconds she said she had never ridden on a road before. (what sort of sheltered life is Grandma making you live??),  Made me pretty nervous; but I figured we'd just take it slow and very cautiously. We didn't have helmets (I had packed mine, but didn't plan on actually going out to the blacktop!), so I was a little nervous about that. I had to teach her to stay to the side of the road near the white line. This is out in the woods, so there really wasn't a shoulder except for about a foot of gravel. I had to remind her a few times to stay over, but she was good when reminded.

 

There were a couple nice little hills, and she was excited to bomb down them. (no helmets!) She kept looking back to check for cars. A good idea in general, but not when bombing down a hill. I told her a couple times not to look backwards when going down hills, and she finally learned that. Later I taught her not to keep trying to pedal when going too fast to pedal. I saw her feet slipping off, and that made me nervous. She did real well though.

 

We ended up turning around, and heading back after a total of about 2 miles. Like I said, I didn't plan on going that "far" so I didn't even have water in my water bottle. She was getting thirsty, so I kept checking for people outside their houses as we passed the occasional home. Finally I saw a guy unloading some archery equipment from the back of his truck. I asked if we could get some water for my water bottle, and he said sure. He went to the back of his truck and dug an ice cold water bottle out of his cooler. Thanks! I poured a little bit in my bottle and told Jordan to drink how much she wanted and put the bottle in her basket when done. Worked out really nice!

 

We got back to camp and ended up confessing we went out onto the blacktop. It went over ok. We went out again later after dinner. I told Jordan she went a total of 8.5 miles on her bike that day. Her eyes got real big. I was impressed too. 

 

She did really well climbing the hills and learned real well about staying over to the right and facing forward while bombing down the hills. Mostly, I was impressed with her climbing skills. Did REAL well!

 

I'm tempted to get her a decent bike for next year. Used bike, of course, since it will only be ridden one week a year until she outgrows it. I was real impressed by the kid. Wish we lived closer so I could take her out more often. I think she'd outride me in no time.

 

Ya, it was a good 8.5 miles.

[az_cyclist]

64.8 miles @ 15.6 ave on the club ride