54th ride

I got Memorial Day off to a good start this morning by doing my longest ride to date—and yet, it still wasn't quite what I had wanted to do. I had set out early (at 6:00 a.m.), intending to ride a 37.1-mile round trip to Chelsea. But, though the early part of the ride went fine (I got to Dexter without incident, and found Dexter-Chelsea Rd., about which I had been mildly concerned), upon coming into Chelsea I somehow missed my turn on Freer Rd. (I'll blame inadequate signage) and ended up coming, behind the clock tower, into the north end of town. Then, riding south on Main St., I thought Jackson Rd. met it south of town, so I just kept going. But what I should have done was to turn left on Old US 12. Instead, I ended up on US 52, headed south out of town.

Once I realized the predicament I was in, I was pretty sure that Scio Church ran all the way out to 52, and I could take that back to Ann Arbor. If I was wrong, my only options at that point would have been either to ride 52 all the way down to 12, and then take that back east, or to call/text Michelle for an emergency pickup, which I was loathe to do (both from the standpoint of building independence and finishing what I had started out to do, and also in not wanting to worry her). So I was ever so happy to see the sign for "Scio Church Rd" come looming up after a few miles.

However, after what seemed like an endless stretch on Scio Church (though it was in reality only about 10 miles), I pulled in to Emerson School and texted Michelle anyway: "Hate to ask you this, but could you pick me up at Emerson? I'm fine - please call." She called, and faithfully came to pick me up in a few minutes. So, this 33.8-mile ride was, as I say, my longest ride to date (easily beating the 26-mile round trip to Dexter that I rode on May 4), accomplished in 3 hours 19 minutes—even though it wasn't what I had set out to do. I suspect part of the reason I caved in early was because I failed to take any rest or water stops—an error I'll have to correct on future long rides.

And we were happy to see Michelle's colleague, Ruth Wilson (who lives in Chelsea, ironically) pull in and greet us as we were loading the bike onto our recently acquired trunk rack.

One other note—enticed by yesterday afternoon's lovely warm sunshine, I almost made the mistake of setting out in a t-shirt this morning. But that would have been quite disastrous—it was 45° at 6:00 a.m., and remained cloudy throughout the ride. So, instead, I threw on a long-sleeved maize and blue fleece, and was tremendously glad for it.