86th ride

This evening, when I rode to Westminster to do my weekly data entry work, I "wimped out" slightly and did a shorter ride than I had originally had in mind. However, at least I did make my minimal daily goal of 10 miles, doing 10.2 in 1 hour 1 minute, on a gorgeous spring evening—mild and sunny. Not being able to leave until about 6:30 (after Michelle and I had returned home from the 5:00 outdoor service at Zion Lutheran Church), it felt wonderful to know that I would still have plenty of daylight at this time of year, and I arrived home before 8:30 with lots of light still left in the sky.

85th ride

Today is the day I had planned to do the 42-mile ride to Mom's. But in the wake of last Saturday's problems, I've decided to defer that trip to 2014. With the dream delayed, I decided to do a moderately long (but slow) ride in town. So I planned to ride to and through Gallup Park. But today's ride was replete with adventures, although none of them were so dramatic as last Saturday's.

First off, though I got to Gallup Park OK, I found myself unable to find the path to take me from the front part of the park to its eastern stretches (even though I had done this ride successfully on May 18). So, I turned around and rode the dirt path along the north side of the Huron River to take me out of the park. This was adventure #1

Adventure #2 ensued immediately—I set off on Huron Parkway, heading south (as I thought) toward my home. But instead, I was disoriented and headed north—a mistake I only discovered a little over a mile north, when I reached the intersection with Hubbard on the North Campus of the University of Michigan, near which I used to work. So this was adventure #2.

Adventure #3 could conceivably have been more serious—but God protected me and helped it be OK. After I had crossed Washtenaw Ave., headed south on Huron Parkway, at its intersection with Canterbury, I had a mishap. The rear-view mirror that attaches to my helmet and extends in front of my face is decidedly beneficial overall—but it does have the drawback of obscuring a chunk of my field of vision. I was riding on the sidewalk, which Michelle prefers I do (a practice I had judged safe early on a Saturday morning), and when I saw, too late, a curb cut, although I was not riding fast, I tried to adjust my path to make it but couldn't quite, and clipped a small portion of the curb and went flying into the grass.

I was completely unhurt, but two nearby women runners (who appeared to be in their forties—they probably wondered what the heck such an old geezer was doing out there!) hustled over and, with much solicitude (countless queries of "Are you SURE you're OK, sir?"), assured themselves that I was, in fact, OK to continue on before they left me. One assisted me by retying my shoelace, which had come undone, and the other zipped up the bag on my handlebars from which my keys and cell phone had fallen out when I spilled over onto the ground. Needless to say, I slowed down even further for the remaining 6 miles or so of the ride, and finished the 20.1 miles in a poky 2 hours 13 minutes.

84th ride

I rode to work this morning, but rain (sometimes heavy) plagued much of the day, so that I thought I might have to ask Michelle to pick me up. But then after work a window opened up to allow me to do a ride, so I went to church to do my weekly work of creating the projections for Sunday's service, and then home, for a total day's ride of 7.2 miles in 48 minutes.

83rd ride

I was released exceptionally early from work again today (12:30), and, since the Tigers have a 1:00 matinee, I chose to come directly home and then hope to do a longer ride later in the day. So far today, I've ridden 5.6 miles in 34 minutes.

82nd ride

For some reason unknown to me, we are going through a patch right now at work where the demand for what I can do for them is very low. And, since I was released at 1:30 today, I decided I might as well make good use of the afternoon, doing another 14.5-mile home by way of Saline, the identical route to the one I did Monday. For the day, this gave me 16.7 miles of riding in 1 hour 29 minutes.

81st ride

After I got home from work today, as Michelle was not home yet and I no idea when I'd see her, I decided to do a long ride, and went down to Saline in humid, 85° weather. The route I chose ended up being 12.5 miles, and I rode it (fairly languidly) in 1 hour 11 minutes.

80th ride

Today provided an outstanding example of the great variability in the length of my work days. Most weeks I am able to count on a relatively full Monday (at least 6-7 hours). But the work dried up this afternoon, and at 2:15, I was told, "See ya, Allen!"

Anyway, having plenty of time on my hands, and no real reason rushing me home (as Michelle is out of town overnight with friends), I decided I might as well do a long ride home, and so I did an indirect route to Saline (due to the road construction at Ellsworth and State which prevented me from taking my former "usual" route to Saline). Although I was glad for my short sleeve shirt in the 85° sunshine, my long black work uniform pants were hardly appropriate riding attire. But I just plugged away slowly, completing the 14.5-mile route to give me a daily ride of 16.7 miles in 1:35.

79th ride

After the Tigers' victory over the Boston Red Sox this afternoon (which allowed them to win the series, 3 games to 1, over the team with the best record in the American League), Michelle and I went to the 5:00 service at Zion Lutheran Church. Then, taking advantage of the lengthened daylight hours, I rode over to Westminster this evening to do the weekly data input work that I do for them. I chose to ride the most direct way there, which gave me a ride of only 7 miles in 39 minutes—hardly enough to be worth doing. But, in the end, I figured it was (barely) better than nothing.

Change of plans

In light of this morning's spill, Michelle and I have reached an agreement with which I am in total accord. I am going to wait and establish a track record of safety before riding to Mom's in 2014, rather than shooting for doing it next week. I agree that this makes sense.

78th ride

This morning's ride was one of rather mixed results. I set off early to do my last long preparatory ride before my plans to ride 42 miles to Mom's next Saturday, and figured I'd do the Chelsea round trip again today, as I did on June 8. I very nearly made it, too, but the ride did not end so well—I'm absolutely fine, however, and thank God for His protection and care.

I had wanted to leave at 6:00 a.m., but was mildly dismayed to be unable to get away until 6:15. Pushing doggedly onward, however, I enjoyed the early morning quiet, riding westward through the small town of Dexter and then onward to Chelsea. I missed the unmarked Freer Rd. again, but then, as I neared the city, realizing what had happened, I turned left onto McKinley and started heading south and east by dead reckoning, figuring that eventually I'd have to hit either Old US 12 or Freer. Sure enough, after a few minutes of riding through the sleepy streets (before 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday) in the 'presidential' section of Chelsea (I remember riding on McKinley, Madison, and Washington, and saw several others), I came to where Washington met Freer, turned right on Freer, and was back in business.

My left thumb is still stiff and unusable from where I sprained it upon jamming it into the ground when I fell on June 14, but this did not prove a hindrance to riding; I merely kept it tucked up, fairly "dead" and useless, against my fist, resting atop the left hande grip.

On the way back, about 4 miles from home, I had an "exciting" mishap. I think there were two reasons for it. First, and primary, there is a long, pretty dramatic, largely unrelieved climb in elevation as you travel south on Wagner Rd. from Jackson Rd. clear up to Scio Church. I knew this, and should have shifted to the smaller chain wheel sooner than I did. Another factor was a mechanical one. When I got home, Michelle noted that my left pedal is unhooked and we'll have to take that in later today and get it repaired. I said, "I think that may be why I fell." She replied, "It probably happened when you fell." But, even though my memories of the event are somewhat foggy, I believe I recall it coming unhooked and this contributing to my loss of control. At any rate, whether that happened or not, I was really spent from the big hill climb, and began wobbling severely just after I got south of Liberty on Wagner, and ended up going down.

I always wear my helmet, but it did not protect my nose from grinding into the pavement when I pitched over face first, and the dripping blood that resulted (on the ground, my legs, hands, arms, and face) made quite a mess. I was blessed by the almost instantaneous stopping of two Good Samaritans (first a women of about 40, and then a man in his early thirties). They insisted I go over and sit down in the grass well away from the road, and retrieved my bike for me, and then insisted on calling a Huron Valley Ambulance. I was glad to be wearing my Road ID bracelet, which gives my name and contact information and also explains that I hear fine but can't speak.

The man helped me to retrieve my cell phone from the basket on my bike, and I then placed the call I had been dreading, asking Michelle if she could come pick me up. I knew she'd probably freak out when she pulled up and saw an ambulance there.

When the ambulance arrived, I wanted to be able to tell the attendants that I work at Briarwood Firestone, and we service their vehicles—but, of course, I couldn't. The attendants needed to provide no medical care (though I had to sign a waiver saying that I chose not to go to the hospital), but they did very helpfully provide me with some wipes to clean up, and then stayed with me until Michelle arrived, and walked the bike over to our car and explained the situation to her.

This gave me a ride of 32 miles, and I don't know the exact time, because, naturally, all thought of stopping my watch when I fell was abandoned. However, from the time I saw on it just a few minutes before, when I turned onto Wagner from Jackson, I believe my ride was just about an even 3 hours.

So, anyway, in light of this, I have no idea whether I will be allowed to carry out my plan to ride to Mom's next Saturday. I hope so—but it would certainly be understandable to me if Michelle says NO. I do continue to learn, incrementally, from each of these episodes—and I do always pray before riding, thanking God for the opportunity and asking for His protection, and I am more grateful for that protection than I can express!

AFTERWORD

When we took my bike to the shop for repair on Saturday afternoon, they said that past trauma (falls) had caused the pedal to give out and explode, and they replaced the pedals with new ones free of charge. I was grateful to find out that it was a mechnical issue, rather than me just being too tired to climb that big hill, as this latter hypothesis had puzzled me, since I climbed it successfully previously (June 8), and was certainly unaware of being particularly tired on this occasion.

77th ride

Like last Friday, I rode to work in the morning, and after work, lengthened my ride considerably, to go by our credit union, in the far northwest part of town, and then to church to do my weekly work of creating Sunday's projections, before heading home. This made for a ride of 15.9 miles, which, with the morning's ride to work, gave me 18.1 miles in 1:44.

However, having learned from last week, I took it extremely slow and careful at the intersection of Scio Church and South Main, and managed to avoid falling today. This was good, as my left thumb is still stiff and unusable from spraining it when I fell and jammed it into the ground.

76th ride

Over the last few years, I've developed a tradition of taking my friend and fellow Tigers fan Tom Brown to a Tigers game on or around his June 20 birthday. The picture below shows us at the 2011 game, on June 25, when they beat the Arizona Diamondbacks. (Tom is just a youngster, though, only turning 55 today). Since he is picking me up at 4:45 to go to tonight's game against the Boston Red Sox, I knew that a longer ride this afternoon would be impossible. So I dug out early, and rode an 11-mile route to work, in 1 hour 3 minutes. Thus disciplined, I'll feel OK about having a hot dog tonight (with a Diet Pepsi, of course).

******* Update at 2:10 p.m. *******

This has been a very schizophrenic work week—yesterday and Monday I was needed to stay well past the average, but today and Tuesday were decidedly the other way. I got off way early today (before 1:30), and this means that, of course, I would have had plenty of time to do a long ride after work. But, of course, I didn't know that this morning, and so am glad that I got my long ride done early. With the short ride home after work, it gave me a daily total of 14.4 miles in 1 hour 24 minutes.

75th ride

I rode to work again this morning, and then afterwards had planned to do a longer ride home. But my work day ended up being much longer than expected once again, like on Monday. (I'm almost always done by 3:30, and sometimes considerably earlier—one day last week, for example, they had exhausted their need for me by noon. Admittedly, however, this was highly unusual.) Today I was needed until quarter to five. Such variance, of course, is rather frustrating—but still, considering the circumstances, I feel so grateful to have a job at all that I am not really unhappy about it.

Accordingly, at the end of the work day, I reconfigured my plans, and once again rode directly home—giving me a total of 5.6 miles for the day, in 31 minutes.

74th ride

I rode to work again this morning, and then following work, rode the same route I did a week ago today (on June 11th - my 68th ride), a 9.3-mile stretch, giving me a total of 11.5 miles in 1 hour 4 minutes.

My left thumb remains stiff and unusable, but is slowly, mildly improving, and I hope to have full use of it back within a week or so. It's so odd—I don't seem to be healing as fast as I did, say, back in my twenties!

73rd ride

Today I rode to work in the morning, and then, after a much longer than usual work day, decided to ride directly home, thus totaling 5.6 miles for the day in 34 minutes.

I had hoped to get in a short stint at the pool, as it was sunny and in the upper eighties when I got out of work. But by the time I rode home, and skipped over to Meijer to pick up a few groceries, it was too late to get in more than just a few minutes before the 7:00 Tigers game, so I decided to just let it go.

72nd ride

I'm quite sure I sprained my left thumb (rather severely) when I jammed it into the ground on Friday's fall. It is still quite stiff and vitually unusable. Accordingly, I cut myself some slack this afternoon, and when I rode to church (after the Father's Day feast that Michelle had grilled for us, and the Tigers' victory in Minnesota) to do my weekly data entry for them, I chose a deliberately easy route, and rode it slowly, doing the 8.2 miles in 47 minutes.

However, on the way home, when I came to the corner (Scio Church and South Main) that did me in on Friday, I slowed way down and proceeded with extreme caution—as befits a geezer of 56 years!

I suppose it's worth noting that today put me over 800 miles for the year, too. Not that that's any great thing, but I'm inching ever closer to 1000 miles, which will be significant.

71st ride

This morning's ride was disappointing. I always like to do a long ride on Saturday morning, so, as I mentioned yesterday that I planned to do, I set off at 5:45 to ride the 36-mile round trip to Chelsea. But I could tell after a very short way that the damage I had sustained from yesterday's fall, when I jammed my left thumb into the ground, was going to make it problematic. It was difficult to grip the handlebars, and virtually impossible to work the lever to shift my chain wheel.

Nevertheless, I was going, and felt I should keep going, for the sake of developing discipline and mental toughness—no matter how slowly I had to ride. But then, as I soldiered northward on Wagner Rd., headed up toward Ann Arbor-Dexter where I would turn left to head, first to Dexter, and then onward via Dexter-Chelsea Rd. to Chelsea, I began to grow concerned that I might actually worsen the condition by trying to push myself this way. So, at a little past 4 miles into the ride, I turned right on Liberty and headed back toward home, and had to settle for a mere 10.2 miles in 1 hour 3 minutes.

70th ride

Yesterday I took another day off—the second one this week, for crying out loud! I got off work way early, and thought about doing a long ride, but then realized it was perfect pool weather (warm and brilliantly sunny), and the ride would really be better done late afternoon or evening. So I headed for the pool, fully intending that. But then, when I picked Michelle up from school, she said she and a colleague were going to Red Robin, and wondered if I'd like to join them. I decided to go with the flow, hoping (foolishly, as it turns out) that I might be able to ride afterwards. But, instead, I was wiped out, ahd the book in which I was immersed (Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol) was calling me, so I read on our patio until it was getting too dark to read, and then came inside and finished it up.

Accordingly, today I was eager to get back to riding, and I rode to work in the morning, and after work, lengthened my ride considerably, to go by our credit union, in the far northwest part of town, and then to church to do my weekly work of creating Sunday's projections, before heading home. This made for a ride of 15.9 miles, which, with the morning's ride to work, gave me 18.1 miles in 1:45.

On the way home, though, I had to deal with a mishap. At the east end of Scio Church Road, where it intersects with South Main Street, you have to make a 90° turn to the right and immediately begin ascending a relatively daunting uphill grade. I thought I'd try it without slowing down too much and thus losing momentum. BIG mistake (as Julia Roberts' character says to the sales clerk in the movie Pretty Woman). I was unable to negotiate the corner, and ended up flying off the bike. Fortunately I landed in the grass, and was not seriously injured. A couple of Good Samaritans stopped to be sure I was OK, and I was grateful for that. But the solicitude with which they asked me, "Are you OK, sir?" made me feel virtually elderly! And they were not youth, either—both the woman and the man were north of 40 years old, I'm sure.

Though I was not seriously injured, I did scrape up my right elbow quite impressively, and also jammed my left thumb into the ground. I was able to get home OK, as it's only about 3 miles from the place where I fell. But the thumb has now stiffened up quite a bit, and I've typed much of this with an ice pack on it. This concerns me slightly for my plans to ride another Chelsea round trip in the morning (my second of three consecutive Saturdays I intend to do as a warmup to the nearly 50-mile ride to Mom's I want to do on June 29), but at this point I don't see it as jeopardizing my plans.

69th ride

I rode to work again this morning; and then, this afternoon, even though I got out of work way early and thus could have easily done a long ride in regards to time, a combination of two factors was calling me directly home—(1) The threat of projected severe rainstorms, and (2) The Tigers' 2:00 matinee contest at Kansas City. So I surrendered, and 'settled' for another day's ride of only 5.5 miles (34 minutes).

68th ride

I rode to work this morning, and then after work, since they are now constructing a traffic roundabout at State and Ellsworth, I could not go my usual way to Saline as the roads are all blocked off there. So I chose another way instead, and this measured out to be 9.3 miles, for a daily total of 11.5 miles in 1 hour 10 minutes.

Also, I am tending more these days to riding on the sidewalk when there is a long empty stretch of it. This was the case today as I neared home, with the long empty walk on the south side of Ellsworth between Maple and Lohr.

Day off

It rained steadily, and at times quite hard, all morning. While we were preparing for Michelle's departure, she asked me if I'd like the car, and as we were driving to her school, I thanked for her thoughtfulness, as it meant I wouldn't have to float to work. Then, with much of the day rainy, I was planning to go to LA Fitness and work out on the elliptical in the evening; but by the end of the workday, I had been kept so busy that I was quite worn out and had pretty much decided to take the day off. Michelle confirmed that I should do this, in light of my quite consistent discipline in recent days. Then, by the time we got her home, there was no precipitation, and I was toying with the idea of perhaps trying a ride outdoors. But I went to Meijer to pick up a few things, and when I came out, it was raining heavily again, so I retreated happily to the idea of a day off.

Meantime, since I've been unable to post anything to my blog since last Tuesday, I spent time this evening catching it up from notes I had kept, since it has finally gotten repaired. (I had begun recreating it, with lots of copy-and-paste, on another site, but wasn't even halfway done yet, so I was happy to find the original now workable again.)

67th ride

I rode to church by a longer route this afternoon (Sunday, June 9) following the Tigers' victory for my weekly data entry work, in gorgeous spring weather - warm (but not hot) and sunny. I made pretty good time, too, doing the 10.2 miles in 57 minutes.

66th ride

This morning (Saturday, June 8) I left just before 6:00 a.m. and did my longest ride to date—

a 36.4-mile round trip to Chelsea. It was a slow ride, at 3 hours 31 minutes (barely better than 10 mph), but then, I was never concerned with speed - just endurance, hoping to "keep going" and finish what I set out to do. And I would have beat 3:30 if not for several minutes I spent on the ground when I got back to about a mile from home. My front tire got in a rut that sent me skittering to the ground. I was almost wholly uninjured (reopened the scabs on my left knee and left elbow from Monday's fall, and bloodied my right knuckles, as well as ripping the large band-aid off my left hand that was covering up a flap of skin I nearly sliced off when I fell into the exposed metal edge on a door at Carrabba's Wednesday), but the lesson Doug gave me on Monday regarding how to get my chain back on sure came in handy!

In Chelsea, when I tried to do that same ride on Memorial Day, I had missed the turn onto Freer Rd., and suspected there was no sign for it visible from Dexter-Chelsea Rd. So before setting out today I studied the map carefully, and when I again found no sign, I made an educated guess and turned on the road by the cemetery, and was then happy to find my hunch confirmed by a street sign in a few blocks.

65th ride

I rode to work again this morning (Friday, June 7), and after work, like on Tuesday, I rode home the long way, via Saline, for a daily total of 14.0 miles today, in 1 hour 18 minutes. I was happy to be able to squeeze this in before driving down to my brother John's for the open house of his daughter, my niece, Courtney, who graduated from high school last weekend.

64th ride

I rode to work again this morning (Thursday, June 6), and then, after work, as I got out early once more, I could easily have carried out my plan of doing a long ride home. But the cyclist in me and the baseball fan were warring a pitched battle, as I knew I would also be able to get home for the late innings of the Tigers game if I went directly home. In the end, the baseball fan won out, and I arrived home in the 6th inning, to find Detroit holding a 3-0 lead, which they eventually increased to win 5-2, with pitcher Max Scherzer winning his 8th game to run his record to open the 2013 season to 8-0. For riding, this gave me 5.5 miles again for the day, in 34 minutes.

63rd ride

Today (Wednesday, June 5) I rode to work again, but then came directly home afterwards in able to squeeze in a short session at the pool before Marianne and I go out to eat with other relatives. This gave me a day's total of 5.5 miles, in 33 minutes.

62nd ride

Today (Tuesday, June 4) I rode to work, and was then able to get off work early. I was glad for this, since my sister Marianne is visiting Michigan this week from her home in Georgia, and is coming to Ann Arbor so that we can go out together for dinner tonight. My early departure from work meant that I was still able to do a long ride (down to Saline, but back to Ann Arbor via Maple and Lohr Rd., thus fulfilling my promise to Doug to ride safer routes). This 11.8-mile ride, coupled with my morning ride to work, gave me 14.0 miles today, in 1 hour 17 minutes.

      

61st ride

      Monday's ride was adventurous. (Technical troubles with the blogspot site prevented me from being able to post this in a more timely manner.) I rode to work without incident, and after work wanted to do a longer ride, even though the pool was calling my name on a gorgeous day (cloudless, and about 70°). As it turns out, I should have gone with the pool. I decided to ride to Saline, and got there without any difficulties, but the ride back north to Ann Arbor was another thing. I had just gotten out of town and was headed north on Ann Arbor-Saline Rd. when, about 200 feet north of Blue Grass Lane, I was trying to ride as close to the edge as possible (because of heavy traffic at 5:15), when I overdid it slightly, slipped off the edge of the pavement, and lost control in the gravel and went down. Now, I always trust God to protect me, and am grateful to know that I can count on this as a constant. I know, however, that I can't necessarily count on constant attention from surrounding drivers -- but today, that too was in evidence. They were courteous in the extreme, shielding me, and in fact the driver ahead of me refused to move until I walked my bike up to her and smiled and gave a thumbs-up. At the time, I didn't notice any injuries, but later I discovered I had drawn some blood on my left elbow when I fell, as well as reopening a wound on my left knee, that I found after I pulled up my work uniform pants.

However, when I then climbed on and tried to ride, the pedals only spun uselessly, and I could see that the chain was not engaged. At that point, my options were to (1) walk the 5 miles or so back to our home, (2) try to contact Doug and see if he might be able to help me, or (3) contact Michelle, But I was extremely reluctant to pursue this latter option, knowing how it would worry her. So, hoping the timing (just past the end of a 'normal' workday) would prove feasible for Doug, I texted him, and he immediately called me back; after establishing where I was, I soon heard him pull up. After giving me a brief lesson on how to redo the chain, he drove me home, and then performed two valuable acts of bike maintenance. I had wanted to raise my seat slightly for both comfort and ease of pedaling, but was unable to because of (ironically) not having an Allen wrench. So he took care of that for me, and then also, after determining that my tires needed air, gave me a refresher course on how to pump them up with the pump I have (though he had showed me this once several weeks ago) Last night I measured the route I rode before falling, and it came to 9.5 miles, giving me a daily total of 11.7 miles in 1 hour 7 minutes.

And Doug sternly admonished me of the need to choose safer riding routes—less heavily trafficked ones. So I made him a promise to stay off Ann Arbor-Saline Rd.

60th ride

Since we are going to my niece Courtney's high school graduation down in Adrian this afternoon, I knew I wouldn't be able to ride later, as I usually like to do on Sunday, so I pushed myself to get up and ride the same 8.8-mile route that I did last evening, leaving at 6:00 a.m. and making the circuit, once again, in 45 minutes. It was especially glorious that as I came up the 'home stretch,' northward on the Lohr-Textile Greenway, I was rewarded with a beautiful view of the early sun coming up across the fields (Ann Arbor Airport) to the east.

59th ride

I had hoped to do my typical Saturday morning long ride today, and was planning on the round trip to Chelsea (about 36 miles). But when lightning was flashing through our bedroom windows shortly before dawn, I rethought my plans, and went to LA Fitness for their 7 a.m. opening instead, to work out on the elliptical machine (as I did regularly last winter). This evening, though, with Michelle being gone (to a local Young People's Theater production of "The Little Mermaid"), and the increased daylight, I decided I might as well do a ride after the 4:00 Tigers game (which lasted until almost 7:00), so I rode my 8.8-mile "Textile Big Block" in 45 minutes.