99th ride

This morning, I left at 5:50 and did my longest ride in Fort Collins—I can neither map it nor measure the exact distance, as the gmap-pedometer is not working correctly right now, but from my riding time of 2 hours 3 minutes I'm estimating about a 21-mile ride, which was roughly triangular in shape. I took the Poudre Trail eastwards (actually, slightly from northwest to southeast in direction); then, the Spring Creek Trail where it forks off, west and slightly south, across the city; and then finishing up back northward on Overland Trail. I found once again that Fort Collins's biking trails are not always well marked, as I got off a couple of times and had to resort once again to heavy consultation of the map to find my way (making sure to stop and then restart my watch every time I stopped riding so that my time would be accurate)—but I eventually made it fine. This ambiguity reminded a friend of mine of a quotation by baseball great Yogi Berra (b. 1925): "If you come to a fork in the road, take it!" (Thanks for reminding me of this, Roger!)

I was disappointed, though, to once again fail to meet my goal of "staying upright" the whole way. As I was riding west on the Spring Creek Trail, more than halfway through the entire ride, just after it passed under College Ave. it came to a sudden detour in a gravel parking lot. It loomed up so quickly that I ended up hitting the folding detour sign, and went down in the parking lot, skinning myself up again (nothing new, but reopening some of Saturday's wounds). A woman rider stopped and asked, in alarm, if I was OK. I nodded vigorously, and fished in my pocket and pulled out my card to explain to her why I wasn't speaking. She chuckled at the part that said I didn't mean to seem rude or unfriendly, but then asked again, "You're sure you're OK?" I reaffirmed this, and then she pointed out that "Your stem in loose" (the connection of the frame to the front wheel). After yanking the crooked wheel back to a centered position, she added, "You need to get to a bike shop and get that taken care of. I don't have a wrench with me."