Long Long Ride

Iliacat loves bike rides.

Long ones.

We did 10 miles recently. She remembered our long trip a few years ago and wanted to outdo it. You might or might not remember that I overdid that long trip a few years ago, paid for it with my knees, which are not at all "bad knees" but perhaps are predisposed to become so if I don't take some preventative action. But since I'd been walking regularly since last August and doing some other strength/alignment/flexibility exercise I thought it would be okay.

So here's the start ~ we joined the path 1 mile from it's start, but it's also 1 mile from home, so the mile markers matched up nicely:

And the route:

We rode down the Rail Trail past Sanford, over the cool Railroad bridge:

Looked down and saw a bike in the river:

Detoured through the Arbutus Bog path

Past the bad pun:

Out so far there was only cornfields, path, and sky:

I pretended to be dead upon reaching Coleman (20 miles out) - but I'm not sure Iliacat appreciated it. :-)

We ate lunch in Coleman and turned back. Shortly thereafter I realized 20 miles without working up to it was perhaps too much for my knees. :-( I was frustrated because I still had energy and wanted to go the whole way, but the previous knee ordeal made me wary. After a few miles Iliacat decided she was, also, getting sore and tired. So we called for the troops to bail us out.

We stopped at the Sandford trail head, 12 of the 20 back, and waited for our ride. I felt a little bad bailing out - especially when my knees felt okay after we stopped riding. But tonight they have the same achy burning feel I remember from last time. So I'm glad we stopped when we did. :-/

Maybe next time we'll work up to a long ride slowly, like smart people would.