Grand Finale of the the Farm Tour

For your enjoyment......






It only seems appropriate. Maybe in your head you can insert the words biking for walking and plains or flatland for mountain to customize it to life in West Lafayette

Fog and Foals

This morning I got out early for my ride right at dawn. The first three miles were great, but once I hit the country I rode into a pretty intense fog. I've decided that riding a bike in the fog is scarier than driving in fog. The biggest problem I had was that my glasses don't come equiped with mini windshield wipers. I ended up taking them off, and cutting my ride short since I couldn't ride very fast, I coulnd't see far ahead, and what I could see was a little distorted.

When you ride through a cloud some fun things do happen though. Each one of those little arm hairs everyone has becomes its own rain drop. You don't sweat as much since you can just evaporate the cloud that settles on you, and I don't think that if a man ran across the rode carrying a chain saw and screamed bloody murder it would seem all that strange. It might even make sense in the context of an early morning cloud. (THIS DID NOT HAPPEN)

If that last one had happened, I would have certainly had a better title for this post.

The far animal of the day is the foal. For those who don't yet know much about foals, a foal is a horse less than a year old. According to wiki, male foals are colts and a filly is a female foal. I didn't know that till today either. Anyway I saw two of them with their respective parents. I think that baby cows are way more cute that foals. Foals look so awkward to me. It's amazing that they actually grow into things that don't look like they are actively falling over. There is also this kind of cool white speckled horse that I have seen a few times now, but he doesn't pay much attention to me.

I'm at 264 miles for the month. This post also concludes Nathan's bike tour of West Lafayette farm animals

Worked the kinks out

I got up at 5:30 this morning to say bye to Liz as she was leaving for the hospital. Usually, after she leaves I plop back in bed, but today I managed to stay awake. The trick was to just keep eating. I had two pieces of toast (with home-made black raspberry jam thanks to Liz and mimi) and two small bowls of applesauce. I was out the door on my bike at 6:40! AMAZING!!! there are very few cars on the road at that time so it was pretty easy to get out of town to the country side.

The ride was pretty good. My directions kept me on track for once. I was almost cloudy but really more of a haze. It made the sun look kind of fun, and I think it helped keep the temp cool. I did part of the metric century (100km or 65 miles) route that I'm hoping to do in October. It was flat that roads were pretty nice. I went 23 miles which is pretty good for me. I realized how slow I usually go though. I worked pretty hard just to go 18mph on average.

Once home and cooled off, I went back to bed for 45 minutes. It was glorious.


There were some cute baby cows in a field that I passed. The mom cow would have been cute expect for the drool coming out of her mouth. West Lafayette must have some tasty grass in order to make even the cows drool. The cows all stopped eating and watched me as I went past. I've decided that cows are my best spectators (as in only).



Cows look like this. If you look in their eyes, you can tell what they are thinking. Today's cows were pondering if they could escape from their field and eat my bike.





hmmmmm....tasty bike

Hopelessly Lost

This morning I had a brilliant idea. I wrote the directions of my new route down on a little paper and taped it to my handle bars. Honestly, I haven't been the best at being able to remember my routes from memory, so I figured this would be a sure fix.



fast forward.......





So I ended up a town over and realized that I was the most lost I have ever been. I missed the first turn and never recovered. I new I was in trouble when I crossed over interstate 65 into the town of Battle Ground. This town was nowhere near my original route. I turned around and tried to make a loop back to West Lafayette, but as it turns out I was still a little disoriented. Apparently I continued to ride away from West Lafayette instead of going back towards it. Then God smiled because I pulled of the road into a very small church on a corner for a rest and some water. When I looked at the corner street sign it was actually part of the original route that I had planned, so then I followed my route home. All said and done I added 5 or so miles to my original route, but that's ok because it was an adventure in the truest sense.



Now I'm at 193 miles for the month. I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll make it to 300 without any huge problems.



I think that I'll take tomorrow off so that I'm fresh for Friday and Saturday.

Tuesday is llama day

Went for a bike ride this morning. It was a perfect 64 degrees. Anything less than 60 degrees starts feeling really cold. It was a pretty boring ride without too much excitement. I went a block further on one of my routes to get an extra two miles. I went over a creek and past a pond.

Today's farm animal of note is the llama. I saw three of them walking around. At first I thought they were billy goats, but then one of them raised up their head and exposed their long neck. Don't worry I never got within spitting range. While riding I wrote a llama poem, but have since forgotten it. I can tell you it was funny and I got a good chuckle out of it.

It would be horrible to not reference this given that it is llama day: the llama song (it just keeps retpeating so don't worry if you stop it after the song starts over, but if youa re like me you won't be able to resist listening to it over and over).

Halfway

It's been a pretty good day. I didn't go for a bike ride this morning, but I got at 2:30 after work. I went 19.3 miles (in part because of a wrong turn). This brings my total miles for the month up to 150!!! Halfway done, with half the month to go.

I decided to tilt my seat back 1/8th of a degree. I couldn't believe how much better it felt. I don't feel like I'm always sliding forward on the seat. Also I think it takes a little of the pressure off of my wrists. Such a small change, yet such a huge relief.

During the ride I saw some happy cows. There were standing in a creek bed in the shade. They looked blissful.

Well, that's all for today. Liz and I are going out on the town to celebrate one year of good times.

It is just a bugger of a hill

I went out the same direction this morning in order to take another whack at my hill friend. I got over it a bit quicker, but I'm guessing any onlooker would still have scored the round in the hill's favor. I don't mind though, it give me something to think about.

I left at 8:00am this morning which was just perfect. I think most of the cars were already at work, but the sun still hadn't come out yet. I might have to still bump up the start time if it is going to be super hot or if I'm going to ride longer distances.

I remembered to actually take my water bottle for the first time. Up till now I have been very good at filling it with ice and water and then leaving without it. However, I forgot to drink out of it during the ride. I'm all about baby steps now days anyways.

Here is my post ride snack. No ride no snack. They are exceptionally good, but a bit pricey. I think that there are times when I go for my ride just to get my treat at the end. I drink coffee too, but I usually wait till I stop sweating (so the granola bar is long gone). I don't ration coffee like the granola bars. That just wouldn't work well at all.

I'm at 125 miles for the month so I'm right on track to get to my 300.

Bonked (almost)

I went for a ride this morning (I didn't get up real early like the machine of my wife know as Liz ((4:15 is crazy! I don't care who your are or how much you like to run)), but I did get up) and took a new route. It was around 14 miles, but I missed a turn that I was planning on taking so I'm not entirely sure how far I went.

Mostly the roads were really nice, for awhile I was even on a road that they had just repaved (the machines were still there), and instead of having to ride over the train tracks I rode under them thanks to a fun bridge. There were a few steep hills but they were short. On one of the hills in the middle I found myself only halfway up it and pretty much at a dead stop. I couldn't seem to get the feet turning. I'll go back another day to show it who is the real boss (just not today). Lastly, I saw a bunny and it was cute.

For those of you unfamiliar with bunnies, it looked a lot like this



Yesterday was a traumatic bike day, which ended with me having to change my tire for the 1st time ever and not getting to actually bike. I have to thank the countless you tube clips that probably demonstrated the "simple" technique of changing a tire for me over 20 times on my computer.

I broke the valve on the first one because I slipped and twisted the fragile part of the stem, thus it would no longer hold in the air. I all ended with me and Liz going to the bike shop for a humbling lesson on how to use bike pump (don't laugh until you have tried one of those demonic presta valve mechanisms).

But now, all is right again in the world. My padded bibs came in the mail so my booty doesn't hurt so much while riding. It will take a little time to get used to the spandex part though, but at least I'm not flashing all the oncoming traffic, and I bought biking gloves at the LBS so now my arms don't go numb (an odd sensation, but not an appropriate one while steering a bike).


That hill described from earlier felt biking up this....




but probably was more like this

Summer routine

I think that i've finally found a routine that I'm happy with for the summer. It only took me two months to nail it. Basically it revolves around getting my work done in the mornings and late at night. The afternoon day is for napping, playing tennis with liz, and getting in a bike ride. Dinner. Work. Sleep. Repeat.

On a biking note, I'm really really hope that my bibs come tomorrow. My arse is getting sore not having any padding. I think that I'll soon have to get gloves and a water bottle soon too. I got out for another 16 miles today.By the end, my hands were sweaty and losing grip and I was thristy. We shall see what happens.

You would think that bike pumps would be easy to use, but that is just not the case. That bugger is hard to get onto the valve just right. I almost spend more time getting the thing on than I do having to actually pump air.

I'm at 84 miles of 300 for the month

I beat the rain

So I probably won't post pictures. Maybe I'm just to lazy. When I woke up this morning for my ride it was storming pretty bad, and Liz forbid me from going out and riding. She didn't have to work very hard since the bed was down right comfortable, and I don't like the idea of being struck by lighting. Anyway, by 9:00am (when I was supposed to be at work) it was still storming and I decided to call in and tell them that I wouldn't be coming in on account of the weather. I got enough work doen from home that it wasn't a big deal.

Around noon, I looked out the window and saw that the rain had stopped and the pavement was slowly drying. I looked on the radar and it said that there would be more rain coming (it never did though) in about 2 hours, so I hoped on my bike and set off for some miles.

It turned into a great ride. I went 16 miles (a personal best for me), but had to take a small break halfway through to turn around, let a semi-truck pass, and wipe my glasses clean. I'm going to need a water bottle on the bike soon. I don't think I'd want to go much farther without one. The little hills on the way back were a little more painful, but I got over them slowly.

I'm at 43 miles for the month with a goal of doing 300 miles.