Lighted Holiday Parade

 This weekend we participated in the Lighted Holiday Parade. We decorated our bikes and road a few blocks in the freezing cold. Our bike club was supposed to participate but they all chickened out! It was about 19 F and dropping. It's hard to get good pictures when you're frozen waiting for the parade to start and when it's dark.

Lance road the Unicycle

Bundled up!!

Lighted bike. Super hard to capture.

We ate out afterwards and our pile of coats & warm gear was almost as tall as Quentin who is 6'6.

October 2013 Katy Trail Weekend

Ahh...the Katy Trail. Just when I think I'm over this trail, I ride it again and fall in love.

Tunnel By Rocheport

I had no intentions of riding the Katy Trail this year. In 2010, Lance & I road the Katy for our honeymoon. It was my first long distance riding experience and I loved it. We've gone back each year since and road a different section each time. We've pretty much covered this trail and I thought it was time to move on.

Large Intern making breakfast

Then the bike club decided to host a weekend trail/camp ride. Since the bike club's intern lives with me (nephew) it seems wrong not to join in on the fun.

I never know where to look at when taking a selfie!

I am so glad I did! I had such a good time. A fantastic time! Our bike club invited the KC Metro club to join us and I got to meet several new people. I feel like we had such a crazy adventure that I cannot recount all that happened in such a short time. There was camping, pumpkin spiced coffee, dinners out in Booneville, riding, beautiful landscape, rain!, flash flooding, shivering in a Taco Bell, great conversation, wine & pizza on the trail, and so much laughing. I got to thinking on my way home just what made it such a good time & I quickly realized that it was the people! Every new person I met was interesting & a few a bit eccentric. Not one complainer in the bunch, just a great group of people looking to have fun. I didn't collect anyone's email address or contact info but I sincerely hope that I meet each and every one of them again. They were that good!

I road in these all day Saturday thanks to the rain.

Dirty Bikes!

Deluge of Water, We were trying to hide out from it but got caught up in the storm system flood!

The Missouri River

Weekend Ride

I got up early Saturday morning to join a group ride to Tonganoxie & back. I checked the weather & it said 55 degrees! What!? It has been so long since those temps I wasn't sure how to proceed. What did I even wear to ride in the cold last year? I found some leggings & piled on the layers.

5 miles into the ride I warmed up & enjoyed the brisk, beautiful morning. The Kansas countryside was refreshing. I had anticipated that it would take almost 2 hours to get to my destination. Imagine my surprise when I made it in 1 hr & 20 minutes! Bam! Then I realized that the only other times I had road this route I was fully loaded. You can ride a lot faster without 45 lbs of gear! 

I abstained but man these looked good.

Total miles for the morning ride was 45. Not bad for a random Saturday! I struggle to ride long rides on Saturdays. Lance is working and I usually take that time to do household stuff. I was regretting signing up for the ride but I am so glad I went. It was peaceful and I need some peace. The Century Ride is next weekend and I am in charge of 10 SAGs!

Sunday Ride

This past Sunday our bike club had a picnic and ride. I haven't road with a group in almost a month. It was a hot when we road out into the county. Usually, I'm at the back of the pack because I have a great steel touring bike with larger tires. Most folks have light weight road bikes with skinny wheels. Somehow, this ride I managed to lead the pack. Surprised, I started taking note on my accomplishments.

1. I was able to climb this crazy steep hill AND talk. Yes, I was breathing heavy but I was still yammering away.

2. I took the long decent without touching my brakes once! I used to drag my brakes to keep my speed down. Now I love a good decent.

3. I can climb a hill and not grumble. I don't dread hills at all. I just take them at face value and climb them. Really in my area of the country you can't avoid them so you might as well embrace them.

I'm pretty proud of how far I've come. I am, dare I say, a strong rider! Maybe I'll head out on group rides more often.