Fantastic Bike Riding Day! ;D

OK, THIS post is all about today and our great bike ride! ;D

As it poured with rain yesterday I didn't get a chance to try out my bike so was kind of anxious about riding all that way (43 miles ) on an unknown bike!

Lisa and Greg drove me to Omaha and Lisa and I tried to stay warm whilst waiting for the ride to start. We both have new bikes so we tooled around the parking lot figuring out the gearing and the brakes! Once the ride got going we had to stay with the pack. It was a much smaller group of riders than a similar ride in August last year. I think when it's early in the season and colder etc you get a sort of hard core bunch of riders. These folks were fast. Come to think of it there were quite a few riders who either a) took a short ride route or b) dropped out entirely as we saw them at the beginning of the ride and we never saw them again! :D

Anyhoo..... we set off... straight into the bitter wind. Perfect. 43 miles in a headwind. We also had some pretty harsh crosswinds that threatened to blow us off our bikes more than once! We took a different route than last time, this time we traveled a loooong bike trail that wound through a nature preserve. The frogs were going crazy! It was very scenic and helped pass the time. We also had a hill to beat all hills. Boot Hill someone called it!! that was so tough but Lisa and I rode the entire thing despite many a grown man getting off his bike and walking it! ;D Whooot!! That's the Boot Camp Endurance kicking in folks! ;D We were tested at one point as we were nearing the half way point.... it just seemed like it was never going to arrive! We could see miles ahead of us along the flat fields and could see folks riding along. We knew we still had to ride at least that far before we could turn around and maybe have the wind to our backs AND before we could get some food!!!!!

We finally made it to the halfway point and we couldn't eat fast enough!! We turned around as fast as we could and headed back. The way back we just FLEW!! At one point ( on a down hill run ) Lisa was going at 31.9 mph !! Sheesh!!! I just hung back and laughed whilst riding my brakes!!! Anyway we rode like the wind and once we'd got through the pot hole hell that is Carter Lake Park we headed back to the Civic Center. Suddenly, as we were about to pull in, a person leaped out from behind a flower pot!!! Hubby!! He and the kids had come to cheer us on!!! It was so lovely to see them and they bought us a delicious lunch too!! Now THAT was something to celebrate! ;D

Next up, 70 miles.......!! ;D

(PS, I will add some photos but honestly, I'm suddenly REALLY tired. Find me on Facebook and you can see them there.....!! )

G'night all!