Sunday afternoon, finally pulling the blue Burleys off the wall, we went on a road ride with some friends from Playmakers. The rain held off for us, and yesterday's strong westerly wind had blown itself out. The air was chilly, perhaps 50 F, but with a little sun and no wind, we weren't complaining. Well, not about the weather anyway, but after spending three hours in the saddle the day before on such a bumpy ride, we were all complaining about our bruised and tender butts!
We'd been playing around with our seating arrangement last fall, and the tandems were still configured for father/daughter and mother/son seating. To keep things simple, we left them this way for this 30-mile ride to Sleepy Hollow State Park. With Abbey's nearly full-sized body on the back of big Burley I had run 95 psi in the tires instead of the usual 75 psi I'd been using with Quinn. I probably could have backed off the pressure in the tire under Quinn on the little Burley, but I didn't think about it.
A couple of weeks ago, Steve, the guy in the orange jersey riding the Waterford, asked us if we'd be interested in doing an Easter Sunday ride. It was going to be Lizzie's first of the season so they were looking at something short and easy. Both working at Playmakers, Steve and Lizzie are very fit runners, so I guess they thought a 30-mile ride on some hills would be a good place to start the season. We were really glad to have someone ask us along for a ride, but we warned them that for a ride of that length this early in the season, 12 mph would be all we could expect to average. As evidenced by Cindy's garmin data, we averaged about 11 mph. The ride and the pace were nice. Plenty of time for chatting and checking out the scenery.
As a last-minute addition to the group, Bob, also a Playmakers staffer, also rode with us. Bob was clearly the strongest rider in the group, but if he minded the slow pace he didn't complain. Bob's getting ready to take his new touring bike, a Surly Long Haul Trucker, which has not yet arrived, on a 2-week unsupported expedition in the Canadian Rockies. Nice. Bob also has a new 29er mountain bike and we're hoping we can do a relay race with him this summer. Unless we move somewhere first.
We did really well on the ride, set up as we were. Cindy is strong right now, in the midst of her intensive marathon training program. Quinn and Abbey did a nice job of pulling their share of the load. I even popped my feet off the pedals and had Abbey push us up a long steep climb on her own. I didn't think she'd be able to do it. But she did. This should be a good year of cycling for us!
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