Saturday on the tandem
Well, the plan for Saturday was to ride the tandem 50 miles, and we accomplished that. The other objective was to grab a bite to eat at the café in Fair Grove. We accomplished that, but it sure wasn’t the dining experience we had come to expect and left disappointed.
The first leg of our ride consisted of a trip down the valley at the intersection of Farm Roads 116 & 112. This was the first time we took the tandem that way, and the ride down into the valley was a real rush! As usual, Mike was ahead of us, and as we overtook him at about 40 mph, he said we sounded like a huge windstorm passing by. My reaction to that was perhaps we needed to work on being a little more aerodynamic!
The thing about that joyride was the climb out of the valley. As we started up the first section, I noticed my garmin was indicating we were suffering up a 20% grade. Needless to say, we were in absolute granny gear, and traveling as slow as 3.3 mph a couple of times. At that speed, it’s kinda hard to keep the bike upright, but Pam’s very good at helping me do that.
We stopped at the c-store in Strafford, then headed for Fair Grove. We went over the top of Fire Tower Hill, which was also the first time we had done that on the tandem. Luckily, the climb from the south is long, but not extremely steep, so it was really just a long grind to the top, followed by a really nice long downhill that kept us between 30 & 40 mph for quite a while. Even at those speeds, we never did catch Mike before we got to Fair Grove. He obviously had made it to the top before we did, and never looked back! He had breakfast on his mind…and had already ordered by the time we came wandering in.
Mike got a service call from work as we ate, so as we headed home from Fair Grove, we had a hard time keeping up with him over the hills between Fair Grove and Springfield. He is riding very well this year, and easily outpaces us on the tandem these days. He was loaded up and sitting in his car when we pulled into the driveway.
After dropping Pam off, I jumped on the Madone and headed out for another 20 miles on my own. We rode 51 miles on the tandem, my goal was 70 for the day.
It was a good morning. Perhaps a little chilly, at times, but we enjoyed ourselves.
You can click the map above for the details of the GPS track.
God bless…
TW
Explore posts in the same categories: bicycle, Cycling, Fitness, tandemTags: bicycle, Cycling, Fair Grove, Fitness, Strafford, tandem
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
