I have no fancy graphics for mine, because until the end of September, I was actually still operating with (gasp!!!) a "dumb" phone. So our first three months of tracking was actually just with his phone, on his account, based on his calories burned, etc.
So, these are just very rough estimates for mine:
Total miles: 1016.41
Total hours: 123.89
Needless to say, in 2014, we intend to Just Keep Pedaling!!!!
Last night with the forecast for today to make it into the 50's, we decided to find someplace to ride our bikes today. With the recent snow melt, we knew we would have to find a paved trail. I made the suggestion that we make it a date day and go to KC, find a new restaurant to eat at and a new bike trail to ride. So my sweetie grabbed the map of Kansas City bike trails we got at the meeting of the Flint Hills Trail Board last month, and tossed it at me.(Just about landed in his bowl of salsa when I did....... ~~H)
Forecasts of warmer weather this time of year usually brings with it higher winds, so I looked for a trail that I knew would be somewhat sheltered from the winds. I quickly spotted one on the border between Kansas and Missouri that follows Indian Creek as it makes its way toward the Little Blue River. It crosses through the towns of Leawood, KS and Kansas City, MO. The trail is known as Indian Creek Greenway.
Now we had to decide upon a new restaurant to try. We both are Mexican food fans so I did a quick search of blogs for a recommended restaurant in the area we wanted to go ride. One that kept getting mentioned was Dos De Oros. It is at the intersection of Blue Ridge Blvd and Holmes Rd. Link to the Dos De Oros Website
Saturday morning, we awoke, loaded the bikes and packed the car. I had to return my handlebar extensions to my bike as I had moved them to our indoor rider to make it more comfortable. (A permanent set for the trainer bike is on the way from Amazon as we speak. ~~H)
My sweetie made the 1-1/2 hour drive pass faster by busily working on a project she has planned for her bike helmet this summer. (Here's part of it. Any ideas? LOL ~~H)
As we were driving we noted that in the shadowed areas that not all the snow had melted and began to wonder if our ride would be entirely ice/snow free...
We arrived at Dos De Oros right around 12:30 and as we entered were quickly teleported to heart of OL' MehEECo. This was truly authentic Mexican food! I got four soft tacos and my sweetie got 2 tamales, we also got some chips and guacamole. I traded a taco for one of her HOT tamales. Everything was Yummy Yummy in our Tummies!
The trail was seeing pretty heavy usage from this trailhead today. Cyclists, families with kids, exercisers, people with dogs (never see anyone walking a cat, now do you? Hmmmmm........) (~~S Actually we did on Grant's trail in STL if you remember Sweetie :) ) Got our bikes out of the car, realized that we did still remember how to unfold them and get them into riding position again after a few months of not having done so.
The trail had many slushy, snow packed, and/or icy spots along the entire 10 miles that we rode, but it was not impassable. We just took it slowly. We weren't out to win any races, and since it took us 1-1/2 hours at an average speed of 6.4 mph to cover that 10 miles, that was pretty obvious!!
There were also large portions of the trail that were completely clean and dry.
We crossed the state line from Kansas into Missouri under the State Line Road bridge, but alas, there was no painted line for us to photo-op with one foot in each state. Sad face. Here's the best I could do.
Over on the Missouri side we did photo-op this sign. We would have taken it on the side that said "Welcome to Missouri", but some goober had spray-painted graffiti on it.
Shortly after crossing into Missouri, you encounter the spot where the historic Watts Mill used to operate on the Indian Creek.
There's the original millstone.
Rode on a few more miles, still meeting many people out enjoying the the beautiful day(~~S and even some fishermen on the creek!) and utilizing the trail, just like us. People were very friendly, many warning of "Ice ahead", so we returned the favor to people we passed, too.
Back to the car, we got everything packed back up, found an unlocked shelter house bathroom (bless you, City of Leawood) to change out of our damp, sweaty clothes (because warm and dry feels wonderful in the depths of December, yes it does.)
In discussing our supper plans, we both determined that we weren't particularly hungry right then, but at the same time, neither of us wanted to have to make supper when we got back home. We decided we would see how hungry we felt at the town halfway home, an hour down the road.
Beautiful sunset as we headed westerly towards home
As we approached Ottawa, the halfway point, we decided we were ready to eat now, so we Googled "Ottawa Kansas Italian" and it gave us two options, right next door to each other, just a few blocks off where we would be passing through Ottawa anyway. We chose the one that had 3 reviews on Yelp, giving it a rating of 4-1/2 stars out of 5, Bella Cucina.
What a wonderful little restaurant with great ambience in an old downtown building. Sometimes it's just nice to class things up and get away from the chain restaurants. I am admirer of all things girly and pretty and the interior definitely fit those descriptions.
My tummy also appreciated the good food.
All in all, a most wonderful day spent with someone I love! Can't ask for more than that!
Well, I got to have the outside ride to try out my new helmet sooner than I thought I would! There's the temperature at the end of my one-hour 10.83 mile ride tonight.
Now I will admit starting out at the beginning of the ride, I would most definitely have agreed with that assessment of the temperature, but I was shocked that that's what it still was claiming to be at the end of my ride. I would have guessed it was easily 15 degrees colder than that. But then again, I had that sweaty-chill thing going on. Plus, the last mile of my one hour of riding was straight into a less than balmy west wind. That was a long stretch. :)
One of the places I regularly pass on my normal route is a farm with elk. Tonight, they were right up at the fence beside the road, so I could not resist stopping and taking a few pictures, even though that meant taking off my two pair of gloves and digging my phone out of the zippered and then velcroed case that it sleeps in while I ride. I figured by the time I got through that whole process they would have scampered away, especially since my phone was belting out Def Lepperd at a high volume, but they stood right there patiently the whole time it took me to secure my phone into camera mode.
And here is my Nutcase debut. Take that as you may. :)
And yes, I think it is MUCH less round and martian-shaped. I like it. And that's all that matters.
And speaking of my gloves..... here's a cool idea I picked up from some other biking blog. Military-issue trigger finger mittens. I wear a pair of gloves underneath them and then pull these huge wool things on over the gloves. They can be worn as a regular (though admittedly extremely oversized) mitten, but they also have the "trigger finger" that you can put your index finger into to enable you to still have dexterity to shift. Perfect! I had considered the lobster-style cycling glove, but this option was infinitely cheaper. A pair of those lobster-claw gloves run about $30-$40. I scored FOUR pair of these military issue gloves off Ebay for $12 total for ALL of them, including shipping.
Yeah, the cheap-ass in me gives that two trigger-fingers up.
I was wiggling my index fingers to demonstrate the extra finger spaces,
but he caught me in down wiggle.
Darn husband. What are we going to do with him?
It's Christmas and I got a new bike helmet. It's a Nutcase. It's gold. And it's sparkly!
And hopefully it makes me look just slightly less like Marvin the Martian than my current Bern Berkeley. My Bern is a L-XL and I requested the Nutcase in a size S-M and it fits me just fine. Hopefully that size difference will make it less "round".
Although I am afraid I might lament the lack of a visor on the Nutcase, I won't be able to give that verdict until I have the opportunity to get outside on the bike once again. Hope that comes soon!!!
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!
~~ H
ADDENDUM: Oh, Oh!!! Look what I just found! Awesome! I'm a DIY crafty kind of girl. I can do this! :) Think I will use craft foam instead of a plastic cutting board, though.
Thought we better post up to our blog for our faithful readers... lol
We have not completely given up our Pedaling! Just moved indoors! We purchased a bicycle stand that allows us to ride our bike inside. (Link to Details on Stand from Amazon.com) Not nearly as exciting as battling spiders on the trail! But it keeps us exercising! Which we will need to do if we are going to make our goal of Pedaling 1825 miles in 2014. That averages out to 5 miles a day. No we likely won't end up riding 5 miles every day. But hopefully our longer rides will average out to it!
As you can see since I was no longer using my Schwinn, I set it up on the stand in the basement/college-aged-son-home-on-Christmas-break-man-cave so we could keep it set up and still ride our Montagues if the weather permits! We also snagged the handlebar extender "bullhorns" and gel seat pad off one of the Montagues to make for a more comfortable ride. Need to get replacements to put back on the "outside" bike, but the Amazon card has self-combusted from all the Christmas purchases in the last few weeks. LOL
Down for riding.....
....... up for space-saving storage!
Here is some Dork who we pulled off the street to demonstrate how to ride this crazy contraption!
Here is my Sweetie demonstrating what it is like to ride. You can see she has her I-Phone there setup to track her ride.
She is entertaining herself by listening to Pandora on the Television. We can also watch TV while we ride if we want. We both prefer listening to our personal stations on Pandora. She obviously likes this song as she gave it a Thumbs up!
If You Leave, by Orchestral Manoevers in the Dark. 80s rock! :)
(And college boy's laundry -- which he does himself and has since he was age 12. His momma raised him right.)
We also purchased a Wahoo Bluetooth Cadence and Speed sensor(Link to Details on the Speed Sensor from Amazon.com) so we could track how far and how fast we are riding through our I-phones. Its cool because it lets us upload our info to our Mapmyride accounts so we can continue to track our progress!
And here is the hilarious route that the GPS thinks I actually rode. Not only does it say I started in one location and ended in other spot (in my basement), but I apparently also somehow crossed the street. Too funny!!!! :) ~~H
Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year of Pedaling!
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