Friday, March 11, 2011

Finishing the Week Feeling Stronger, Where's Evan?

The week finished off with some pretty nice riding weather. Wednesday started with at least a non-rainy day, roads a bit wet. Evan's form and riding are very good, hmmm, I wonder where he learned them - lol.

Evan got to ride home from school by himself, as I had to stay late to deal with some on-going technical crises issues at work. Love that he has the route down and is comfortable riding solo when he needs. Cool, huh?

For my ride, I continue to use Lincoln into Mt. Tabor as it gives me a little more strength building on the extra bit of climbing over the climb up Harrison/Lincoln. Feel stronger each day, of course, that is not say I don't have those moments of "geez, got ... no ... power ... ugh."

Thursday, we were fortunate in that we did not have to ride in the rain, though the roads certainly showed that we did have rain. After I left Evan at school, I did actually get a few drops just before I got to work.

The sky was both dark and light, depending on where you were and where you were looking. This picture and the one up there were taken Thursday morning just before reaching work.

I'm feeling much stronger, I notice I am using higher gears on the inclines. That is one of the nice things about a consistent, regular route, I have reference points that I can fairly easily compare to.

Thursday afternoon was an interesting riding adventure. I left work a bit late, which would make me get to Evan's school after he would normally be at his bike. Our agreement was if I wasn't there by 20 after, to call me to see where I was at, and go ahead and start toward home. I headed to the school at a faster pace than normal, but I did not feel exhausted. His bike was not there. I waited a bit, thinking he was somewhere watching out for me.

After about 5 minutes, I figured he must have headed toward home, so I headed that way, too. Of course, when I was about 2 miles from school I get a call. He was around the corner. We planned that he would ride toward home on our normal route and I would ride back and we would meet up. Well, I rode a bit slower and more casual, as I had the headwind and, hey, I already rode this part. I kept riding and looking for Evan ... where is he? Hmmm, maybe he rode toward the other home? I rode there, nope, no one there. I decided I would just head toward home.

I got to NE 47th and looked up to see Evan crossing Sandy Blvd. Hehehe, so I sped up to catch him, which I did a few blocks down and yelled to him. I gave him a bad time about the route he chose and he gave me a time that that was the "normal" route. (Later, I would find out he actually did detour to the other house - ah ha!).

Just a few blocks from home, we were riding along SE 76th, legally, single file, coasting down the last stretch, which we often do. All of a sudden I hear a loud, short police car siren blast. I sit up a bit and look to my side in time to see a police car go by. I'm looking around and wondering, "what?" Evan catches up and says, "That hurt my ear!"

The officer is too far now for me to see the license or car number, I wave hoping he would notice and stop, but he continues on. I'm upset, that was totally uncalled for, there was no on-coming car, he had plenty of room to go around without blasting the siren. He just modelled that anyone can just honk at a cyclist because, "Hey, cars have absolute rights over anyone or anything else using the roadway."

I find out the car was very close behind Evan. I wrote to the Randy Leonard and Sam Adams about this incident and the inappropriate behavior of the officer.

Today was another nice dry morning commute with Evan. I think we are making the trip to school faster and faster all the time, without feeling like we are riding hard or anything.
Temperature was quite comfortable and, again, dry. The cloudy, overcast makes finding an inspirational picture a bit tough. But even those neutral light images have character.

Work was a bi ..... otch! Got into a bit of it with another to the point I just had had enough of this bad week, so I took a long midday break and rode home. It was partly sunny and mild so at least the ride was good, strength felt good, climbing in my number 2 gear rather than my lowest, so that was feeling pretty good.

After a bit, I went back in, partly because I was not able to connect remotely - can any more go bad this week!? Oh, well, one more week and I am out on vacation with Evan for spring break. Mostly be around town and he is trying to organize his friends to do some airsofting, another great way to take some agressions out - haha.

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