Well another biking season is behind me. When I started in March (15th to be exact), I did not set any goals. I just wanted to ride and see what I could do (or couldn't do). The weather was so windy this spring. It made it very hard to ride but there were some days that I just got on my bike and took off. Then as it got closer to summer, it was very, very hot. I don't do well riding on hot days. Even early mornings, this last summer were muggy and even though I tried to ride then, it was difficult. Toward evening wasn't much better as on one of my rides, I saw the big thermometer in Sanford and it said 98 degrees. What! 98 degrees at 8:30 at night. Just a little bit crazy.
Did I mention that I got new tires on my bike? They are a lot skinner than my old ones and it's a whole lot easier to coast than my fat tires. The only bad part is I have to be careful in sand or gravel. I'm excited to say, that I didn't wipe out once this year. Not bad for new tires!!!!!!!!!!
It was odd, though this summer that I didn't see 1 turtle on my travels. Last summer I saw turtles just about every day, but this year it seemed like they just vanished from the earth. I only saw a couple of snakes too where last year, I saw more. Guess it was to hot for them too.
So all in all, my summer biking wasn't very exciting. It was still fun to ride but kind of boring on the trail each day. The bad part of my whole summer was being chased by a dog on my last day of riding. I was riding down 7 mile road and I saw the dog in the yard with 2 girls jumping on a trampoline. The dog started after me and the girls yelled at the dog, but he kept right on coming. It was a pit bull and even though he wasn't growling, he was chasing me down the road. I thank God that I have strong legs as I took off and he finally gave up. But then I thought, "Oh, no, I have to go back past that house to get home. There was no other way around." So I kept watch for the dog and I yelled at the girls to grab him but they didn't listen to me. Here comes the dog again and wouldn't listen to me telling him to stay in the yard. He kept right on coming. I was wishing a car would come along at that time and hit him but I was on my own. So I took off again and left him behind. I won't go that way on a bike ride ever.
I didn't break last year's total but I'm ok with what I did. I figured my grandson, Noah, had to come first, and I would watch him when ever I could. I also made over 100 pies for Cindy and Ben to sell at their farmer's markets. Curt and Sarah helped me figure out that I lost about 1000 miles just on making the pies. But that's ok. I was glad to help them out since their apple orchard got damaged by the frost that we had in the spring.
So my grand total for 2012 is 2255 miles. Not bad, like I said for a hot summer and doing a lot of baking and watching Noah.
I'm looking forward to March already when I can once again ride and get that tread going down the payment. See ya next year.
