Day 63

September 25, 2010 First flat. Was going to go from home to Ann Arbor along Whitmore Lake Road, about a 9 1/2 mile ride one way. I'd hoped to get some training in on hills because the Tour de Livingston course I picked (28 miles) has a lot of hills and I need to practice and train on hills because they are my nemesis!

So I'm cruising through some gentle climbs and small hills and there is a good hill before the killer hill. I'm shifting up into higher gears to help tackle the big one, singing my little hill song and all of a sudden something feels squishy in the rear of the bike, I hate stopping at the bottom of a hill, let alone this big killer hill but...stopped anyway and sure enough - flat rear tire. A good friend bailed me out with a ride home.

So I'm kinda bummed I didn't get my ride in and thinking that this means no riding for a few days but I tried the local bike shop and lo, they were open. Figured that I'd be leaving it until Monday but lo again, they fixed it while I waited. Unbelievable great service. What a stroke of luck.

There is still about and hour and a half of light and I consider picking up from where I left off on my ride but thought better of it because of the time and I was unsure of the distance at that time. So I drive down to the destination to get a good mileage of the route.

Lo again, there is a park and bike path at the end of this journey and I still have my bike in the trunk AND it's still a good hour or more of daylight! Ha! I thought I was foiled and found myself on a new path I'd never known about, winding along the Huron River and parts of Ann Arbor, crossed over a dam and through 3 parks and some pretty rugged trail conditions. There was a lot of variety on this trail and very scenic, there was one part of the trail where the river was on both sides of me.

Life is full of surprises! You think the day or your ride is ruined and voila! something better comes along. I love good surprises like that.

That dam was one narrow crossing, just big enough to bike or walk through, there is no way that two bikers could pass in opposite directions, it was scary, however not dangerous because there was heavy duty fencing surrounding it. What a blast!

So even though I had planned a much longer ride, I still ended up with a bit over 7.5 miles for the day.