Hard Core Bikers

Jill
Jill emailed me and asked me if I had some time after work to go for a bike ride. I confessed to her that I hadn't been on my bike since the Pinebush in July, but she was ok with short, flat and slow. We agreed to meet on the bike path at Lion's Park after work on Tuesday. I was looking forward to seeing Jill again - we had trained together for last year's Pinebush, and I hadn't seen her since last August. Jill is a lot of fun to train with, another social athlete, and she is pretty inspirational to me. She runs 11 minutes miles - but she runs a whole lot of them, back to back to back. I cheered for her in June of 2006 as she ran and completed the Lake Placid Half Marathon, and not only did she run up that beastly finishing hill, she was smiling while she did it. I like Jill.

Rich
I asked my friend Rich to join us - he had gotten a new hybrid for his birthday, but hadn't had much opportunity to ride. We have done a couple of rides together, including up and down Blatnick Hill, and the 15 miles Schenectady Community College loop which goes down the bile path and back Rt 5 over the Scotia Bridge. Rich is definitely not a Clydesdale, and he was a pretty good athlete in HS - he was recently inducted into the VI Sports Hall of Fame for track. He's got bad knees know, but he ran 4:45 miles in HS - pretty good. We kind of look like Mutt and Jeff together. Jill thinks he'd make a pretty good triathlete.

I finished work at 5, and because we didn't have a lot of light left, I changed in the men's room before I left. Rich lives about 3 miles from downtown, and but it took me thirty minutes to get to his house because of the traffic. After I inflated his tires to max, he put the bike, his helmet and his backpack into the back of the CRV. and we headed for Niskayuna at quarter to six.

It's Got to Be the Goin', Not the Gettin' There That's Good - Nah!
We made good time until we got to Rosendale Rd, only to find it barricaded with a detour sign. No problem. We went down a block to turn at the Reformed Church, only to find another barricade and detour sign. At Mohawk Rd, same deal. It was now past 6, and I did not have Jill's cell phone number. I swung around and headed east on Rt 7 again, going all the way to Buhrmaster Rd and was relieved to find it open. We went down the hill turned left on River Rd, and back to Rosendale - only to find more barricades.

I couldn't see any reason for the barricades - and I was within50 yards of Lion's Park - so I snuck around the barricade, and turned into the lot at about 6:10. Jill was waiting for us on the path, sitting at the table in front of the old train station. Since she drives home that way every night, she knew about the barricades, and knew enough to ignore them, but couldn't call me because she did not have my phone number either. Apparently the barricades are up because they are doing a lot of tree work farther down Rosendale, towards the turn off for the Lock. The barricades are to keep traffic away from the chippers. (No - this is not Cali, so the CHP's http://www.chp.ca.gov/ and Poncherello have nothing to do with this story).

Back in the Saddle Again....
Given that it was a little later than we wanted, and given I had run a 5K on Sunday and swam, and jogged and swam on Monday, we decide to call this a "recovery ride", meaning we headed east, away from Blatnick Hill, and rode on the flats. Good call. We averaged a rip roaring 10 mph, stopped both coming and going to look at the magic-hour sunset vistas on the river which open up 2 miles up from Lion's Park, just after you cross the wooden bridge, and we turned around 4 miles out, just before the path headed down to the road and barricades in the stretch before the twin bridges. Meaning we did no (zero, nil, none, zippo) hills.

We talked a whole year's worth of catch-up during those 8 miles, and we never once put our heads down and hammered. And, miracle of miracles, we did not feel compelled to jump off our bikes at the end and do a brick. We will probably fry in Triathlete's Hell (uphill both ways, into the wind both ways, and HHH), or at least Purgatory, but I don't care. It was nice to remember that, in addition to doing the 2nd leg of a triathlon, my bike can also be used as a recreational vehicle. We had a really nice time. We are going to do it again.