A Tale of Two Rides (during one ride)

Saturday morning Dale, Ira, Jim Jones (not my bro), Frank Z., an out of town visitor Scott (from D.C. area) and myself got in a nice 2:15hr spin leaving at 6:30am and taking in Humansville. Cloud cover early on made for a comfortable ride until 8am when the clouds vanished and the sun did it's work (toasty quick). Good to have a little group ride instead of the usual two or three.
I pulled up to the house just in time to see Deb heading out for a ride with the girls. It was 9am and already hot. I cleaned up and made my way to the Farmer's Market for some fresh produce and our family favorite yeast rolls. Finished up with a breakfast alone (the boys were still snoring when I left) at Brenda's.

Did a little work in the garden (in full effect as pictured below) and in the yard (late afternoon), but pretty much kept indoors for the most part watching some movies and playing a little table tennis and Catan. Spend late hours making some CX changes to the Blue in prep for the season.

Sunday morning we hit church and the afternoon was spent mostly out in the garage as I picked up another scooter (same owner as the first one) and started the 'once over' evalutation. Looks like it needs a handful of things to get it running and I'm expecting roughly $75 in parts; not too shabby considering they gave it to me for free. Got it tore down and am starting the rebuild.

Aug 1st marked the official beginning of 'cross training and in the late afternoon I grabbed a 1:30hr tempo ride on the FT. I have ran across some unusual things on the FT over the years and yesterday took it to a new level... As I approached the Wishart area I rode upon a farm truck parked on the trail; not anything new as from time to time we'll run into this, but as I approached it appeared abandoned until I passed the open window and witnessed a couple of youngsters (let's see, how do I tastefully put this) Sealing The Deal in a relationship 100% in the buff. I had to slow to almost a stop before getting to the side of the truck as it took up pretty much the entire trail and so the sound of my bike sliding a bit in the loose gravel and my audible "uh oh" notified them of my presence. I am hard pressed to remember when I saw folks move so fast with literally no where to go in a long time; I probably laughed for a good mile after passing by. Back to the ride (my ride that is) I finished up feeling really fresh and ready to go again as the 'vacation/rest period' did the job.

This morning (Monday) I hit the SBU 'cross playground for the first time since the '09 season. Always a welcome sight to see the tracks in the fresh grass (as pictured below). Kept it pretty low effort and worked and worked tons of corners/turns at various speeds. Finished up the ride with a spin through town and ran into Jake and his XC teammates cruising (always fun to see). The FT (Frisco Trail) in town has two options 1)paved trail and 2) grass/dirt path (running parallel to pavement) with natural dismount barriers. Best to get your riding in the AM hours as the next three days forecast as the temps in the 100's (that's core and doesn't include heat index).

This evening my bro and I are (re)taking my pop to a SGF Cardinals games. I say retake as our first attempt was rained out; not really a chance of that tonight, but more like melting from the heat (luckily our seats are shade covered).

Ian found a whoopy cushion the other day (if you have boys then I know you have one laying around) and so he immediately went to task...