Back Road Bike Ride

I'm finally finished school for the summer, so I've been putting my free time to good use. Over the weekend, I decided to go on a nice long bike ride.

Now, Waterloo is a mid sized city, but the university is only about 5-10kms away from farmland. I hate having to dodge cars or stop for red lights, so I usually like to bike out through the farms. I usually only train about 20-30kms on the bike, but I decided that a good 45-50 would be a nice way to end my summer here before I move away.

So I went far out into the country.And I mean far, far out.Soon, my problem became not cars, but horses and buggies. (Waterloo is home to a lot of old order Mennonites) Let's just say that horse poop isn't my TOP choice for scents to bike along with.

The further out I went, the worst the roads got. Luckily I have gloves (thanks, Lin!) that have some padding, but I still felt my elbows get a bit stuff from all the vibration caused by the poor road quality. I had to keep re-routing myself whenever I hit signs like this:SOOOO many gravel/dirt roads! The route I had mapped was 49kms on gmap-pedometer and I really didn't want to cut any of that distance off, but it seemed that everywhere I went was dead-ended by a dirt road!

Also, the further out I went the hillier it got. I promise that people have successfully ski jumped off hills with a lower gradient that the ones I rode on. I was going to take a picture but I didn't want to lose momentum by stopping at the bottom, and they always looked so lame once I got to the top.

I was riding with a 2L Camelbak and I guess I was drinking a little too liberally. 20km from home, I had to pee. This trip was quickly becoming far more wildernessy than I expected. As I realized that I was slightly lost from all my detours, I started to imagine myself foraging for berries and finding rest under a hollow tree for the night.

Everything started really looking the same:But I of course eventually made it home. I ended up only biking 46.3km, but was having a great time near the end. My legs really only whine from about km 5-10, I think. They're like the kids in the back seat asking "are we there yet" and you just have to put on a DVD and suddenly this mode of transportation isn't so hard.

Unfortunately, I'm not going to have a bike in Texas with me for the next four months, but fortunately the sweet bike shorts tan I've got will probably be with me for at least that long.

And finally, I good solid selfy: