Beautiful Afternoon Ride

Yesterday I went for a nice afternoon ride with Sean. Our rides are always fun and we haven't ridden together in awhile, so I was looking forward to it. The temperatures were a bit cool, but the sun was out and the wind was light. We headed north talking about bikes, school, and rabid dogs ruining derailleurs. Sean's, not mine, and it is whole story on its own, though you will be happy to know that both Sean and his titanium frame are going to be alright.

While trying to decide where we should ride Sean suggested a little town north of Solon that had a nice bar and grill. The description of how to get there sounded somewhat familiar and now I'm sure that I had ridden there, but it was years ago during all the frigid winter miles. Now that the weather is nice, and that my priorities are not centered on racing, we sat on the bridge and enjoyed cold Budweisers before heading back to Iowa City.

The Sutliff Bar and Grill is an interesting one. We saw old and young people fishing, riding bikes (leather, not lycra), young families, and a mini-bus-load of people in their 70s and 80s. The burgers looked great, and Sean swears they are, but I stuck with the liquid calories this time. I'll have to go back for a longer stay and a burger in the near future.

For the ride home we had a light tailwind and rode at consistently hard pace. It felt great until we were about a half hour from home and all I could think about was the big hamburger that I didn't eat. I made it home, but if the ride was much longer I would have been in trouble.

Today is another nice day, but I might take a break from the bike. My legs are sore. I haven't ridden this much since my own mini-training camp at the Stephen Ranch. But we'll see, I don't really have anything else to do but take our mountain of bottles to be recycled.


We don't really drink that much, we're mostly just a little lazy. Ok, I'm lazy. Robin has made numerous attempts to get us to take care of this pile. I bargained and said that if I got to spend my free time at the end of the semester adding empties to the pile and riding my bike that I would take them back once school ended. So today is that day.