Zipping down the Kettering connector. With no hands!
Today brought an opportunity to do something I love, with people that I love. And I love it when that happens.
My niece Hannah is home-schooled, but that doesn’t mean she’s home all the time. In fact, she’s out and about, learning about the world by being in it, far more than a typical pupil in your average student factory. Today, there was a field trip with her home school group (socialization what?) to Carillon Historical Park to learn about local innovations and innovators. It was close enough to my sister’s house for an easy pedal, so she asked if I’d like to join them for the trip, and stop somewhere close by for lunch after.
I decided on taking the mountain bike for the sake of comfort, and (as is my routine) left the house about 20 minutes after I intended in the morning. That meant an all-out sprint to their house, something I haven’t done on pavement, on the mountain bike, in quite some time.
I just went to running club yesterday, where I turned in a puny 5 miles in two sets before calling it quits, as I wasn’t fully recovered from the Air Force Half yet. But despite my aches and pains on this morning, my legs felt strong, and I powered up the climb on Lower Valley Pike almost like I was on my road bike. Almost. I was generating more power (if Strava’s calculations are to be believed) than I usually do on skinny tires, pushing out nearly 300 watts to make it up the hill. Again, this is calculated instead of measured, so several grains of salt are required.
I made it to my sister’s house in under 45 minutes, averaging almost 16 mph. That’s not bad, especially considering I was pushing a thirty pound, full-suspension mountain bike with knobbies, and slowing to navigate my way through an unfamiliar neighborhood between the Creekside trail and her house. It was fun, but not the sort of fun I see myself doing regularly. It’s a lot of work for not a lot of speed.
My sister has recently re-caught the biking bug. Hanging around her daughter and me this year has proven to be a pretty strong influence, and she’s started racking up some very decent mileage on her Trek hybrid. She’s even taken a few rides just for the sake of the ride, which I recognize as one of the early signs of addiction. Welcome to the club, Jen! There’s a shiny seat for you just over there.
Her work showed pretty quickly once we hit the bike path, on a recently-opened connector between Kettering and the UD campus. She zinged out ahead of us, and soon we were sailing along, three kids out for a bike ride on an idyllic early fall morning.
WHY IS IT ALWAYS MY RIGHT KNEE?!
The trail dumped us out in the back of the campus housing, and we zigzagged our way through, stopping at a traffic light on Brown Street. I was fooling around, trying to get fancy by rolling into a track stand as we stopped. I unclipped my left foot as a bail-out, but unexpectedly lost my balance to the right, and toppled to the ground, taking my niece with me. She was unscathed, but I managed to take the skin off my right knee for about the thousandth time in my life.
My ego hurt worse than my knee, of course, so we pedaled on to the park, enjoying the crisp air in equal measure with the exhibits, while Hannah was led through the field trip by a park employee. After a tasty stop at Shish Wraps for lunch, we all headed home, me by way of Jen’s house. There were 35 miles on the clock by the time I was home again, bloodied (again!) but happy to have spent the day on my bicycle, and better still, with family.