Haven’t been out to Novi’s excellent Lakshore park to ride in about a year, which is too bad because its a great trail.  Its a 10-mile trail of densely forested, tightly packed and flowing single track.  The addition of a nice long climb would make the trail absolutely perfect, but just not an option here in the flatlands.  There are quite a few fun technical stunts if you like that sort of thing.  Today there was a group ride of noobs (probably organized by some bike shop) and they were all standing around The Crater daring each other to take the plunge.  I noticed it was mainly the 13 year old boys who didn’t hesitate at all to drop in while the adults waited anxiously at the top.  I overheard conversations such as “I think this is the day!  I’m going to ride all the log piles today!”

So anyway met up with Eric for a few laps, we did 2 easy ones before he had to run.  I was still waiting for Sarah to pick me up so I did a third.  Have to admit I started feeling a bit tired at this point.  Halfway through the wind kicked up hard after being calm and sunny all day - looked like I was going to get nailed by a thunderstorm.  I started trying to estimate the odds of a tree blowing over and hitting me, decided it was pretty low and pressed on.  Good call - no rain.  Still problems persisted, soon after the left hand started killing - the point that presses on the grip right under the thumb.  All I could do was try not to press on it and stretch it out, riding with only one hand and no front brake was not so fun.  Eventually it eased up and I rode out, but even now its not feeling so great so might have to examine my gloves/grips and see if it can be fixed.

Total Distance: 30 miles

With Platt Rd closed for construction, in order to bike in to work I had to take a slightly different route down Carpenter Rd which added a mile to the distance.  This doesn’t seem like a big deal but on the ride in every minute counts with a commute and a start time like mine.  As it turns out Carpenter has a decent shoulder (a rarity in this neck of the woods) so that’s a plus.  The weather was decent all week, dry which was most important, however the wind in the afternoon is just a killer at 20-30 mph straight into me.  Wednesday drove in with the bike in the trunk, then biked home.  Biked both ways Thursday.  Then biked in and drove home Friday.  Total miles 69.6 for an estimated gas savings of 2.8 gallons or $11.28

Yesterday D-Rob and I rode some intervals on a small loop near the Saline Rec Center for about an hour.  Legs were burning pretty good afterward, need to get out and do this more often.  It wasn’t even that much of a hill but still didn’t feel very strong going up it.

Today, solo ride out and back on my new favorite route, W down Bemis Rd from the house into downtown Saline, then SW out of  town on Monroe St (it changes names literally a dozen times after that eventually leading into the tiny town of Macon).  I stopped after about 70 minutes and turned around to head back in order to make it back in time to beat the sunset.  So far it’s the best road I’ve found to go a decent distance on that isn’t pot-holed beyond ridability and not so congested that it’s deadly.  In fact once you get out into farm country its positively desolate - perfect.  Total distance 31 miles, calculated average speed of 15 mph.  Not bad considering on the way out was facing 20-30 mph headwind, sucked!  Felt like I was positively flying on the way back in though.

Sarah and I attended the first ever Red Bull Air Race held in Detroit. It was right on the riverfront along the new boardwalk connected to the RenCen. It was very cool, between races they had exhibition planes such as an F18, a WWII bomber and fighter. The weather was great, the crowd was not too bad, although as it turned out we should have brought our bag chairs (there were no bleachers).