My womens bike group rides on Wednesdays, and I had promised our leader a good ride of about 20ish miles. Last night, we all got an e-mail that our leader had gotten injured yesterday but we were to carry on.
And we did! Met the ladies at Vienna and then took them on a tour of "my" stomping grounds. It was so much fun to lead from behind. This was possible because the first seven miles were familiar territory, being our regional bike trail. I could tell them, "hold up at County Parkway." When we got close, I zoomed up to the front and waited until everyone gathered. We turned off the regional trail and went north on the County Parkway trail which very quickly became a great place to stretch out our legs and lungs. Once again, I could say, "Go, go, go to Sugar Maple!" Everyone held up there and we turned to go into one of the awesome stream valley parks.
At this point I did take the lead because there are many opportunities to get lost back here! I was a little bit intimidated to ride through this because the current was strong .. so I showed them how to walk across. This is Sugarland Run --isn't that a great name?
The next one was tamer and we rode right through ... thus no photos! But when we did that one we were in "Folly Lick" stream valley park. These local stream names are as old as ... well, this is Virginia, so many of those names go back to those folks who made America out of a former British colony!
Every part of this adventure was on either a designated bike trail, designated bike lanes, paved stream valley park trails or quiet streets. It was heavenly!
The skies remained overcast so the temperatures were bearable and the humidity was ... well, normal for August.
We finished at a Greek restaurant and then visited the newest local bike shop. One of our group (whose awesome road bike was stolen off her FRONT PORCH while she ran in for a drink of water) test rode a new bike.
By the time all was said and done, I'd ridden 27 miles...and was still smiling! YES! I love a good day in the saddle!
Isn't that just a beautiful sight? Strong women, cycling along, enjoying life to its fullest. At this point they'd done about 18 miles. Sweet...
2 comments:
That sounds fabulous!
So cool!
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