Today Brian () and I met up at Dodge Park to ride over to Metro Beach. We ended up riding to Metro Beach and back, then Brian headed back home and I rode into the Dodge Park, did an end to end ride of that, then back to my car for a drive home. I was fairly comfortable throughout most of the ride, but I did end up with a bit of sunburn on my arms and a head spotted with slight tan / burn from the vents in the helmet.
The final result, per my bike’s computer, is 41.29 Miles. This ride really wasn’t very difficult. The wind and gradual hills weren’t the most fun, and crossing Gratiot and Schoenherr feel risky, but it was quite nice overall. It’s also a completely different feeling from mountain biking, which seems to be more about huge bursts of output followed by nice rolling breaks as opposed to a few hours of relatively consistent pace.
Here is the KMZ: 24-May-2008_partial.kmz. Unfortunately the batteries in the GPS gave out about 1/4 of the way back from Metro Beach, so it’s only a partial plot. It still illustrates the route between the parks, though. The batteries had reflected 3/4 charge when I left the house, but clearly that didn’t represent how long they would last.
Next time I do this route I think I’ll just leave from home and go to Metro Beach and back. That should push it to a 50 mile ride.