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Today after work I couldn’t decide where to go ride, but eventually I settled on heading up from Oakview Middle School to the Polly Ann Trail to see if I could make it to I-69, roughly 16 miles away, in an hour. Leaving the school’s parking lot at 6:00pm I decided to turn around at 7:00pm, giving myself roughly 1:20 to get back to the parking lot before the sun set. I wasn’t quite prepared for this endeavor, but it worked out well.
I ended up only making it as far as the ditch pictured here, as when I rolled up to this area my clock ticked over to 7:00pm exactly. As opposed to last time I’d ridden this when the ditch was passable and fairly easy to climb it’s now much more eroded, and the far side is overgrown to the point where riding it would have been a slow go; definitely not something to do at 7:00pm on a late August evening without a set of head and tail lights.
All done, I ended up riding 27.7 miles with a moving time of 1:46:42, for an average of 15.58 MPH. Despite having some decent hills (particularly along Lake George Road) and terrible path surface (large gravel at times, or just grass) north of the Lapeer / Oakland county line this is the fastest average speed I’ve had on a ride. It even surpasses mostly-pavement rides with smooth tires to and from work or around local paved paths.
Upon returning to the car I felt very worn out and right on the edge of bonking which I’d thankfully staved off by consuming two Hammer Gels (vanilla and chocolate) while riding. I found myself wanting for a some Recoverite, chocolate milk, or maybe a banana upon returning to the parking lot, but I just had to settle for a few handfuls of granola. Oh well. At least it was a fun, hard ride.
Just before turning back I started recording the route via my phone’s GPS. If you’d like to see a copy of this GPS plot, it can be found here: 24-Aug-2010_PollyAnnBacktoOakview.kmz