Well, I took advantage of the awesome weather this weekend and did a 23.44 mile ride. I LOVE cycling. My only problem was I lost the pedal covers that came with my clipless pedals…I found ONE, but couldn’t find the other. Oh well. This ride went from our house to the end of Leslie Groves park in Richland. I WAS going to stop there and come back, and called my husband to let him know I was on my way back, but then I decided to see just how much farther it was to WSU Tri-Cities campus. If anyone wants to know, going on the bike path from our house to the end of Leslie Groves park is 10.2 miles. It’s another 1.2 miles to the WSUTC campus from that point. My extra little bit of mileage is from turning around and back-tracking a little bit looking for pedal covers…which I realized were missing as I got back onto the bike path at Leslie Groves!

Not only was the weather perfect, the park was fairly empty, too, so no hassles with running into people. I also learned the crucial signal of cyclists for pedestrians…”Passing on your (left/right)!” I’d forgotten about that one until my 4th of July ride, when I passed someone whose family was riding bicycles along the path and the mom called out, “Passing on your left!” to the kids. I felt a bit ashamed for not having done that myself. I’d been wondering just how to let people know I was coming, though, without shouting out the only thing that would come to mind, “Watch out!” or “Excuse me!” Neither of those are quite as effective as, “Passing on your (left/right)!”

Now, my only issue is that my neck aches a little from the ride. My back was already a bit sore from my workout earlier in the week, and I think the long ride just strained it a little more than it could handle. It’s feeling better today; I think I’ll have to figure out my workouts so that I’m not so sore when I want to go on a long ride again!