On last Saturday (New Years Eve) we rode the Suncoast Trail North from Anderson Snow Park to the end. We rode with our friend from Buffalo, N.Y., Larry, a 70 plus year old fanatic bike rider. If he’s healthy, I can’t keep up with him. This year he’s recovering from a surgery and it’s taking a while for him to get back to full strength. The plan was for Jean and I to ride to the turn-around and Larry would ride shorter than that. We stopped in the parking lot to adjust Jean’s bike computer and, two minutes later, Larry rode in.

When we left, Jean took off a minute or two before Larry and I did. We were chit-chatting about altitude (70 feet difference from start to finish in 18+ miles). When we took off I let Larry take the lead. He tried his best to catch Jean, but ran out of energy about half-way back. He kept urging me to go get her, but I told him I wasn’t in a hurry, and just followed. He told his wife (jokingly) that I “wheel-sucked” all 18+ miles back, but, if you know me, you’d know I stayed about 4 bike lengths back.

My odometer read 38 miles and his read 37. If you’ve read enough of these you know that I like to be accurate (I’ve started to attend weekly meetings where I get up and say “My name is Jack and I’m obsessive”). Larry told me the mile markers on the Suncoast between SR-52 and SR-54 are right on the button and I could find out which of us is right.

So, this past Wednesday, Jean and I did a ride on that part of the trail. My odometer said 33.33 miles, but obviously it wasn’t right, so I can’t say how far we went. During the early part of the ride I looked at my odometer at the same time I passed a mile marker and it said 12.41 miles. I kept looking at each mile and it looked like I was recording something over 1.02 miles. After the eighth mile my odometer read 20.59 miles.

The horror!!! The humanity!!! Something had to be done. We went out to dinner that night. But before we went, I got on the Sigma Sport website (a German Company) and downloaded the instructions to change the wheel size setting on my bike computer. I got out the calculator, divided 8.00 miles by 8.18 miles and multiplied that number times the millimeters programmed into my bike computer (1333) and got 1303.5. I spent several minutes trying to decide whether to change it to 1303 or 1304. I changed it to 1304. I couldn’t wait to test it again. That’s not obsessive is it?

Well, yesterday (Saturday) we did a 24.35 mile short bike. When we started it was 50 degrees and when we ended it was 48 with wind from the North at 10 mph, gusting to 18. Balmy for Michigan…cold for Florida. I looked at the bike computer at the first mile marker and it read 6.79. I looked at each mile marker before the turn-around at SR-52 and it stayed right on. The last one read 11.79, so I’m as close to accurate as I can get. The final test will be for me to take my Garmin (a GPS device I use for running) and see how it comes out. Oh Joy!!!

Jean and I did a short ride on Monday. We went from Anderson Snow Park South to SR-52, which is around 11 miles one way. The wind was blowing around 15-20 straight from the South with some higher gusts. When we got to SR-52, we stopped for a minute, got a drink (Gatorade, not Margaritas), and started back up. We were going with the wind and were cruising along at about 19 mph.

All of a sudden, a young 20 something girl passed us. Jean was in the lead and we stayed behind her for about a minute. I could see Jean squirming in her seat and I knew what was going to happen. She just couldn’t stand being passed. All of a sudden she sat up a slight bit, and took off. In about ten seconds she passed the girl, said something about the wind, and broke away with me right on her heels. At times we were in the 26 mph range riding the wind. After a couple of miles I looked back and the girl was nowhere to be seen. Sound like Jean?

It’s warming back up today and it looks like the rides this week will be when the temp is in the low 70s. We’re getting lots of saddle time in, but the trails are getting boring, so we may venture out to San Antonio (about 25 miles East of here) and do a 40 mile loop through the “Kumquat Capital of the World”. If we stop at the theme park, we’ll take pictures.

Just (Happy To Be Comfortable Riding Again) Jack