Back on June 9th, I did my first long ride on my trike. It was 21.8 miles and the trip took 3 hours and 40 minutes.
Today, I decided to do the same route again to see if I could improve my time. After a couple weeks of nothing but hot weather with no clouds and no breeze, this morning had a lot of clouds and a nice, strong breeze. It was going to be a good ride!
The road I was on is a combination of slight inclines and flats on the way out. So that means on the way back there will be slight DEclines and flats!
I had a strong headwind going out, so I was really looking forward to turning around and enjoying a strong tailwind.
Since it's Saturday, there was hardly any traffic on the road. However, there were 3 rabbit roadkills.
If you have roadkill, you have buzzards. They look like big hawks when they're flying, but when they land, you can see that ugly read head.
The highest speed I could get up to was only 9 mph going out. BUT, I was going to have a tailwind when I turned around, so that was okay.
After an hour and 27 minutes I made it to the end of the road. Now I could enjoy those slight declines and that strong tailwind.
Or so I thought.
At the EXACT time I was turning around, the wind STOPPED! COMPLETELY! No breeze AT ALL!
Dagnabbit!
Oh well. I still had the declines to enjoy. I shifted gears and started spinning the pedals and was picking up speed.
I was able to reach a top speed of 18 mph! If God wasn't going to give me a breeze, I'll just generate my own!
During the trip, as usual, I saw a lot of dogs. Most were fenced in, but a few came out on the road and chased me, but it was just for a short distance. None of them seemed agressive. They just like to chase moving objects.
But a Pit Bull did manage to scare me a little. I was cruising along when I suddenly saw a 50 pound black Pit Bull on the side of the road. He was staring right at me and had a really mean snarl on his face!
My fear lasted about one second as I soon realized this dog was as dead as a doornail. He was laying on his right side and his legs were straight and stiff as a board. His eyes were wide open and it looks like he died in mid-growl. I didn't notice any bodily damage, so I assume he must've just got smacked by a car and knocked to the side of the road. It was pretty strange the way he was just staring at me.
I was going to stop and take a picture, but does anyone really want to see a photo of a dead dog?
I kept on cruising and was home in no time..
So, how much faster was I this time compared to the last time, you ask?
The last time was 3 hours and 40 minutes and today's time was 2 hours and 19 minutes.
That's 1 hour and 21 minutes faster!
Since I've done this same route before, I only took one picture, today. If you forgot what the trip looks like, go back to the June 9th entry of this blog.
I pulled off onto a side road to take a break and this is some of the "natural" desert scenery I saw.
There were more tires and other trash all over the place. Pretty sad, but some folks just don't care.
That's it. That's all. The End.
