Time Off

A rare vacation happened last week. We loaded up the car on Sunday morning, clamped the bike to the roof, and headed for the beach. Well, actually we were headed for the Pensacola airport where we were to pick up Danielle and Shannon. Naturally, their flight was delayed, which led to a long wait at the airport for us. Pensacola's airport is a pretty simple one, so there wasn't really anything to do but sit and wait for an hour or so. From there I took the shorter, slower, but more scenic route along Highway 98 through Ft. Walton and Destin, and then down "30A" out past Grayton Beach to the Seaside development where we were renting a little two-bedroom. The weather forecast for the week was looking great, with surprisingly cool mornings.

My plan for riding, if there even was one, was basically just to get out early. 30A is a simple 2-lane road without a shoulder that nowadays is lined with condos and hotels and such except around the state parks. Fortunately, there is also a separate bike lane the entire way. Unfortunately, the bike lane is full of pedestrians and dog-walkers and such, and crosses about a thousand driveways, so it's not really a comfortable place to be going fast. I was starting my rides at around 6:30 or so, and for the first hour traffic was very light, so riding on the road was fine. By my second day there I had settled on a plan of riding east first, then back west past Seaside and out to little parking lot at highway 393. The first day I had gone west to the end of 30A and run in to school traffic, so this was a better option. 

The ride east to the end of 30A and then back to Seaside, early in the morning, was great. There was practically no traffic, the air was still a little cool, and the road was fine. The speed limit varies from 25 to 45, and drivers were pretty considerate, so it wasn't much of a problem. The shoulder is still hurting, by the way. I had hoped it would be all better by the time we took this trip, but no such luck. There's something going in there, because the broken bones are definitely healed by now. Anyway, once past Seaside, I would switch to the bike path for the rest of the way out. After turning around, though, there was a little bit of shoulder along the eastbound road, so I could ride a few miles on the road there, which was much better than the bike path which was, by then, starting to pick up pedestrians, beach cruisers, and dog-walkers. None of the riding I did could be properly termed "training," of course, but at least I got in some decent saddle time.

Seaside itself is nice enough, as those kinds of developments go. The pastel colored houses are crammed together pretty tightly, but there a nice shady walkways, a couple of pools, and of course a whole shopping area that includes a little grocery and a line of faux food trucks. Not surprisingly, everything is expensive. There were hundreds of beach cruisers, many electric, along with lots of electric vehicles that look like golf carts but seat about eight and are mostly road-legal. All of that clogs up that section of the bike path and roadway.

Of course I eventually went out to the beach. There was a pretty good south wind most of the time, so it was mostly yellow or red flags. I was surprised that there were no jet skis or boats in sight. What was in sight were hundreds of beach umbrellas. Various beach chair companies have monopolies on stretches of beach, so if you bring your own, you have to set up kind of in-between developments, which was actually pretty nice. I usually dread sitting on a beach in the sun, but there was always a nice breeze, so it wasn't too bad. I did manage to get sunburn on the tops of my feet, probably because they have not seen the sun in about then years.

Barrett and Frank - We should probably add an 80+ age group now, or maybe a vintage bike category.

We had the LAMBRA time trial championship scheduled for Sunday morning, so I stayed up until registration closed on Friday night to set up the start list and results workbook and send out the start times to everyone. I guess I got to bed around 12:30 am.

The drive back on Saturday was just the reverse of the drive out, so we dropped the girls off at the airport and got back home around mid-afternoon, well before they landed in Seattle, and an even longer time before their luggage arrived.

Sunday morning we were up early to load up the car with race equipment and head over to LaPlace to put on the time trial. This year I had decided to get a new megaphone and leave the big PA system and generator at home, relying only on my little Jackery battery to power the computer and printer. Setting up, I discovered that I had forgotten to bring my USB adapter. The printer cable has the older USB connector, but the new laptop just has USB-A. Fortunately, Ty was able to make a quick run over to the LaPlace WalMart to pick up an adapter.

We had 45 registered this year, which was less than half of the turnout we used to have, but was actually a few more than last year. Everything went smoothly, which is to say nobody went to the hospital and nobody was arrested. I guess we were back home by 11:00. There was a significant breeze mostly out of the south, but we still had a couple of  times in the 53 minute range. Not bad, but still pretty far from the 49:32 course record.

Monday was Memorial Day, so we did a holiday Giro Ride. There was a decent turnout for that, considering many people were either out of town or had other plans. It felt like a fairly hard ride for me, but of course that was because I haven't had much intensity for the past seven months. I was just glad I survived it. The temperatures around here are getting pretty high - it's that time of year when I start routinely putting some sort of electrolyte mix in my water bottles. This morning I went out to the WeMoRi, jumping in at my usual spot. I was happy to hang onto the group the whole way, considering. I arrived back home hungry and soaked with sweat. It must be summer.