I am impressed and some photos of a beautiful day.

Today was a great day for me and a how do they call it? NSV? or a non scale victory! I have lately been riding my bike more often than ever because the weather is just plain old magnificent for bike riding! Today I decided to check out a part of the trail that I had not previously visited and attempt an 18 mile stretch just to see if I could make it and guess what? I did it! and none the worse for the wear either. Biking has become my main source of exercise mostly because its relaxing all while being able to pump my heart up and get my quads screaming at me and I think that I am in love with the local trails! This is an exercise that was a pipe dream for me just a couple of years ago and here I am out there almost every day riding my arse off figuratively and quite literally also. I didn't stop much so I didn't get many photos of today's ride but as I sit here typing this out I am still relaxed and I have been done with that ride for about 6 hours now so its giving me more than just a great workout.

A shot at the trail head before starting down the path.

My day has gone well all around, My calories are where they should be as of right now, I have drank more than enough for the whole day and obviously I got some exercise into my day, today has been what I would call a perfectly healthy day. There was in fact a hitch or two along the way though but I am ok with them and will fix whats wrong and keep on chugging, before I get to that here are some of the photos that I did manage to take today.

This was I want to say about 7 miles into the ride, I hadn't taken many pictures yet so I figured it was a good spot.

A mile later I came to this ominous tunnel! which wasn't really very ominous besides the horse turds littered through it, do horses like to shit in the dark I wonder?

This was the 9 mile mark and the end of where I had decided to ride to, this one could be an ad for K2 bicycles I think.

17.94 miles when I got back to the trail head, this is my longest at one shot ride to date.

I was thirteen miles into the ride rolling along at 17 mph on a LONG downhill section and up ahead I saw two older gentlemen pulled to the side of the trail with a tire off of one of the bikes, I slowed down almost to a stop, asked if they had everything they needed to fix it and they did so off I went. Wanting to take advantage of this downhill section I start hammering down the hill again standing on the pedals and I feel my right foot slip to the outside of the pedal but keep going when bamn! the pedal went soft and felt bent. Looking down I could see that the pedal was broke and here I am 5 miles from the trail head so I just babied the bike the rest of the ride and when I say babied I mean going 14 mph instead of 17 but it was the plastic on the end that had broken and the stud was just fine...and I don't mean me, I mean the pedal stud so that was issue one.

Cheap resin pedals plus a 300 pound fella hammering down a trail adds up to broken pedals.

The second issue happened when I got home and started cleaning the dirt and horse shit off of the bike, I was lubing the chain and cassette and wasn't paying attention and got some of the lubricant on the rear brakes. I am unsure if there is a way to sand the pads or scuff the contaminant off of them or if I will need to replace the brake pads all together, this is my first bike with disk brakes so there is a learning curve I suppose. For now the bike is parked until I can figure out the brakes and get a new pedal set that is NOT made of resin or plastic because at 300 pounds and the fact that I enjoy hammering down these New England trails apparently they just ain't gonna cut it.

Today was a day that would have only been a dream at 500 pounds and as I was cruising down the trail I found myself thinking about just that. The time in my life where even walking 1/3 of a mile was struggle is still a fresh memory in my gray matter and here I am riding 18 miles down a trail through the woods on a bike, I can honestly say that I am impressed with myself as I write this.

Impressed, satisfied and a with a smile on my face is how I end this post.

As Ever
Me