Scenic Route

I know the song is normally associated with Christmas, but that’s the route to my parents, and it was for a holiday dinner. Sue me.

It was a great day for a ride. This afternoon it was right around 50, perfectly sunny, and winds from the WNW at 5–10. I took a longer route to enjoy the ride. I went south along the Riverway before picking up the Canalway to the northwest. I recorded the distance for each direction, and this route, while it seems much longer—I’d have guessed six or seven miles—is longer by only 3¾ miles, which isn’t bad on a 27.83 mile round trip.

Traffic was light—both on the roads and the trails. I encountered three bikes on the Riverway from the I-490 bridge to Ford St, saw a fourth coming down to the trail from the Ford St Bridge while a fifth one crossed it. There were an equal number of walkers later in Genesee Valley Park. That was it. I had the trail all to myself for the rest of the time.

It was nice to get back to some of my regular trails, and visit the little rollers along the Canalway. They’re draining the canal for the winter and along the “Rochester Cut”—where the canal was dynamited through the dolomite when it was re-routed in 1906, it’s a long way down from the trail to the water now.

On the bridge over the railroad mainline, I wasn’t quite as fast to the top as I was in-season, but still did well enough. I reached the top just as a freight train was approaching. I could see the engineer through the windshiled. I waved. He waved back.

The rest of the ride was as nice as it was uneventful. Except perhaps crossing Ridge Rd. I caught the tail end of a long green. In fact, I was afraid it would turn red before I got there. It was a great feeling to crank through the intersection all by myself while eight lanes of traffic waited. And just for show, I dropped the hammer a little.

Before dinner, my dad and I went down to his shop to work on my front fender. We drilled-out two rivets so we could attach my mudflap. It’s not quite as long as I had hoped, but still, it should keep the drivetrain a little cleaner and my feet a little drier.

Dinner was just the three of us, so there wasn’t a huge spread of food. Turkey, stuffing, mashed spuds, gravy, squash, cranberry sauce, and apple pie. I brought home some turkey, stuffing and pie.

My dad really, really wanted me to throw the bike into the back of Buick and drive me home. I politely but firmly said I’d planned on riding home, but thanks for the offer. I explained my night rides with TNUA, showed him my two headlights, two tail lights, all my reflectives and said he could watch as I rode away.

Because he’d seemed so nervous, I phoned when I got home. Mom answered and said that dad was amazed at how fast I down around the corner and gone, but that he could see me clearly until I was around the bend.

It was just below freezing and partway home I encountered fog. So that would be freezing fog I suppose. Or potentially freezing fog. Or it was slightly warmer there. But anyway, it was rolling in from the west and I was headed east. A couple of miles later I rode out of it into the ‘hood.

I rode through my old neighborhood from my drugging days. Not much seems to have changed, except there’s now a flourescent light in the bathroom of my old apartment. And there seemed to be more people waiting for the bus. Unfortunately, they had nearly an hour to wait.

I felt like I was just getting settled-in and hitting my stride when I had to turn off Main St to my neighborhood. In fact, I nearly missed my turn. Not because I didn’t see it, but because I was having such a nice ride and wasn’t paying attention to navigation. I felt like I could have ridden another ten or twelve miles, no problem.

And I guess that’s a good way to end a ride.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 23rd, 2006 at 11:28 pm EST and is filed under Bike, Generic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.