18.5 miles, only 4 or 5 raptors - weird!

I guess I was a little earlier this morning, but I covered much the same ground, and only saw 4 or 5 hawks. One, however, I startled from a fence on the downhill side of Walker Rd., and he flew along low and just ahead of me for about 100 ft before turning off. You don't get to see the top of a flying hawk often! It was big and dark brown, so could even be a golden eagle, but was probably a red-tail. Quite chilly this morning for here - sorry to everyone else in the country, for whom "chilly" is well below freezing, but it's all relative, yes?

A couple of nice stops - top of middle two rock one the way out, very crisp and clear. Walker Road, always a delight. My lane on Spring Hill Road coming back was closed, and in general there wasn't much traffic anyway - so pretty silent out there and the sun was just starting to warm things up.

The (mostly) Mexican workers at the duck farm are still on strike. I know they're paid minimum wage at best, and I'd like to see them win, but man they leave a lot of garbage, and they've got a little shantytown going (though of course it's good they have shelter for when it rains), and it's really pretty unpleasant, to ride by. Plus I have to slow down on that nice long downhill. I know, poor baby...

Almost did the entire final two rock hill without using brakes, till a car came up behind and honked as it was passing. So still haven't broken that 41mph barrier, but suspect I will this week. And then what? I don't think I want to even try for 45, let alone 50, not on THIS bike!

Well, felt I'd be lucky to do 10 miles today, but I managed almost double that, so am pretty pleased with my riding this week so far. I have a vague idea of getting past 500 on the odometer before starting work again - that doesn't look too difficult now, especially if I ride on through the weekend... But I may try to get an off-road day in here soon. The ultimate goal, someday, is to climb Big Rock Ridge without getting off and pushing.

Undecided, whether the headlight and taillight are helpful, but I leave them on, and it does give me a little more confidence that drivers do see me as they approach.

24 miles, 26+ raptors!

Perhaps overdid it a bit today (you see here almost all of the riding I've done lately), but I have the week off, and I feel really guilty about not riding much, with perfectly decent weather. Indeed, on this bike, this is the longest ride I've done in one sitting.

The hawks were out in force! Several Kestrels, Red Tails (incl. a pair of 'em fighting), Red-Shouldereds (incl. a very agitated pair screaming at me), and one confirmed Northern Harrier. A couple of unidentified ones that seemed to be somewhere between the red-shouldered and the kestrel in size. One very large, all-white-breasted one that might've been a red tail morph, but I like to think was something more exotic. Probably, it's an overweight seagull.

The route was pretty great. I've done all parts of it before, but had never put together the whole loop in quite this way. Three major hills, and many minor ones. Unfortunately, they're working on Middle Two Rock Rd at the bottom where I usually get to go for the land speed record, so the record of 41mph stands -- for now. Kind of a disappointment to have to hit the brakes on that last downhill, and to be one mile short of 25 when I got home.

If it's true that hand size correlates to penis size, Greg Lemond must have a very small penis indeed, as the gloves HE calls "L/XL" are too small for my hands - and *I'm* certainly no porn star.

Hope I'm not too sore to ride again tomorrow - had hoped to get significant (for me) mileage this week. Guess I'd be happy with at least ten miles...

I thought my fingers were gonna fall off. It was 31 degrees F this morning at 5am, and I rode at about 7. Frost on the ground, and my fingerless gloves still wet from last week's (undocumented) splash-o-matic ride. More equipment needed for winter riding: gloves with fingers. Really beautiful out though, closest we get to a white xmas.

Seems I'm only riding once a week lately, and then only the shortest possible commute - a 7-mile round trip. Must do better! Next week, the whol company has the week off, so I look forward to doing more local riding.

Worked a little late last night, and had the opportunity to see that the $100 "NiteRider" headlight was probably worth the purchase price.

It takes some getting used to, though, and perhaps some adjusting; you get about a 12-foot circle of light when it's focused about 30 feet ahead of you.

While I'd rather not ride in the dark, it does work prettty well, so it was a good thing I bought the light last week.

Nice seven-mile ride last night, Walker-> Valley Ford -> Pepper. Walker Road was a nice discovery - seems to be a major hawk hangout. I've seen as many as seven hawks in the 2.8-mile stretch. Pretty good-sized hill in the middle, decent sunset there yesterday.

Not too bad on the moisture front this morning -- only stopped twice to clean the glasses. Think I might be able to find a helmet that has a built-in visor to deflect some of that. Seems like the possibilities are endless for additional spending, but what I've bought so far has been worthwhile. MUCH more confidence, that truly or in my imagination, most drivers on Skillman are gonna see me. Doesn't make me ride out in the middle or anything, but at least I feel somewhat less that I'm taking my life in my hands even when I'm so far to the right I'm practically riding in the ditch.

At any rate, REALLY don't want to lose the amount of 'muscle tone' and biking skill and mental attitude improvement I've gotten from 400 miles riding this past summer. As long as I'm riding, I'm counteracting the effects of smoking and drinking on this old body...

More often than not, rain around here is not much worse than today's, so maybe I can still get my three a week throughout.

I posted something earlier, and got a string of Microsoft error messages, so am not much interested in retyping the several paragraphs now.

Be that as it may, I did finally ride the bike again today, about seven miles, after installing new headlight and taillight. Yay!

This is at least partly about riding my bike.