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We had quite a little scare with ella tonight. Unbeknownst to me, she and her cousin (who had been visiting for a while this afternoon) had been plotting to escape the house. I had figured that they were playing dress up when they both had on coats and boots when i got home, but as soon as Laurel’s mom came to pick her up, Ella ran out the door and down the sidewalk.

She later said she was going to run to the backyard, but all i knew was she was running down the sidewalk toward the Very Busy Intersection full-tilt, completely deaf to us telling her to stop. I was scared and pissed off and i ran to catch her just as she rounded the corner on the sidewalk. All i could think of is that if she hadn’t turned, she’d be right in the middle of the lane of cars. We went back in the house and talked about it, and there were tears all around.

As a matter of history, since we’ve lived here (5 years), we’ve seen a dog hit (walking away crookedly) and a cat hit (not walking at all) at this very intersection.

There was one other instance like this a few days ago when Ella ran through the side gate to the front yard and Autumn caught her. This time, like the first time, she’s ok, she’s ok. But man, it’s scary as hell. Hopefully it’s the last time.

In Minnesota, there’s a long-standing bike ride in August called the IronMan. It’s been around longer than the IronMan triathlons everyone’s seen on TV, but it’s just a bike ride, no swimming or biking. I’m sure it’s a great ride, and a couple thousand people do it every year. I’d planned on signing up to have a long ride to plan and train for, and figured it would be good to have riding support, pit stops, snacks, etc. But then i heard about the IronCrotch ride.

It’s a much smaller event, maybe a couple of hundred people, put on by one of our favorite local bike shops, County Cycles. It seemed like a nicer, lower-key version of IronMan, and i figured that if it was mainly people who visited that bike shop, we’d probably like them fine. Plus, it’s only $7.

They don’t offer lush accomodations or lines of porta-johns, but lots of people donated cookies, which they brought to a stop 1/3 the way into the route, and the ride was beautiful. We chose the 40 mile option (rather than 25 or 60) both because Autumn is still recovering from a spring cold and to not overextend our babysitter time (many thanks to Kathy and Sonja!).

The day before had been 50° and quite windy, but today was to be calmer winds and 60. When we got to the Houlton, WI school parking lot to register, it was a clear sunny day, a little breezy, and 40°. Just in case, we had both brought tights, long-sleeve shirts, wool jerseys and warm gloves, and now were glad to have them. In fact, we should have brought some sandwich bags for our toes.

The 40-mile ride started and finished down the road a bit in Somerset, so we headed there and unloaded. There was no single official start time, so we just took off when we were ready to go, and right away got a taste for the ride out: windy and hilly. The route was all 2-lane roads, most with nice wide shoulders to ride on. It was mostly rolling hills, with a couple of good climbs in the first few miles. I had my bike computer on, since we rarely get to ride together on our road bikes without a trailer in tow and i was curious what our pace would be. On the road out, we were doing well to maintain 15mph, and more often were in the 13s, or 8-9 climbing hills.

We see anyone at registration that we recognized, but we chatted with a few people during the ride and at the cookie stop. Nice folks, one guy riding alone who bike tours with his daugher, pulling a trailer with their tandem. Another couple on a tandem will probably be Autumn and i in about 15 years - they had grown kids, had pulled the Burley and still loved riding together.

Several riders were stopping in Osceola, the mid-way point, for breakfast, but we hadn’t planned a stop (maybe next year, if we do the 60), and kept going through. The ride back was as straight and fast as the ride out was hilly and windy. The hills were a fraction of the size, and we were sustaining about 22 mph on the flats, 32-33 on the descents. It as also much warmer, and we stashed our windbreakers. We were lucky this year; one woman who lives in the area says the wind tends to come from the south around there, and last year they’d fought a headwind on the returning leg.

Riding back was really a blast, going so fast on a good road, very little traffic. Autumn started on a road bike last summer pretty tentatively, nervous about the handling and skinny tires and drop bars. On the ride back today she was obviously having a lot of fun, blasting past me on a few stretches, a big smile on her face. We both had a great time, it being one of the few times we get to ride together with just us, and being able to really enjoy going fast on a nice bike.

here’s a nifty aerial photo of my work commute, grabbed from google maps (i drew the line in there):

I’ve been commuting to work by bike for the past couple of weeks, plus we’ve done a couple of weekend rides since the weather warmed up, and this morning on the way to work i passed the 200-mile mark for the year.

For the past 2 weeks, i’ve been riding home for lunch most days, but driving one day a week (mostly due to weather), averaging 7 9-mile round trips, or 63 miles per week. At this rate, aside from weekend rides, i’ll have over 1500 miles of just riding to work this year, assuming 7 round trips per week is a reasonable average.

In case you haven’t seen it, my commuter bike is a 20-year-old Raleigh road bike set up with just one gear that doesn’t coast. Much less to go wrong this way, and somewhat lighter too. It’s also a fine way to get in shape!

I’m tracking my bike riding this year in a little database i made and put on the web. You can see it here.