Ride of the day…

I’ll preface this by saying that Vicky and I aren’t great athletes. We’re kind of round, actually. But every activity Vicky does with me is fun for me because I can be with her.

Last night, we went jogging together. I got her started with me, letting her set the pace, and I think she enjoys it. Unfortunately, she apologizes for being slow but I try to explain to her that it’s okay that she’s not as fast as me (which isn’t that fast, anyway). Speed takes time to develop. What’s important is that we’re out there together and trying our best.

This morning, we packed the bikes into her car… well, I packed the bikes into her car… and snapped off one of her reflectors – doh!... and we drove down to Aliso Creek Trail to meet our friend, Robert, for a ride. Aliso Creek Trail is one of my favorites. I took it last year when I did my first metric and was foolish enough to try and ride Santiago Canyon. This morning, the three of us started out up towards Foothill Ranch.

We parked our cars and started unloading our bikes and as Robert and I gabbed, Vicky tried to sit side-saddle on her bike. My clutzy wife must have forgotten that she didn’t have a kick-stand on her bike because it soon began sliding down, taking her with it. She laughed the whole way down, as she so often does. (I told her she’s going to be the youngest hip transplant patient in history.) Once she was up, we realized it wasn’t all laughs and broke out the first aid kit for some bandages for the scrape on her leg.

Then, we were off! A strong wind out of the foothills had us coasting for a long, long time. You don’t think of it at the time but what that means is you’ll be pedaling against that on the way back! Still, Aliso Creek is a pretty little trail and we enjoyed it quite a bit… then we started to hit the hills… but all in all, it was a lot of fun. Then, we had to turn around and we realized that it would be uphill for most of the ride back… ugh! Still, it was very nice and a lot more interesting than the boring, old Santa Ana River Trail that we take all the time.

One of these days, I’m going to have to hit it again by way of Santiago Canyon but until the day comes when I’m crazy enough to do that, this will suffice!