42nd ride - 6/19/15

Had a great ride this morning, doing consecutive round trips to Marsh Park, for 17.5 miles in a hour and 58 minutes. However, I turned around at Ellsworth Road, in order to avoid having to cross it and climb the hills along Lohr between there and home. I am hoping to do three consecutive round trips of it tomorrow morning, as part of a long-range goal I have.

On the Haiti mission trip in which I participated (in early April), two of my teammates were Eric and Mari Veenstra. I am grateful to have become especially good friends with Eric—we are fellow grandfathers (though he is just a young squirt, 4 years younger than I), and both Eric and Mari are bicyclists and have invited me to join in a ride next spring. The Five Boro Bike Tour is an annual recreational cycling event in New York City, produced by Bike New York. Conducted on the first Sunday in May, the 40-mile ride includes over 30,000 riders. The route takes riders through all five of New York's boroughs and across five major bridges. The entire route, including bridges and expressways which normally prohibit cyclists, is closed to automobile traffic for the ride. The event began in 1977 with about 250 participants on an 80-mile course. Eric and Mari have both done the ride before, but I will be a Five-Boro virgin.

I was concerned about whether trikes would be able to participate, so I googled their website and asked them. Their reply was that, so long as the cycle is human-powered, rather than by a motor, it's fine.

So, anyway, by going three round trips tomorrow, it'll be 25.8 miles—my farthest ride to date—and by the end of the summer I want to be up to five consecutive round trips (40.5) miles, to ensure that I can do the ride with Eric and Mari next May 1.

At the midway point today, just after turning around, I saw friends - Carol Franklin and her grandson Andrew, who were stopped on Lohr Rd. beside me. However, my distance vision (even corrected) is sufficiently dismal that, though Andrew waved and cried, "Hi!", and I shielded my eyes and tried to figure it out, I had to ask, "WHO?" Whereupon Carol said her name and said they see me quite frequently along Lohr Rd.