Cili Padi's Birthday Ride!

Joy here...The sun rose this morning into a windy sky where clouds ran quickly after one another, hiding the blue behind their grey and white.  And while Cili Padi and I had originally planned on heading out for a loop of the park, it turned out that neither of us were up for such an adventurous ride.  I had been out until midnight, so when the 5am alarm went off, I was pretty darn tired.  She woke up feeling sniffly and on the verge of a cold, so she was pretty darn tired.  Given that, we decided to dust off our cross bikes from Sunday's ride and head west along the pathway.

It was very windy as we rolled out, and once we turned off the residential streets into an urban farm area (the "Experimental Farm" where I have gone running before), the wind buffeted us around the road, and our speed quickly went from around 24km/hr to 19km/hr just like that.*

And as we pedalled, pushing ourselves and our bikes forward despite the wind, we seemed to be riding towards ever-greying skies that looked threatening and ominous.  Instead of a ride towards a horizon beckoning us to exceed our limits and dream of the beyond, we were riding towards greyness.

The ever-darkening sky.  

But as we rode onwards, despite the grey above and the wind around, the day began to clear.  We became less and less afraid of rain (or...gasp!...snow) and more able to enjoy our ride.  For me, I was enjoying the sensation of my new cross bike.  Cross Eye rolls differently than Opie (my Opus road bike), but the gearing is smoother and offers a really great ride.

For Cili Padi, today is her birthday, so her ride was about celebrating herself, and celebrating the fact that on her 61st birthday, she was out riding over 40kms to get her day started.

So with these positive feelings in our hearts and in our legs, we rode forward into the blueing skies.

The ever-blueing sky.

With the blue skies above, the bright autumn leaves around, and the brightness of our own almost-matching jackets, a day that began tired, sick, and grey soon turned into a blaze of colour - a fitting birthday celebration for Cili Padi.

Cili Padi's red hot Gore jacket
and Joy's friendly pink Gore jacket.

So happy birthday to my friend, and happy cycling to all my friends!

Over and out,
Joy

*A note on speeds:  While a long road ride average speed would be anywhere from 27km/hr to 30km/hr and the average speed riding those hilly loops in the park is around 21km/hr (taking into consideration the faster downhill speeds topping 60km/hr and the slow uphill speeds around 14km/hr), so far it seems that the cross bike average speed is around 24km/hr.