The weather was rainy yesterday morning, and I really wasn’t in the mood for a cold overnight, so I didn’t try for a weekend shakedown cruise. Instead I took a smaller intermediate step, taking Flash on a fairly short day trip.
I didn’t have a destination as such. Instead I set out on a route I used to take fairly often on my bicycle, back when I rode frequently for recreation and exercise. I took Ada Drive all the way out to Ada (a nice little town that’s incongruously the world headquarters of Amway), then picked up Grand River Drive. This road runs loosely parallel to the interstate, so it’s low traffic, and following the south bank of the river, it’s not very hilly. It’s the sort of road I hope to spend most of my time on for my excursion around the Lake.
I cruised past Lowell (which is about the farthest I’ve gone on my bike) and continued on to Saranac, about 30 miles from home. I road a few blocks through the town, but I was feeling a little chilly, so I headed back for home. It was a total of about 60 miles and a couple hours, which is roughly half of what I plan to do in a day on the road.
In addition to being under 60ºF, it was also pretty windy. I knew that heading out, and figured it would be good practise: riding with the wind (mostly) at my back on the way out, and in my face on the way back. I definitely handled the wind with more confidence than my first nervous ride out to Ada, the weekend after getting the scooter. And I think the scooter handled it better as well, with the speedometer reading 40mph (which probably means 35mph) even with a headwind.
Certainly not a major challenge, but another step toward the big adventure.