Pre- and Post-GVC Picnic Ride

How can you call it a bike club picnic if you don’t bike with the club to the picnic? 🤔

I was reminded yesterday that there was a GVC picnic planned for today and had a few people ask if I was going. I hemmed and hawed thinking about it switching back and forth between going and not going. When the wife mentioned that she wanted to go to breakfast early in order to make her hair appointment I figured why not. I’d have enough to get breakfast with the little darling, get her to her appointment, and have time to spare to get ready for the picnic. Then the more I thought about it I figured why not ride down?

I sent Joy a text message to see if she was interested in joining me. I mean I already knew she was going to the picnic so figured it was worth a shot. She shot back that she was up for it and the rest is history.

Joy and I met up just outside her neighborhood around noon. I wasn’t entirely sure how long it would take us to get to the park, but I for certain didn’t want to be late to the 1:00 start time. As we rode through Inspirada we talked about how we were going to get to the park and settled on taking St. Rose all the way there.

We had a pretty quick ride down Via Inspirada and before we got to St. Rose Joy threw out the idea of taking Sunridge Heights and cutting through the Costco parking lot. I figured why not so that’s what we did. As we were riding by the pumps I spotted a runaway cart. I rolled up to it and was about to push it to a curb to park it when I heard someone saying, “Sir, sir”. I turn around and there is the cart’s owner walking up. I handed it off and we rolled on to exit the parking lot and join St. Rose.

Riding east along St. Rose we quickly realized that we were on pace to be about 30 minutes early. We decided to make a six mile detour along Paseo Verde over to Arroyo Grande. We then double backed along Wigwam and Pebble. On a side note, it’s kinda irritating that the only roads with bike lanes crossing the freeway are so far out of the way. The only options are Spencer to the west and Valle Verde to the east. Anything in between those have little to no infrastructure for cyclists. Maybe, someday.

Arriving at the park almost perfectly on time we parked the bikes and started hanging out and visiting with the GVC crew. The food was great and riding down and back made me feel a little less guilty for eating like a pig. Overall it was a great picnic and I had a great time.

Soon enough it was time for Joy and I to start heading back. As we started riding south along Pecos we started talking about how to get home. I threw out the idea of taking Pebble over to Las Vegas Blvd and staying with it all the way to Via Inspirada. Joy thought that was a great idea so away we went.

The ride home was relatively uneventful. We had a great conversation during most of the ride when we weren’t riding single file. At the corner of Pebble and Las Vegas Blvd we were behind two cars in the left turning lane when I spotted a penny on the raised concrete median. I called out, “Oooh Joy, new bike money.” and then worked my way over to pick it up.

As I worked my way back into the lane to rejoin Joy and she tells me, “Oh yeah what about this?” and proceeds to hand me a nickel she’d spied and picked up. Funny stuff.

Great little ride today. Kinda served as a recovery ride from yesterday’s century, but Joy and I kept it fast enough that it wasn’t a true recovery ride. Gotta show some love for the shorter little rides too once in a while.

New bike fund: $29.96 (+$0.06)
0.15 new miles — From Wandrer.earth
293 vehicles @ 7.9 per mile, 2.3 per minute, Speeds: 38.2 mph (avg), 62.3 mph (max) — by MyBikeTraffic.com
Sunny-Sunny, 79°F-86°F, Feels like 85°F-87°F, Humidity 12%-12%, Wind NNE 3mph-N 2mph — by Klimat.app
— myWindsock Report —
Weather Impact: -0.1%
Headwind: 40% @ 0.2-6.5mph
Longest Headwind: 34m 25s
Air Speed: 17.6mph
Temp: 76.8-85.3°F
Precip: 0% @ 0 Inch/hr
— END —