Is a good description of my ride this morning, during which I only fell off my bike once!
I met Herb at his place is Essendon just before 8am and we headed off down the Merri Creek Trail, planning to do the Capital City Trail / Moonee Ponds Creek Trail loop. It was foggy and a misty rain was falling, neither of which are good for a cyclist who wears glasses. It was a constant decision making process to decide whether I could see better with my glasses on or off. The trail was quite slippery, especially where there was muddy wet spots on the path, or leaf mulch debris, and particularly the wooden bridge surfaces that were wet and mossy. None of these go well with skinny road bike tyres. There were a few near misses where I felt the bike slide sideways.
The fall however was due to none of these, but rather another balance/cleat related incident. We were pulling up to some traffic lights on St Georges Rd, almost stationary, and my wheel just caught in the gap between the concrete gutter and the tarmac road surface, I just sort of turned the wheel, leaned to my right slightly, but unfortunately I had unclipped on the left, so down I went. Fortunately, I managed to get my right foot unclipped as I went down, and I fell into Herb who had pulled up beside me. So it was a fall, but not one that did any damage to my bike or my body, just my pride.
Oh, and Herb bought me a cute little black bell for my bike too, which I never had before – so now I am legal and can “ting” the walkers on the paths in front of us. A job previously he always had to do!
And don’t ask me why I bothered to clean my bike yesterday, it got filthy again this morning!
Anyway, just under 40kms, with a stop for coffee at Federation Wharf, then another coffee and muffins back at Herb’s place with his wife Kerry and Adrienne.
Then it was off to Ian’s (work colleague) place for his 50th birthday celebrations. I took a bottle of Bethany Merlot (2004) that Ian had given me for Christmas a few years back, it was divine.
One job I also did today was a little bit of surface spraying of our outdoor furniture where we found a red-back spider yesterday. Oh, and a rough clean of my bike again, just to get the dirt and mud out of the important places.
