Now that I've had a moment to download my photos from my camera (which has agreed to work 80% of the time due to a bit of lube on the outside cover of the expanding lens), I can write about my abbreviated ride yesterday.
First of all - it was cold. Not teeth rattling cold, but "bundle up in the ski jacket and put the windbreaker pants over your regular pants" kinda cold. Thinsulate gloves and skull cap cold.
Ok. With the weather out of the way, and dressed appropriately, off we went on a planned 25 mile gravel road ride. A "go as you please with no constraints or map" type of ride. And go backwards...by which I meant go the opposite direction I tend to go. See coming towards me the scenery I usually see in my rear view mirror. Oh, and only ride the gravel roads. Make the entire ride gravel. No pavement. (I always like to give myself a bit of a challenge!)
Thus a vast part of my ride looked like this:
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while the skies looked like this:
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Made for a very serene ride, at a nice slow pace, taking photos of farm signs along the way.
Most of the farm signs were really just pretty signs for pretty houses on a nice plot of acreage. Since we have a plethora of places with names on signs, I could pick and choose the ones I liked the best. Like this one which was a place built for the poor in Loudoun County (Virginia) as a place to live and work until they got themselves back on their feet again:
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We had actually looked at buying this place 32 years ago - 10 acres with a huge bank barn and lots of little houses that the poor had lived in over 170 years ago. However, the house was gutted at the time and we didn't feel like we had the time or energy (since I was 8 months pregnant and we were moving down to VA from 3 states away) to devote to the historic property. It ended up being sold to an owner who turned it into a successful B&B.
I thought these next few signs were photoworthy, even as I pondered what had compelled the landowner to these unusual names :
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Yeah, this one is really confusing????
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Looked for an aviary, but didn't see one. No raptors in the skies, either.
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This last one made me laugh, thinking of all the ""would be" suburban "farmers" planting dozens of tomato plants in the spring, only to be overwhelmingly deluged by ripe tomatoes in the summer and trying to find friends and neighbors who would willingly take some of the juicy-but-too-prolific crop!
Now it goes without saying that if you have enough acreage to actually have two signs, you are really a high tone place. Like this one:
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This was their front drive sign. And this one was their "other" entryway:
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And at this fancy place this is what came galloping up to the fence to check me and my bike out in close range....after they first had spooked and galloped off. An old timer, who had been there-done that for countless years, simply walked up to the fence to say hello. The spooked herd borrowed a bit of courage and followed suit - enough for me to snap this shot of them in their fancy matching clothing (the old timer was not dressed for pasture time):
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On down the road, taking in the quiet scenery under a low hanging sky, turned a corner to find a real farmer dumping feed into a trough for a patiently waiting herd of cattle. I immediately thought of Dave Berry, and stopped my bike to ask the farmer if he minded me taking a photo. He was quite agreeable, and by the time I had clamored up the weedy embankment to the feed lot, he had opened the gates to let the cattle rush in to the filled trough.
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I noticed one cow, an Angus, peel off from the herd and go into a private little side paddock which included a pan filled to the brim with sweet feed. The farmer held the gate open for her, then shut it to prevent anyone else from the herd from muscling in on her private dinner.
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"That's Sue Sue" the farmer said as he took up sentry in front of the cow who was shoveling the sweet feed in her mouth with her tongue as fast as she could manage.
"She's a very pretty Angus cow" I said, admiring her as I bent down to pat the farmer's sweet dog with the "pet me please nice lady!" face,
reaching my fingers through the mix of fencing panels and field wire to stroke the dog's head.
"Heifer", the farmer corrected.
"Oh, I'm sorry" I said quickly, looking at how big she was, which was well over a heifer size. Sue Sue continued to shovel in the feed, and I marveled at her glossy coat and huge girth. She was a big girl! "How old is she?" I asked.
"Three" he said, correctly interpreting my look. "She was a bottle baby," he said by way of further information, then added "she'll never have a calf."
"Why?" I asked, surprised. She certainly looked like she was carrying one with the girth on her.
"She was a twin," he said. I guess he expected me to know what that meant, but when I professed ignorance, he told me that twins were not a good thing for cows to have unless they were the same sex. Male/male and female/female were OK, but if the twins were male/female, then the probability was over 80% that they would be sterile.
I knew what that meant. Sue Sue wasn't going to pull her weight in the herd, and those that couldn't were usually destined to go to the slaughterhouse. The farmer and I stood in silence for a moment, watching the heifer chow down, before I looked at him and said the obvious.
"You really like her, don't you?" I commented, then smiled to see that wonderful expression of love and caring pass across the farmer's old grizzled face as he gazed at his bottle fed girl resplendant in her shiny black coat and bright eyes.
"Yes" he said simply in a quiet voice. A voice full of love. It was all that needed to be said.
We started to talk about the emerging grass, dealing with the last dredges the stored winter hay to stretch it out until the grass was ready, and various other things - including the latest development in grading the section of gravel road nearby that had been closed due to creek overruns for a month.
He finally turned and looked at my bike and said "That's an electric bike."
I looked at him in surprise, then looked at my bike, patiently waiting on the gravel road.
"Yes," I admitted. "How did you know?"
"I can see the generator on it down below," he said, indicating with his chin to the bike's belt drive
I looked at my bike, with its carbon belt drive in full view, and for the first time I realized that it did indeed look "different" from a normal bike. He was intrigued when I explained what the belt was, what it offered for riding on dirty, rough gravel roads well beyond what a chain had to offer, and how it was pretty much like the belts on a car or truck engine.
By then Sue Sue and her herd companions were finished and ready to head back out into the fields. Time to open back up the gates and the farmer to go back to work. And for me to get back to my ride.
We said our goodbyes and I headed off in search of more eclectic farm signs to photograph. About a half mile down the road I stopped my bike and turned around to look back at the now tiny figures of the cattle herd scattered on the open field, grazing on the tiny bits of green grass just coming up in this early spring.
I pedaled on, letting the miles of gravel roads flow under my bike wheels. While I had tried not to include too many hills this time, there was still plenty of slopes to go up, and plenty of downhill to test my brakes.
It wasn't until I hit a bit of paved road just a mile from my farm that my right leg sent my brain a warning. I had planned for another 7 or so miles, but that warning, while vague, was not to be ignored. My leg was tired, but it was the nerves sending the warning. Not sure if the cold had anything to do with it, but probably contributed.
I did ignore the warning, but only for a mile further, then stopped my bike. I was in maximum assist, going on the flat, which was not right. It was decision time, and I erred on the side of caution. I turned the bike and had it take me home. Only 15 miles on the GPS, but it was clear my right leg, and then my left leg in sympathy, were done for the day. Perhaps for the next couple of days as well
Early in my equestrian endurance career I had been taught a very important lesson: don't ever overtrain your horse to the point where it is too tired to compete. I was cautious never to fall into that trap with my horse, but it seemed I'd forgotten my own body needed that consideration as well. And if it didn't get it, it was going to demand it in no uncertain terms. These past several weeks I have been biking some very hilly, very tough roads, and some killer elevations for miles and miles, day after day, and not resting as much as I should have in between.
So, as of now, I'm off the bike for the next three days, letting my right leg rest and recover. It already feels better today, and should be right as rain by the beginning of next week, giving me plenty of time to shop for a new camera. And ride my horse. She's as fat as Sue Sue. And just as spoiled. And loved. Like my bike.
