Saturday, November 24, 2007

I'm thankful...

for lots of things: special friends, silly dogs, being back on my bike after 4.5 weeks, long weekends, blah blah blah...

However, today I'm also thankful for NOT getting a ticket on my bike! I've had 3 sublime days of group rides, and its been fun (and painful..). Thanksgiving day's lake ride is usually a ride I enjoy very much, but going for a long ride after being off the bike for so long, well, maybe not the best idea! It became all about survival mode about 50 miles in, when there was still 1 climb to go :-). However, thanks to my great riding buddies, they waited for me to drag my slow arse up that hill :) (thanks, guys...). It had been a LONG time since I had felt that slow. But I made it, and 2 days (and a bunch of miles) later, I'm feeling much more like myself. My legs still aren't quite dancing on the pedals yet...but it's coming back. And I can still descend with reckless abandon :-). At least no one has to wait for me at the BOTTOM of a hill! Nothing like jumping back in with both feet.

Oh..back to the ticket story! On the way out today, we stopped at the first few stop signs. After Marco's post about stop signs...there has been a little movement underway to do our part and obey the road signs on the big group rides. And in one small town, where we ALWAYS get followed by our friendly local lawenforcement, we also stopped at the stop sign. There is, however, another sign in that town, that many folk have been told that if they go on the far right of the stop sign, it is ok not to stop... but today it seemed to be not the case. Soon thereafter, we were all pulled over. It was a HUGE group, maybe 50+ of us! Anyway, they made us wait awhile while they decided what to do, and after a lecture (and determining that there was a bit of confusion about whether it was OK or not to go around the stop sign on the right...), they let us go with a stern warning. Needless to say we were pretty careful from there on out...

Anyway, it is GREAT to be back on the bike! Hopefully all my riding buddies will bear with me while I get "back up to speed" so to speak... So far, so good!

Ciao!

2 comments:

Steve Weixel said...

Was it the stop in Montecito or Summerland? I've asked three separate officers about the Summerland stop and they have all said that you don't have to stop.

Kimberly (aka. DrKim) said...

It was the one in summerland....we were stopped outside of summerland past the one "you don't have to stop at" by the church! There was much confusion...and I guess now we DO have to stop at that one.