On Friday June 24, 2004 the bike club scheduled a ride to Royal Oak for lunch at one of our favorite places, Red Coat Tavern.  Red Coat Tavern is not open on Sunday so we decided to do this ride on a Friday.  Pete and I each took a vacation day from our respective places of employment.  It turned out be a very warm day with temperatures in the mid 90’s by the time we finished.  I took two water bottles with me, but they didn’t last very long. 

We started out around 9:30 am.  Normally when we ride to Royal Oak we take Crooks Road all the way.  This day we tried a few other streets for a change of pace.  We road for a while on Livernois through Troy, which turned out to have decent sidewalks for a majority of the ride. 

Since it was just me and Pete we decided to visit a few of the places we visited the last time we did this ride.  We rode down Pete’s old street, Vermont, where Pete grew up in Royal Oak.  We went past Red Run Golf Course along 12 Mile.  From there we went down Main Street to our old High School, Royal Oak Dondero.  The doors were closed at Dondero so we weren’t able to ride inside the school.  Next stop was to my parents for a quick visit and a refill on our water bottles.  I tried to talk my Mom and Dad into joining me and Pete at the Red Coat for lunch, but they were too busy.  I also asked them to step outside next to our bike and pose for a picture which I took with my phone camera.  I took only a few pictures this day and I will post them all at the end of the story. 

I forgot to mention that both Pete and I wore the bicycle jerseys we got from the Tour de Cure ride, so we almost looked like real bicyclists this day.  

After visiting with my parents we stopped at a local used book store on Woodward before our lunch.  I didn’t buy anything but I still ended up having a book to carry in my burrito basket.  Pete found a book about golf that he wanted and he made the purchase. 

Finally we made it to the Red Coat.  Pete got his favorite ham sandwich and I got one of their famous hamburgers.  In celebration of our long ride on such a hot day we each had a cold beer before I switched over to Diet Coke and Pete to water.  I got a basket of fries to go along with my burger and Pete got a bowl of clam chowder.  As usual, it was an outstanding lunch.   

With plenty of energy from a healthy lunch we were ready to tackle the ride home.  Our previous longest single day ride was another ride to the Red Coat last year and I knew we had a chance to break that record.  Once we stepped outside after lunch it felt like the temperature had jumped 10 degrees.  I am not sure of the exact temperature, but it had to be in the low to mid 90’s.  The sun was out strong making it feel even warmer.  I sure was glad to have my new prescription sunglasses during this ride.  It makes a big difference to have a nice pair of quality sunglasses that kind of wrap around my eyes so there aren’t any gaps allowing in the sun.  I don’t even need to wear a visor with these glasses. 

We headed up Woodward for a ways being careful at each driveway and intersection.  Doesn’t matter where we ride the motor vehicle drivers still don’t pay attention to bicyclists and pedestrians.  I had to use my air horn on a lady in a Jeep Wrangler when she turned in front of us while we were trying to cross Coolidge.  We obviously had the right of way and we even had a walk sign on the cross walk, but she wasn’t paying any attention and was in such a rush to make her turn she cut right in front of us.  We saw her coming all the way, so we were never in any real danger, but I did pull out far enough so that when I activated my air horn I would be within just a few feet of her vehicle.  Based on her reaction I think she got a pretty good earful.  The main goal in a situation like that is to avoid being hit, but the secondary goal is to express my displeasure with her poor driving habits with a little toot of my horn. 

 Next stop was a bike store in Birmingham.  I had made up my mind after reading a couple books about bike riding that I should have toe clips on my pedals.  Pete has been using toe clips for quite a while now and I have thought about them off and on for the past eight months, but I never got any.  In the Greg LeMond book he says the toe clips make you up to 40% more efficient while pedaling, especially uphill.  One of the few things that I have always thought were a little cheap on my Trek 7200 were the pedals.  The surface that contact my feet were plastic and already starting to wear out and my feet would occasionally slip off the pedals when wet or sometimes when I would stand up while pedaling.  The KLM bike store had toe clips that are designed to be added to your existing pedals, but it looked like they might not fit onto my existing pedals easily so I got a new set of pedals with toe clips and straps already installed.  I didn’t change the pedals at the store, I strapped the box on top of my burrito basket for the ride home.  

After the bike store we were back on the rode heading for home.  We didn’t get very far before we stopped again for another water refill.  This time we stopped at Pete’s sister Ann’s house.  Ann was home and she gave us ice and water which we badly needed on this hot day.  Ann and Dean had just recently adopted a new member to their family, a few month old Korean baby girl.  I hope I got that correct, I think she was from Korea.  No matter where she was from she is adorable.  She was sleeping and we got to peek in on her and believe it or not she was still sleeping after Pete left the room.  

The rest of the ride home was hot, humid and uphill.  It was a good workout and I was definitely tired by the end of this ride.  I did stop by Pete’s house for a quick dip in his swimming pool before the final ride back to my house.  The swim sure felt good this day.  We just barely set a new record for the longest single day ride, by 0.6 miles.  Following are the ride statistics from this ride, 46.6 total miles, 23.5 max speed, 10.8 mph average speed and 4 hour and 19 minutes on bikes.
David Lindquist