This post is going to be about our Sunday bike ride, but I have to admit that coffee hour is also a favorite after-church activity, especially on the Sundays when our friend K. is in charge of the food, for she always brings (among other goodies) her famous sausage rolls and infamous monkey bread. Everyone knows to get over to the parish hall pronto after the service when it's K.'s Sunday, because those items disappear fast. Not exactly a healthy breakfast, but a wonderful Sunday treat.
And we followed it by a 21-mile, two-hour calorie burning spree.We drove to the western end of the West Orange Trail, and biked the South Lake Trail and the Lake Minneola Scenic Trail, along with an unnamed (as far as we could tell) side trail. I just love the Rails-to-Trails program. Not all parts of these trails are built on old rail beds, but most are, and it's clear we would not have this wonderful resource if they had been sold off. One of our favorite trails ends abruptly because we have have Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and other stores sitting where the trains used to run. It's not impossible to make room for the trail to continue around them, but it's more difficult and expensive. Anyway, I'm grateful to the foresighted people who made these bike trails possible.
As great as I felt this morning, my body soon informed me that it had not fully recovered from yesterday's 14-mile journey. I was fine on the level, but today's trails had a lot of hills—for Florida, anyway—and that's where my legs complained. I normally ride without making use of my gears, but this trip taught me the value of downshifting. :)
What goes up must come down, and I set a new speed record for this bike (or at least for this speedometer): 27.4 mph. Funny how that's barely creeping in a car, but felt gloriously, even dangerously fast this way.
The Clermont trail just ends, but some day I imagine it will connect to the General James A. Van Fleet State Trail, nearly thirty miles of rurual, even isolated riding. It will be a while before we are ready for that one, but it's something to look forward to.
