Mill Creek From the River

Best laid plans, wanted to hit the trail at sunrise or soon after it. Even toyed with the idea of riding the whole trail, 35 miles round trip.

At the crack of 10:45 a.m., I was under way. It had gotten warm, though not hot. The weather could have passed for spring or fall, you'd never imagine it was July. I wouldn't have wanted to jump rope, but as long as you kept moving, the wind cooled you pretty well.



Even the hills in and out of Shawnee Mission Park didn't seem as sinister today. They're still beastly steep, I was still huffing and puffing and bitching and moaning the whole way up, but I couldn't get my heart in a full on hate of the hill. Okay, kinda on the return trip when I was almost up to the top, stood to try and get more cranking leverage and inadvertently shifted two gears higher. It was not pretty, and I almost fell over as I came to a stand still.



I took a second to cuss the nature of twist shifters, as this is not the first time I've accidentally shifted into a gear I didn't want to be in. The whole incident was made so much worse, though, by being witnessed by two strikingly pretty hikers coming down the other way. Since there was no dignity to be salvaged from the situation, I walked the bike up the final ten feet or so of the climb.




If I had to do that in front of people, why couldn't it have been in front of ugly people? Preferably people even more out of shape than me.



As Emo Phillips used to say, 'I'm mighty handy with the ladies, I'll bet...'



Don't get the idea I had a bad ride. It was fun, and I finished strong. 21 miles in 2 hours. My finger numbness is no worse (if no better), and has become an intermittent, nagging sort of thing anyway. So evidently the ridiculously tall neck, the padded gloves and being more aware of the need to keep the wrists straight and vary the handhold when I can helped. Hard to vary the hand position much on this trail, though. Few parts of it don't require regular access to the brakes.



As you can see, I did take my camera. Probably could have shaved a few minutes off my ride time if I hadn't played shutterbug every time I took a drink stop. I'd like to play with a real camera sometime, maybe draft my friend Julie to bring her pro gear along because these trails really do have some views almost as pretty as the hikers who witnessed my humiliation on the hill.



Shots to show people who insist Kansas is flat. I was actually scoping out some bike lanes on Woodland and 47th out toward K7, and for that matter, Johnson Drive in Western Shawnee that I'm not sure I'm fit enough to ride. More ups and downs than the Mamba, and we're talking steep, half mile climbs, and plenty of them. Maybe not like climbing a mountain, but definitely un-flat.