Personal Best!

I though it would rain all day, but it didn't. I thought I had a date, and that kinda turned out to be a didn't, too. So when I found myself at five o'clock with the rain apparently gone east and no evidence of that date, I took my bike to the downtown airport and tested myself on pace.



The airport loop is flat with a little pair of humps on one end. Not quite as boring as being on a trainer, but as with a trainer, you pedal constantly. I hoped I could average 15.0 mph, about a half hour faster than my fastest recorded ride, which was a flukey thing. In part because there were few stops, which is the way it is at the airport. You an go around fifty times and nobody and no sign will ask you to stop.
Anyway, I managed a 16.0 mph average on 22 miles. I was faster the first two laps, 16.7 mph, but going the distance I ran out of steam and wasn't quite so fast. I almost stayed to do another couple of laps, see how many I could do if I didn't quit until I fell to last year's best 14.6 mph.



I was definitely losing the ability to keep up that pace, but the other liability with the airport, and it's similar to the problem with the trainer, is every 3.7 (or something like that) miles, you have the option of going to the car. You can't paint yourself into a corner where, say, you've gone 22 miles and the shortest route home is 17 miles, meaning fast or slow you're doing 39 miles today.
Oh, and I saw this big boy land as I was coming to the humps at the corner. I didn't even realize you could land something this big at this tiny little airport.