I accidentally rode 25 miles today on my bicycle today.

It all started at work, where we have a fairly active bicycling enthusiast community. Monday and Wednesdays, the group organizes rides. We meet at a common location, then the ride leaders describe the route and off we go.

As I said in a previous post, the ride leaders are taking the month off - one to prepare for the Canadian Iron Man competition, and the other for that 700 mile ride in 90 hours. Fortunately, other members stepped up to volunteer as ride leaders.

The Wednesday ride is strenuous. That ride leader and I got to talking, and he suggested I come along. I begged off, explaining that I'm going to hold them back. (The Wednesday group rides harder than the Monday group, and I know how badly I fared already...) He insisted, and I gave in.

Bad move. Foolish kitty.

Here is the route we took. That's a mighty big lake. Oh, and more more thing: only the counterclockwise side of the lane has a bike path.

I figured I'd ride with them a little, then turn around and head back. There is no 'around' on that road, not unless you like riding with cars whizzing by under a foot away.

So, I ended up going around the lake. With breaks. To my credit, they were little 10-second ones. The rest of the group took longer ones.

They were waiting for me.

One last thing: the stretch along 51st? It's a steep climb. I walked my bike the whole length of that.