Train-n-Tri: I Rode, but not Road

Since the beginning of the Tour de France on June 30, I have jumped on my road bike every day and ridden 20 plus miles.

My motto has been - They ride, I ride!

Even when the Tour had a rest day.....I rode!

Today I just couldn't do it.

I just could not get on my road bike and ride over the same streets that I have been riding on the past days.

I could not make myself lift my Cannondale off the rafter pegs.

Me riding my bike at Desert Tri.

My bike didn't get to go out on the road today.

But I did ride!

I rode 21.38 miles......on my mountain bike.

I rode on the Gage Canal from one end to the other.

This is me at an earlier time when I could RUN the Gage Canal. Earlier this week Doc said to start walking a mile a day for 7 days, then I could add in a little jog IF my knee was feeling okay.

I have run the Gage Canal before, but just in bits and pieces, and never to the end.

So today I wondered....how far can I ride my bike on the canal? My guy and I did have to make a couple of detours where the canal went underground and stopped at a fence or a major road. But we just rode around on orange grove streets and picked the canal back up a block or two from where we had dropped it.

Don't worry - during our ride The Tour was not far from my mind.

As I road along on the dirt patch next to the canal, I glanced to my right and saw a wicked barbed wire fence.

"Hey, you know what that reminds me of?" I asked my guy.

"What?"

"Hoogerland."

And then I inched my bike a little closer to the canal, away from the fence.

After I got the mental image of Hoggerland's crash in last year's Tour out of my mind, I enjoyed riding along the canal through citrus groves, nurseries and by lots of horses.

Then we were at the end!

The end of the canal was not what I expected.

End of of the line....after about 11 miles we came to the end of the canal. Robert said he saw some fish.

The curbing went to the fence of someone's backyard. We did go around a couple of streets and tried to pick up the canal's trail, but it was a new housing tract and we did not bring our divining rod with us.

But the search for the canal route is not over.

We had ridden the canal as far as we could, but we wondered? If we start at the beginning of Cleveland Ave, how far can we ride on it?

We started at the west end of Cleveland Avenue and rode on it for about 5 miles. We passed citrus groves and nurseries. We did not have to share the road with any cars.