Today was my first trail ride of the season. I started at Grover Center and rode through campus to the Bike Path. I then took the Bike Path to Sells Park (about 2.8 miles). I decided to take the Rockhouse Trail to the Athens Trail, down to East State Street, back to the Bike Path, and back to Campus. There were several places that I had to get off and walk on the Rockhouse Trail. I’m needing to ride a lot more to get my lungs in a bit better shape. While I’ve been doing interval training at the gym, I still got really, really winded on a few of the hills. Also, with the spring rains, a few places on Rockhouse were quite boggy. Next time I may just stick to the Athens Trail, unless we’ve had dry, sunny weather for a good solid week or more.

I also got a nice flat on the ridge just past the Rockhouse/Athens Trail intersection. I must have landed a nice thorn, as air was spewing out of my tire. I also apparently broke a spoke. Thanks to my Eagle Scout tendencies, I had a spare tube and a pump, so I fixed the tube in about ten minutes. I’ve had quite a bit of practice changing flats in the last few months, so I’ve got the routine down.

The entire ride was about 12 miles round trip, with about seven miles on pavement. I thought I would try the route to see if I could get over the the trails on my lunch break and back in an hour. With the flat and my walking, it turned out to be two hours. I guess that gives me something to work for. Next time I’ll try the Athens Trail and loop back to Sells Park via one of the bailout trails. That would make the ride shorter, but perhaps make it easier to get back under 60 minutes.