Yesterday's ride started in Brewster and ended up somewhere in N. Truro. We started in Brewster around noon or so - we had some errands to do in the morning, so we couldn't get an earlier start. Which is too bad, as we were riding around the cape during the hottest part of the day (although not bad) and during the heaviest traffic (Saturday is turn-over day on the cape - most weekly rentals run Saturday to Saturday).
We took the rail trail east toward Orleans and Wellfleet, and we were very pleased to find that the rail trail was as wonderful as we remembered from last year. We cruised along at 25 MPH with a heart rate in the 140s - below my target training zone. It was just wonderful. For miles.
Ocean View Drive in Wellfleet (I think that is Wellfleet, although I'm not sure) was beautiful - the view was incredible, as usual. The roads on this part of the cape are beautiful and undulating. Quite fun. We did have to get on Route 6 for a little while, and we were very saddened to have come across a cyclist headed westbound who had just been hit by a car. His mountain bike was under the front end of an SUV. He was conscious, and some people with first aid training was attending to him, while other passers-by directed traffic around him while waiting for emergency personnel to arrive. One of the first-aid administrators had immobilized the cyclists head, and a second person had his hand on the cyclists chest and was speaking with him. The situation was under control and there was nothing we could do to help in any way, so we just passed slowly & carefully and got out of the way.
Some of you may know that Ken & I took a wilderness first aid class together in March. For some crazy reason, I had always assumed that if the need for those skills came up, we'd be out hiking in the woods somewhere. It didn't even occur to me that as cyclists these skills might come in handy. Perhaps thats called denial. But once again, I'm really happy we took that step to educate ourselves.
The rest of the ride was good, but windy. The wind really wore us down especially on Shore Drive in N. Truro just before the Provincetown line. This stretch of road is sandwiched between dunes & some cottages to the west and a giant pond to the east - in between each structure we past, the wind would buffet our bike and drive us sideways, so we'd correct, and then the wind would be gone as we entered into another wind shadow, and we'd end up not adjusting quickly enough and veering off to the side as if we had over corrected. It took a lot of attention to deal with this with no shoulder on a busy road. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was draining. Eventually, the bike computers read "30 miles" and we just turned around in order to stay within our planned mileage for the day.
The way back was, or course, beautiful. We stayed mostly to the west of route 6 in a hilly, wild-looking area in the south Truro/Wellfleet area. I can't wait to go back and explore these roads a little more. Simply wonderful biking.
Overall, I burned 2604 kcals in just over 4.5 hours of cycling. Our average was pretty good in the beginning, but it dropped once we got up into the hills of Wellfleet and then into the wind of Truro. Ken's cramping got pretty bad for the last third of the ride, and it became a very quiet, very lonely ride. He wont talk to me when he's in difficulty, and it's just very lonely and quiet. I think mostly the cramping was due to a combination of conditioning and not eating enough. We had planned to stop for a sandwich somewhere, but it never happened. We had brought some food, most of which I gave to Ken as he seems to need it more than I do. Ken burned almost a thousand more kcals than I did - and I promise, we were on the same ride. When we were about 10 miles from the being done, Ken ran out of water, and we learned how to pass bottles back and forth. Just as we completed the last hand-off, a rabbit darted off the side of the bike path right in front of my wheel. I screamed, Ken swerved a bit, and the rabbit ran off unharmed. Which is good, if it had hit either one of us, it would have caused us to crash and likely land ON or next to a skunk we passed foraging on the opposite side of the bike path. What's worse than crashing? Crashing and landing on an unsuspecting skunk. We'll be thankful for small miracles.
We made it home, split a quick sandwich, enjoyed the outdoor shower and then proceeding to cook up Frank & Larry - the two lobsters we picked up at the Orleans farmers market that morning. Lobsters, apparently, are pretty damn healthy. Per 100 grams of cooked, edible product, Lobster has 98 kcals, where as Chicken breast has 165, a whole egg has 149 and beef has 216. Lobster has "21" of protein (my little handout does not say 21 what, but whatever); chicken has 31; egg has 12; and beef has 30. Lobster is very lean with 0.6 for fat, as compared with chicken (3.6), egg (10) or beef (9.9); it's also low in cholesterol, with 72 as compared with chicken (85), egg (423) or beef (86). We're not starving too bad today, so it must have been a fairly good meal.
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