I got brave today

I decided to ride my bike to work.  Last night I prepped all my gear that I could think of and went over the bike again.  I went to bed early (for me) at ten o'clock and woke up at six.  By six thirty I was on the road.  A friend of mine who lives down the street, and who wussed out on riding with me, told me that the way he likes to go is down K Rd (east) to 18 Rd, south on 18 to the diagonal and down that to J Rd, then east again on J Rd.  After that, it's a turn south again on 20 Rd to I Rd, east on I to 22 Rd, south on 22 to H Rd, east on H to 24 Rd, then south on 24 to the overpass at the mall.  After the overpass, it's onto the bike trail and in to work.  Ok, is everybody with me so far?  My friend, whose name is Randy Keller if anybody cares, told me that this stair-step route avoids the traffic.  He was right, but it doesn't avoid the dogs.  There were at least ten dogs that at least made me nervous, and one that was downright belligerent.  I thought for a minute I was going to follow in my brother's footsteps.  It was on 20 Rd between I 3/10 Rd (how's that for a road name) and I Rd.  The dog was a salt and pepper bob tailed mutt, probably mad at the world because it was bob tailed, and because it's owners lived in a trailer.  It came at me the first time, and I saw it coming and stopped and yelled at it, and it stopped at the edge of the road.  When I started to move it started forward again, so I stopped again and so did he ( a female dog wouldn't be mean, would it?).  The same thing happened again.  After that I got off the bike and pretended to pick up a rock, which finally discouraged the dog and he backed off.  He tried to save face by barking a lot but didn't charge again.  There were more dogs after that but they were more civilized, basically they just told me to move on and stay off their turf, which I did.

It took me from 0630 to 0813 to get to work.  Randy's zigzag route sucks, in my opinion.  I think he was just suckering me into riding extra miles.  And, all my careful preparations came to naught when I realized after a few miles that I had forgotten the most important items for riding any distance -- my water bottles.  I was glad to get to work without fainting so I could quit spitting dust and could guzzle a quart or two of water.

Since this was the first ride of the year, of course it kicked my butt.  I was dragging all day, and then I had to do it again going home.  I made the wise decision to ride on US Hwy 6 & 50 on the way home, which is a straight shot from Grand Junction to Fruita, with a wide shoulder and no dogs.  No water either,  because I forgot the one bottle I had at work that I could have used.  Overall today I rode over 30 dry, thirsty miles.  No riding tomorrow because I'm not a total fool (I have to take Pat to work because he's leaving from there for his Vegas trip) and Sunday starts daylight savings time, so it will be pretty dark in the mornings for a while.  We shall see if I'm dumb enough to ride in the dark.