much riding

The big theme for today's post is the riding of bicycles.  Back before we had tiny kids, the riding of bikes was a regular occurrence.  Riding 70 miles in one weekend wouldn't raise a brow.  But now, this is cause for much celebration.  How did it happen?  Like this.

The family all drove out to the Middle Fork forest preserve for some quality outdoor time.  Jill has been wanting to do a hike for some time, so we made sure do this second (after playing on the playground).  After lunch, we put swimsuits on and waded and sat in the 'swimming area' of the 'swimming' pond.  Quotes included because the water was no deeper than 2 feet.  With small kids that can't swim, this is the ideal depth.

After cleaning up, I took my bike out of the trunk and rode while Jill drove the girls home.  A number of signs advertised the crop insurance holder for sad looking corn fields.  There is also a huge amount of construction for a 200 MW wind farm along California ridge, so named due to its towering 20 or so feet above the rest of the region.  It will have 134 wind turbines with 1.6 MW capacity. Roads used for construction have been heavily gravelized, so I fancied myself Belgian and hammered away in the big ring.  

Before church today I joined Michael and Kyle to ride over to the Wild Card ride. I hadn't planned to ride quite so far, so I had to borrow a granola bar from Michael on the way home.  Guess who won the sprint into Pesotum?  ME!  I also got home late, so we missed the first 15 minutes of church.  Photo above by Paul, who also led out the sprint.

We learned some interesting traffic rules as a result of getting stopped by a police man on Mattis this morning.  Michael, Kyle, and I were all riding side by side in the right lane (of the 4 lane road) when a policeman stopped us and told us not to take up the whole lane and to ride to the right side of the road.  Interestingly, according to the law, 2 riders may ride side-by-side (but not 3), and 1 or 2 riders may take a whole lane.  So we were breaking the law, but only sort of.  The whole thing is silly anyway as the police car was the only car on the road at 7:40 Sunday morning.

Since biking is still on my mind, here is the team photo from camp this spring taken by Ryan near Giant City.

And finally, the mass of bikes ridden to Dairy Barn for the second night ride (photo by Gary).  Something like 70 people were in the group, including Jill, me and the two youngest participants at 1 yr and 2 yrs.